Andrews University Seminary Studies, Autumn 1981, Vol. 19, No. 3, 211-225
Copyright @ 1981 by Andrews University Press.

THE BOOK OF DANIEL AND MATTERS OF LANGUAGE:EVIDENCES RELATING TO NAMES, WORDS, AND THE
ARAMAIC LANGUAGEGERHARD F. HASEL
Andrews University

An increasing number of recent studies, including a fullfledged commentary with an extensive introduction by a British
scholar, ' evaluate historical, chronological, and linguistic mattersin view of new discoveries and advanced studies, concluding thatan early date (pre-Maccabean)for the whole book is m a n d a t ~ r y . ~On the other hand, the critical consensus for a second-century(Maccabean) date for the final recension3 is maintained by other
scholars with more or less traditional arguments. This situation' ~ o ~ cG.e Baldwin, Daniel (London, 1978).
2 ~ . g . B.
, K. Waltke, "The Date of the Book of Daniel," BSac 134 (1976): 319329; G. F. Wenham, "Daniel: The Basic Issues," Themelois 2/2 (1976):49-52; R. I.
Vasholz, "Qumran and the Dating of Daniel," JETS 21/4 (1978): 315-321; G. L.
Archer, "Modern Rationalism and the Book of Daniel," BSac 136 (1979): 129-147.
See also the OT introductions by R. K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old
Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1969), pp. 1110-1133; H. D. Hummel, The Word
Becoming Flesh: An Introduction to the Origin, Purpose and Meaning of the Old
Testament (St. Louis, 1979), pp. 560-573; E. Yamauchi, "The Archaeological Background of Daniel," BSac 137 (1980): 3-16.
% number of scholars argue for a pre-second-century origin of certain parts ofthe book of Daniel. E.g., P. R. Davies, "Daniel Chapter Two," JTS 27 (1976):
392-401, suggests a sixth-century origin for Dan 2 (p. 400); J. J. Collins, The
Apocalyptic Vision of the Book of Daniel (Missoula, 1977), p. 19, suggests that
Dan 1-6 are pre-Maccabean. A. R. Millard, "Daniel 1-6 and History," EvQ 49 (1977):
67-73, argues that Daniel retains a high proportion of correct detail and Dan 1-6 isof great value for its close correspondence to early records. More recently,
P. R. Davies, "Eschatology in the Book of Daniel," ]SOT 17 (1980): 33-53, argues
for a Maccabean redaction of Dan 1-6 which was "earlier developed in the
Diaspora" (p. 40). A. Lacocque, "The Liturgical Prayer in Daniel 9," HUCA 47(1976): 119-142, makes a case for the prayer at the core of Dan 9 as being composed
between 587 and 538 B.C. (p. 141).
4 ~Hammer,.
The Book of Daniel (London/New York, 1976); L. F. Hartman
and A. A. Di Lella, The Book of Daniel, AB 23 (Garden City, N.Y., 1978);
A. Lacocque, The Book of Daniel (Atlanta, 1979).

2 12

GERHARD F. HASEL

calls for a new look at the various major arguments brought about
by new discoveries and new investigations into old questions. In aprevious issue in this journal I treated major historical mattersconcerning persons (Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Darius the Mede)and chronology (Dan 1:1; 7:l; 8:l; 9:1).5 The present article
concentrates on issues of a linguistic nature pertaining to (1) foreign
names and words (Babylonian, Persian, and Greek) and (2) thetype of the Aramaic in the book of Daniel. These matters serve as
indicators for a date of the book of Daniel.
1. Evidences Relating to Names and Words
A number of significant historical and linguistic aspects throw
new light on various disputed names and words in the book ofDaniel.

Babylonian Names
The term "Chaldean" (Dan 2:2; 4:7; 5:7- 11) has in its context
been troublesome to various scholars. According to one theory, theequation of "Chaldean" with magicians, enchanters, and soothsayers (i.e., as a professional term, in addition to its ethnic meaning
in Dan 3:8; 9:l) is an "undoubted a n a c h r ~ n i s m "for~ the time of
Nebuchadnezzar, i.e., the sixth century B.C. It is argued in this casethat "Chaldean" as a professional term was used in the Persian7
and later periods, but not before.
Archaeological evidence indicates that the term "Chaldean"
was used in an ethnic sense in Assyrian records of the eighth andseventh centuries B.c.,' but it is not found in either a professionalor ethnic sense in Babylonian records of the sixth century B.C. as
they are presently known or published. Although the Danielic
usage is presently still unsupported in Babylonian records, while
the ethnic sense is known from earlier Assyrian records and the

5 ~ F.. Hasel, "The Book of Daniel and History: Evidences Relating to Persons
and Chronology," AUSS 19 (1981): 37-49.
'N. Porteous, Daniel: A Commentary (London, 1965), pp. 25-26.
7~erodotus,Histories i. 181-183.
'~amauchi, pp. 5-6; Millard, pp. 69-71; Baldwin, p. 29.

BOOK OF DANIEL: MATTERS OF LANGUAGE

213

professional sense from later Persian times, "it is unwarranted toargue from silence that the word is anachroni~tic."~
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
The three friends of Daniel were renamed by the Babylonian
superior upon arrival at Babylon. Philologists in the past havebeen unable to explain these names adequately. It has been
assumed or suggested time and again that these names were garbled
or poorly transmitted forms of original Babylonian names containing names of pagan gods. Recently a German Assyriologist has
shown that these names can be explained satisfactorily from
Babylonian onomastics without supposing a poor transmission orconscious alteration. P.-R. Berger shows that the name Shadrach(Dan 1:6, 7, 11, 19), Hebrew s'adrak, corresponds to the Assyrians'iidurZku and Babylonian s'iduriiku, meaning "I am put into muchfear."1° This is a type of shortened name in which the name ofdeity is omitted, something which happens frequently in Akkadiannames.
The name of his friend Meshach, Hebrew mZs'a_k,corresponds
to the Akkadian name me's'Zku, meaning "I am of little account.""
The name of the third companion is Abednego, Hebrew 'abednego, and is of West Semitic origin. "Such West Semitic names
were not unknown in Akkadian," writes Berger.12 Its meaning is"Servant of the shining one"" and may possibly involve a wordplay on an Akkadian name that includes the name of theBabylonian god Niibii.'* In any case, the name itself does notcontain the name of the deity NZbG or Nebo, as suggested bysome. l5'~aldwin, p. 29.
lop.-R.Berger, "Der Kyros-Zylinder mit dem Zusatzfragment BIN I1 Nr. 32 unddie akkadischen Personennamen im Danielbuch," ZA 64 (1975): 224, who renders
the name in German as "ich bin sehr in Furcht versetzt."
11
Ibid., p. 225: "ich bin gering geachtet" of Berger's German translation.
121bid.
%id., p. 226.
14~illard,p. 72.
l5see E. J. Young, The Prophecy of Daniel (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1949), p. 43.

214

GERHARD F. HASEL

These names as well as other Akkadian names in the book ofDaniel correspond so closely to what is known from Babylonian
onomastics that Berger suggests he would not be surprised if thenames of Daniel and his companions would some day be discoveredin Babylonian texts. l6 These Akkadian names fit perfectly into thetime of the sixth century and pose no difficulty for a pre-Maccabeandate of the the book of Daniel.
Persian Words
There are some nineteen Persian loan words in the Aramaic
part of Daniel. On statistical grounds, H. H. Rowley argued that
this is an indication that the Biblical Aramaic of Daniel is muchcloser to the Aramaic of the Targums of the second and first
centuries B.C. than to the Aramaic papyri of the fifth century B.c."
A careful investigation of the Persian loan words in Daniel showsthat a statistical argumentation is without support. Thanks to thework of K. A. Kitchen, it is now known that Persian loan words inDaniel are consistent with an earlier rather than a later date for thecomposition of the book. Scholars have now become aware that theterm "satrap," which was once thought to have been Greek inorigin, was actually derived from the Old Persian form kshathrapln,
which also occurred in cuneiform inscriptions as shatarpcZnu,
giving rise to the Greek term s at rap."'^ That Persian words
should be used of Babylonian institutions prior to the conquests ofCyrus need not be as surprising as has been supposed, since thework was written in the Persian rather than the Neo-Babylonian
period. In the interests of objectivity it should be noted in passingthat the Persian terms found in Daniel are specifically Old Persianwords, that is to say, occurring within the history of the language
to about 300 B.C. but not later. lg These facts rule out a date for theorigin of the Persian words after 300 B.C. The Persian words point
to an early date for the book of Daniel rather than a late one.

'%rger, p. 234.
1 7 ~ . H. Rowley, The Aramaic of the Old Testament (London, 1929), p. 139.
18K A. Kitchen, "The Aramaic of Daniel," Notes on Some Problems in theBook of Daniel, ed. D. J . Wiseman, et al. (London, 1965), p. 36.
l g ~ r r i s o n p.
, 1125.

BOOK OF DANIEL: MATTERS OF LANGUAGE

Greek Words
At the turn of the century, S. R. Driver claimed that "the[three] Greek words demand, . . . a date [for Daniel] after theconquest of Palestine by Alexander the Great (B.c. 332)."20 The
Greek terms under discussion are those of musical instruments
such as "harp," "psaltery," and "sack-but" (Dan 3:5; cf. vss.
7, 10, 15).
The weakness of Driver's argument was pointed out by J. A.
Montgomery, who wrote: "The rebuttal of this evidence for a low
date lies in stressing the potentialities of Greek influence in the
Orient from the sixth century and onward."" The famous orientalist
W. F. Albright pointed out several decades ago that Greek culture
had penetrated the ancient Near East long before the Neo-Babylonian
period.22 More recently E. M. Yamauchi's detailed study has
illustrated with overwhelming evidence that this kind of influenceof Greece on Babylon did indeed exist.23
The evidence for the influence of Greek culture on Babylon
has not altered greatly the weight of the linguistic arguments in thedebate concerning the date of the Aramaic section of the book ofDaniel (Dan 23413-7328). The recent Anchor Bible commentary on
Daniel reiterates the position of standard critical orthodoxy: "TheGreek names for the musical instruments in 3:5 probably do not
antedate the reign of Alexander the Great (336-323 B . C . ) . " ~While~
P. W. Coxon notes that the Greek loan words "seem to provide thestrongest evidence [for critical scholarship] in favor of the second
century B.c.,"~~
he demonstrates that the spelling of qayter6s( "lyre") was adopted into Aramaic in the pre-Hellenistic period.26

2 0 ~ .R. Driver, An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (1897;
reprint, New York, 1956), p. 508.
"5. A. Montgomery, The Book of Daniel, ICC [23], p. 22.
2 2 ~ F.
. Albright, From Stone Age to Christianity, 2d ed. (New York, 1957),
p. 337.
2 3 ~Yamauchi,.
Greece and Babylon (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1967), p. 94.
2 4 ~ a r t m a nand Di Lella, p. 13.
2 5 ~ W.
. Caxon, "Greek Loan-Words and Alleged Greek Loan Translationsin theBook of Daniel," Glasgow University Oriental Society Transactions 25 (1976): 24.
*%id., p. 31.

216

GERHARD F. HASEL

The second instrument pesantZrfn in Dan 3:5 was, according to
A. Sendry, a term for musical instruments originally imported
from the east into Greece, improved by the Greeks, and in turn reexported to the east.27
The third term, sump5ney& is used in the Greek language as
sumph6nia. The Greek term has an early meaning of a "sounding
together"28 or a "unison of sound," "concord," "harmonious
union of many voices or sounds," or the like. Later it may havecome to mean also a musical instrument. The careful analysis ofhistorical, linguistic, and cultural evidences related to this term has
led Coxon to conclude that the use of this term, as far as theclassical evidence is concerned and as it affects Dan 3, "must be
pronounced neutral. '' 30
This means that "the Greek words for musical instruments in
the Aramaic are therefore no obstacle for a pre-Hellenistic date ofDaniel's ~ o m ~ o s i t i o n "and~ ' "that a sixth-century date for theorchestra cannot be categorically denied. 32"

2. Evidences Relating to the Aramaic Language
The book of Daniel shares with the book of Ezra the unique
phenomenon of being written in two different Semitic languages.
The OT is, of course, written as a whole in Hebrew, the languageof the ancient Israelites, with the exception of the longer sections ofEzra 4:B-6:18 and 7:12-26 and Dan 2:4b-7328, which are written in
Aramaic.
Aramaic was the language of the ancient Aramaeans, firstmentioned in cuneiform texts from the twelfth century B.C. In the27
A. Sendry, Music in Ancient Israel (New York, 1969), p. 297; cf. Coxon,"Greek Loan-Words," pp. 3 1-32.
28~amauchi,"Archaeological Background of Daniel," p. 12.
2 9 ~ x o npp.
, 32-36.
"Ibid., p. 36.
"Yamauchi, "Archaeological Background of Daniel," p. 13.
"T. C. Mitchell and R. Joyce, "The Musical Instruments in Nebuchadnezzar's
Orchestra," Notes on Some Problems in the Book of Daniel, ed. D. J. Wiseman,
et al. (London, 1965), p. 27. These authors reached this conclusion independently
from the work of other researchers.

BOOK OF DANIEL: MATTERS OF LANGUAGE

2 17

course of time, Aramaic superseded the various languages ofconquered lands. From the eighth century on, Aramaic became theinternational language, the lingua franca, of the Near East, and theIsraelites appear to have learned the Aramaic language during theexile. Historically, Aramaic is divided into several major groups:(1) "Ancient Aramaic" (Altaramaisch ),33 employed to 700 B.C.;(2) "Official Aramaic" (Reichsaramaisch), used "from 700 to 300
B.c.E.";" (3) "Middle Aramaic," used from "300 B.C.E. to the earlycenturies C.E.[Common ~ r a ] " ; 'and
~ (4) "Late Aramaic," employed
thereafter.
The Old Debate Regarding Language
The questions usually posed concerning the Aramaic in
Daniel are these: How is the language of the book of Daniel to beclassified? What does this classification indicate regarding the dateof the book? Does the language represent "Official Aramaic,"
i.e., an early type of Aramaic (sixth/fifth century B.c.) or a later
Aramaic (second century B.c.)?
S. R. Driver seems to have opened the debate in the year
1897 by concluding his discussion of the date and nature of the
Aramaic of ~ a n i e l 'by~ declaring that the Aramaic "pernzits" adate "after the conquest of Palestine by Alexander the Great(B.C. 332)."37 He was followed by C. C. Torrey, who dated the
Aramaic part of Daniel to the third/second century B.c.'~''see R. Degen, Altaramiiische Grammatik (Wiesbaden, 1969), p. 103. S. Segert,
Altaramaische Grammatik (Leipzig, 1957), pp. 36-39, prefers to designate "Ancient
Aramaic" as "Friiharamaisch" (Early Aramaic) and extends its time to the middle ofthe seventh century B.C.
3 4 ~ oE. Y Kutscher, "Aramaic," Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem, 1971),
2: 260. A description of its nature is provided by S. A. Kaufman, The Akkadian
Influences on Aramaic, Assyriological Studies, 19 (Chicago, 1974), pp. 155-160.
35~utscher,p. 260.
%river, pp. 502-504.
37~bid.,p. 508 (italics his).
38
C. C. Torrey, "Notes on the Aramaic Part of Daniel," Transactions of The
Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences 15 (1909): 239-282; idem, "Stray Notes on
the Aramaic of Daniel and Ezra," JAOS 43 (1923):229-238.

218

GERHARD F. HASELCounter arguments against a late date of the Aramaic ofDaniel came from conservative scholars of great repute such as.~~
R. D. Wilson, W. St. Clair Tisdall, and Charles B ~ u t f l o w e rThe
result of these studies, defending the antiquity of the Aramaic ofDaniel, was a countercharge on the part of scholars who dated thebook of Daniel late.40Particularly important in this category is theclassical position stated by H. H. Rowley. 4' However, as a result of
the startling discovery of the Elephantine Papyri from Upper
Egypt, which were written in Aramaic and dated from as early as
the fifth century B.c., F. Rosenthal, following in the wake of thesynthesis of H. H. Schaeder4' and an important essay by
J. ~ i n d e r , ~concluded'
in 1939 that the "old 'linguistic evidence'[for a late date of Daniel] has to be laid aside"44 after four
decades of research.
New Evidence and New Solutions
In 1965 Kitchen took up again the problem of the Aramaic
in Daniel, in response to the unanswered claims of Rowley,
who had written over three decades earlier. In the meantime,
new Aramaic texts had been discovered45and the older ones
"R. D. Wilson, "The Aramaic of Daniel," Biblical and Theological Studies(Princeton, N.J., 1912), pp. 261-306; W. St. Clair Tisdall, "The Book of Daniel,Some Linguistic Evidence Regarding Its Date," Journal of the Transactions of theVictoria Institute. . . of Great Britain 23 (1921):206-245; Charles Boutflower, In andAround the Book of Daniel (London, 1923), pp. 226, 267.
4 0 ~ R.
. Driver, T h e Aramaic of the Book of Daniel," JBL 45 (1926): 110-119,
323-325; W. Baumgartner, "Das Aramaische im Buche Daniel," ZA W 45 (1927):
81-133; Montgomery, pp. 15-20; R. H. Charles, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary o n the Book of Daniel (Oxford, 1929), pp. LXXVI-CVII.
4 1 ~ e Rowley'sework cited in n. 17, above.
4 2 H.
~ . Schaeder, Zranische Beitriige Z (Halle/Saale, 1930), pp. 199-296.
4 3 ~ .Linder, "Das Aramiiische im Buche Daniel," ZKT 59 (1935):503-545, argues
on the basis of material provided by Schaeder. Linder concludes that the third-tosecond-century date of Daniel can no longer be held. Thus there are no linguistic
grounds against an early date of Daniel.
4 4 ~ . Rosenthal, Die aramiiistische Forschung (1939; reprint, Leiden, 1964),
pp. 60-71, especially p. 70.
4 5 convenient~summary of the known (by 1970) Aramaic texts down to thethird century B.C. is provided by J. Naveh, The Development of the Aramaic Script,

BOOK OF DANIEL: MATTERS OF LANGUAGE

219

had been studied more carefully. Kitchen examined the vocabulary,orthography, phonetics, and general morphology and syntax of the
Aramaic of Daniel, and he reached the following conclusion: "TheAramaic of Daniel (and of Ezra) is simply a part of Imperial[Official] Aramaic-in itself, practically undatable with any conviction within c. 600 to 330 B . c . " ~ This~
being so, there are no
grounds on the basis of the Aramaic that force a date for the bookof Daniel to the Maccabean period. As far as the Aramaic is concerned, a sixth/fifth-century date is entirely possible.47
H. H. Rowley contested the findings of r itch en.^* However,the criticisms of Rowley were scrutinized by E. Y. Kutscher in his
authoritative survey of research of early Aramaic and were roundlyrefuteda4' Kutscher had already shown that on the basis of word
order the Aramaic of Daniel points to an Eastern origin, not aWestern one that would be required if a Maccabean date in thesecond century B.C. were to be maintained.50 Kitchen's conclusions
are accepted, as well, by other leading scholar^.^'
The view that the Aramaic of Daniel belongs to "Official[Imperial] Aramaic" is held not only by Kitchen and Kutscher but
also by a number of other scholars in the field of Aramaic studies,even though they may not hold to an early date for the book ofDaniel. 52
Proceedings of the Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 5 (Jerusalem, 1970).
46~itchen,pp. 31-79, especially p. 75.
47~bid.,p. 79.
48
H. H. Rowley, Review of D. J. Wiseman, et al., Notes on Some Problems in
the Book of Daniel, JSS 11 (1966): 112-116.
49~
Y. .Kutscher, "Aramaic," Current Trends in Lingu-tics 6 , ed. T . A. Seboek(The Hague, 1970), pp. 400-403.
5 0 ~Y.. Kutscher, "Hahamait HaMigrait-Aramit Mizrahit hi o Maaravit?" FirstWorld Congress of Jewish Studies 1 (Jerusalem, 1952), pp. 123-127.
5 1 ~ Sokoloff,.
The Targum of Job from Qumran Cave X I (Ramat Gan, 1974),
p. 9, n. 1; Wenham, p. 50; Millard, pp. 67-68; Baldwin, p. 34.
5 2 ~J.
. Koopmans, Aramiiische Chrestomatie I (Leiden, 1962),p. 154; F. Rosenthal,
A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic, 2d ed. (Wiesbaden, 1963), p. 6, states: "TheAramaic of the Bible as written has preserved the Official Aramaic character." Cf.
R. J. Williams, "Energic Verbal Forms in Hebrew," Studies in the Ancient World,eds. J . W. Wevers and D. B. Redford (Toronto, 1972), p. 78: "The Aramaic of the220

GERHARD F. HASELThe appearance of major documents in Aramaic from Qumran
has also put new light on the language of Daniel as being of anearly date. In the year 1956 the Aramaic Genesis Apocryphon(1QapGen) was published. 53 On paleographical and linguistic
grounds, it belongs to the first century B.c." 4.Winter has notedthat the Aramaic of Daniel and Ezra is Official [Imperial] Aramaic,
but that that of the Genesis Apocryphon is later." This conclusion
is confirmed by Kutscheri6and particularly by Gleason L. Archer. 57
The latter has concluded on the basis of a careful study of the
Aramaic language in Daniel and in the Genesis Apocryphon "thatthe Aramaic of Daniel comes from a considerably earlier period
than the second century B . c . " ~ ~More recently, he has written thatthe cumulative result of the linguistic evidence is "that the
Aramaic of the [Genesis] Apocryphon is centuries later than that ofDaniel and Ezra. Otherwise there is no such thing as linguistic
evidence." 59 This conclusion has significant implications regarding the alleged Maccabean date for the book of Daniel; and it is

O T is in all essentials identical with Imperial Aramaic." See also J. A. Fitzmyer,
The Genesis Apocryphon: A Commentary, 2d ed. (Rome, 1971), p. 20, nn. 56, 60.
Fitzmyer, however, suggests that Official Aramaic continued to the second century,
B.C.
5 3 ~Avigad.
and Y. Yadin, eds., A Genesis Apocryphon: A Scroll from theWilderness of Judaea (Jerusalem, 1956).
54~bid.,p. 21. Also E. Y. Kutscher, "Dating the Language of the Genesis
Apocryphon," J B L 76 (1957): 288-292; B. Jongeling, et al., Aramaic Texts from
Qumran I , pp. 5-6, 78-79; E. Y. Kutscher, "The Language of the 'Genesis
Apocryphon,"' Aspects of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Scr. Hier. 4; 2d ed. (Jerusalem,1965), pp. 1-35.
5 5 ~Winter,.
"Das ararniiische Genesis-Apokryphon," TLZ 4 (1957),: 258-262.
56~utscher,"Language of the 'Genesis Apocryphon,"' pp. 1-35.
5 7 ~L.. Archer, Jr., "The Aramaic of the 'Genesis Apocryphon' Compared with
the Aramaic of Daniel," New Perspectives on the Old Testament, ed. J. B. Payne(Waco, Texas, 1970), pp. 160-169.
581bid., p. 169.
5 9 ~L.. Archer, "Aramaic Language," Zonderoan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the
Bible, ed. M . C. Tenney (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1975), 1: 255.

BOOK OF DANIEL: MATTERS OF LANGUAGE

22 1

becoming increasingly difficult, in view of the Aramaic documents
among the Dead Sea Scrolls, to support or adhere to a secondcentury-B.C. date for the book of Daniel.
The most recent assault against the Maccabean date of thebook of Daniel has been produced by the recent publication of the
Job Targum (11QtgJob) from Cave 11 of Qumran. 60 This Aramaic
document fills the gap of several centuries between the Aramaic of
the books of Daniel and Ezra and later Aramaic. Scholars ofvarious schools of thought agree that the Aramaic language of the
Job Targum is younger than that of the book of Daniel and older
than that of the Genesis Apocryphon. The editors date the Job
Targum in the second half of the second century B . c . ~ "The dating of the Aramaic of the Job Targum as being later
than the Aramaic of the book of Daniel is important. The impact isreflected in the attempt to redate the whole development of postbiblical Aramaic. Stephen A. Kaufman of Hebrew Union College
has concluded that "the language of 1lQtgJob [Job Targum]
differs significantly from that of the Aramaic of Daniel. . . ."63 This
being so, there must be some time between the Aramaic of Daniel
and that of the Job Targum. Since Kaufman asserts that the bookof Daniel "cannot have reached its final form until the middle ofthat [second] century,"64he is led to redate the Job Targum to thefirst century B.C. and the Genesis Apocryphon to the first century A.D. 65 This redating is suggested on the basis of fixing the dateof Daniel in the second century B.C.However, Kitchen has pointed
out correctly that the treatment and dating of the Aramaic ofDaniel is apt to be colored by certain presuppositions. 66 Thus, one
6 0 ~ P.
. M. van der Ploeg and A. S. van der Woude, eds., Le Targum de Job de lagrotte X I de Qumran (Leiden, 1971).
6 1 ~ . g . ,T . Muraoka, "The Aramaic of the Old Targum of Job from QumranCave XI," JJS 25 (1974): 442; S. A. Kaufman, "The Job Targum from Qumran,"J A O S 93 (1973): 327; Jongeling, p. 5; and Vasholz, pp. 318-320.
@van der Ploeg and van der Woude, p. 4.
"~aufman, p. 327.
64~bid.
65~bid.,p. 317.
%itchen, p. 32.

222

GERHARD F. HASEL

can hardly be convinced that the problematical second-century dateof Daniel is the kind of sure anchor needed for sequence dating in
the development of post-biblical Aramaic.
The dating of the Job Targum as suggested on comparative
evidence, and without the presupposition of a second-century date
for the book of Daniel, now needs attention. On the basis of careful
linguistic comparisons of the Aramaic of Daniel, the Genesis
Apocryphon, and the Targums, it has been suggested recently by
several experts in Aramaic studies that the Job Targum does indeed
date from the second half of the second century B . c . ~Others~
evenargue that the Job Targum may go back to "the second half of thethird century B.G. or the first half of the second century B.c."" Ifsome significant amount of time is needed between the Job
Targum and the widely acknowledged earlier Aramaic of the bookof Daniel, then the Aramaic of the book of Daniel would point toat least an earlier date for the book than a certain branch ofscholarship has been willing heretofore to admit. Thus the questionof the Aramaic of Daniel as regards the date of Daniel is no longer
in a stalemate situation. The Aramaic documents from urnr ran^'push the date of the composition into a period earlier than the
Maccabean date allows.
The foregoing bird's-eye view of the debate about the Aramaicof the book of Daniel indicates that the present availability of
Aramaic documents from various areas and differing periods oftime has made suspect the major contentions in Rowley's study,
The Aramaic of the Old Testament, published in 1929. His conclusion that "Biblical Aramaic stands somewhere between the Aramaicof the papyri and that of the Nabataean and Palmyrene inscript i o n ~ , "i.e.,~ ~ in the second century B.c., is not only seriously

67

Jongeling, et al., p. 6; Sokoloff, p. 25.
68~uraoka,p. 442; Vasholz, p. 319.
6 9 ~ tmay be expected that the recent publications of Aramaic fragments of thebooks of Enoch will throw further light upon the development of post-biblical
Aramaic, see J. T. Milik, The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave
4 (Oxford, 1976); J. A. Fitzmyer, "Implications of the New Enoch Literature from
Qumran," TS 83 (1977): 332-345.
7 0 ~ o w l e yp.
, 11.

BOOK OF DANIEL: MATTERS OF LANGUAGE

223

challenged on the basis of the Aramaic texts and materials from
Qumran, but can no longer be maintained in view of the new
evidence. Moreover, R. I. Vasholz's doctoral dissertation specificallycompares the linguistic phenomena of the Job Targum with the
Aramaic language of Daniel, 7' and Vasholz unambiguously concludes "that the evidence now available from Qumran indicates a
pre-second-century date for the Aramaic of ~ a n i e l".72
More recently, Rowley's claims on the syntax of the Aramaic
of Daniel have come under scrutiny in view of his deficientmethodology and the vastly increased corpus of Aramaic documents now available for comparative analysis. In 1965,T. Muraoka
published an essay which investigates a number of syntacticalaspects involving the usage df periphrasis and the constructstate in genitival expression^.^' He concluded, among otherthings, that precedents for the periphrastic construction are
inherent in the syntax of Official Aramaic and that its choice andapplication in the Aramaic of Daniel are fitting to the style of thewriter and are not arbitrary.74
The matter of "the syntax of the Aramaic of Daniel" is also thesubject of a recent investigation by Coxon.75 He demonstrates that
Rowley has gone wrong in seeing decisive differences between thesyntax of the Aramaic of the book of Daniel and that of the earlier
papyri of the fifth century B.C.
Coxon arrives at far-reaching conclusions: (1) The use of theimperfect of hwh with a participle shows that the Aramaic ofDaniel is in agreement with the early Aramaic papyri.76(2) The
genitive relationship in its various forms demonstrates that "we

7 1 ~ I.
. Vasholz, "A Philological Comparison of the Qumran Job Targum and
Its Implications for the Dating of Daniel" (Ph.D. dissertation, University ofS tellenbosch, 1976).
72~asholz,"Qumran and the Dating of Daniel," p. 320.
7 3 ~ Muraoka,.
"Notes on the Syntax of Biblical Aramaic,"JSS 1 1 ( 1966): 151-167.
74~bid.,pp. 152-155.
7 5 ~ W.
.
Coxon, "The Syntax of the Aramaic of Daniel: A Dialectical Study,"
HUCA 48 (1977): 107-122.
761bid.,p. 109.

224

GERHARD F. HASEL

are confronted by the syntax of Official Aramaic"77and not withthat of later documents. (3) The usage of the preposition I cannot
be employed as evidence for a date of the Aramaic of Daniel,
because it is present in certain and absent in other early Aramaic
papyri and present in some and absent in other Qumranmateriak7' (4) Various types of word orders-such as, the title"king" following the proper name, and the demonstrative pronoun
following the substantive-are shown to be a part of the syntax of
Official Aramaic.7g (5) In the Aramaic in Daniel, verbs which
express the idea of possibility, desire, command, purpose, etc., areconstructed with 2 and the infinitive; and this phenomenon isfound largely also in Official Aramaic. (6) The "object-verbsubject" word order of verbal sentences in the Aramaic of Daniel
and the sequence of "verb-object" in clauses without direct object
reveals the freedom of word order in Official Aramaic'' (it suggests
also possible Akkadian infl~ence'~).(7) Study of consonantal
mutations indicates that "the factors involved in historical spelling,in phonetic development and representation . . . opens u p the
possibility that the orthography of Biblical Aramaic belongs to an
earlier period [than the second century B.c.] and stems from theidiosyncracies of Jewish scribal tradition."'"The Current Reassessment

From the foregoing discussion, it is evident that the classicalproblems of the syntax and spelling of the Aramaic of Daniel used
771bid., p. 112.
"Ibid., pp. 112-114.
791bid., pp. 115-116.
"Ibid., pp. 116-118.
"Ibid., pp. 118-119.
8 2 ~ en.
e 34, above, where Kaufman's study, apparently not known to Coxon, iscited. E. Y. Kutscher, "Aramaic," Current Trends in Linguistics 6 (1970): 400 (seealso the citation in n. 50, above), has suggested that the word-order of Biblical
Aramaic is of the Eastern type. This conclusion is supported by Coxon, whoconcludes that such a fundamental change in sentence structure "would certainly
point to a date before the second century B.C." (see "Syntax," pp. 121-122; and "A
Philological Note on Dan 5:3f.," ZAW 89 [1977]: 275-276).
'3Coxon, "The Problem of Consonantal Mutations in Biblical Aramaic,"
ZDMG 129 (1979): 22.

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225

in the past by certain scholars as support for an alleged late date anda Western provenance appear now in an entirely new light. The
new evidence and reassessment point to a pre-second-centuryB.C. date and to an Eastern (Babylonian) origin. On the basis ofpresently available evidence, the Aramaic of Daniel belongs to
Official Aramaic and can have been written as early as the latterpart of the sixth century B.c.; linguistic evidence is clearly against adate in the second century B.C. Even if the exact date of Daniel
cannot be decided on linguistic grounds alone, there is abundantand compelling linguistic evidence against a second-century
Palestinian origin.