No/es oil the Arainnic Part of Daniel. 249 



the addition which he made. It must not be supposed that he simply 

 appended his apocalypses, without giving them any close internal con- 

 nection with the older narrative. On the contrary, it was his purpose 

 to make the new Book of Daniel appear a unity, and he wrought skilfully 

 to this end. His first Vision, contained in chap. 7, is based conspicuously 

 on the first dream of Nebuchadnezzar, narrated in chap. 2. The con- 

 nection bet\veen the two has never failed to attract attention. So far 

 as the essential content of the revelation is concerned, chap. 7 is simply 

 chap. 2 brought down to date. Further evidence of this wish to make 

 an impression of unity may be seen in the waj' in which the Visions 

 are dated. The original narrative covered the reigns of the four kings, 

 Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Darius Hystaspis,' and Cyrus, all of whom 

 received mention. The apocalyptic writer chooses dates from the reigns 

 of three of these four in succession — and, as we have seen, commits 

 a blunder in the case of the last one. Another, and still more obvious, 

 point of attachment to the work of his predecessor is seen in the phrase : 

 "Afterward I rose up, and did the king's business," in 8 : 27. 



One very important feature of the composition of the book has thus 

 far been left out of account, though it contains what is perhaps the 

 strongest single argument for the correctness of the conclusions just 

 stated ; I mean, the very singular alternation of the two languages, 

 Hebreiv and Aramaic. No satisfactory explanation of this phenomenon 

 has ever been given, nor could be given so long as it is assumed that 

 the book is the work of a single hand. But when the fact of composition 

 and the aim of the later writer, as above described, are recognized, the 

 solution of the riddle of the two languages is at once manifest, to the 

 ver}- last detail. We have here a verj- natural and very efi"ectual device 

 for concealing the fact of dual authorship. What Kamphausen says 

 (though with quite a different intent' in his article " Daniel " in the 

 Encyclopcedia Biblica, col. 1005, is eminently true : " The change of 

 language serves to bind the different parts of the book into a finiier 

 tinity." The original story of Daniel was written /;/ Aratnaic, chap. 1 

 as well as chaps. 2—6. The Maccabean author wished to write his Visions 

 /;/ Hebrew, for reasons which are sufficiently obvious. If he had simply 

 affixed his Hebrew composition to the Aramaic book— which so plainly 

 came to its end in 6 : 29 ! — the two parts could never have had the 

 appearance of a unit)- ; nor could they have held together long, especially 



were originally written in Aramaic or Hebrew, and that the Greek which 

 we have is a translation. These formed no part of the original book, how- 

 ever, but were added to one of the early recensions. See further the note 

 on 3 : 23. 



^ See the explanation given above. 



