224 REV. W. ST. CLAIE TISDALL, D.D., ON THE BOOK OF DANIEL ! 



suffice to prove tliat the Persian conquest of Babylonia must have 

 taken place before the times of the kings named in the inscrip- 

 tions from which we have quoted ? If so, we shall have to ask 

 the critics to re- write the history of Assyria and Babylonia for 

 us, as they have already so kindly done that of Israel and 

 Judah. 



It should be observed that the Persian words used in Daniel 

 belong in every case to the Achsemenian rather than to the 

 Avestic form of the tongue. This is important as bearing upon 

 the age of the book. The Achsemenian inscriptions are dated 

 nearly as exactly as are the Assouan-Elephantine papyri, for 

 they bear the name of the king who in each instance commanded 

 them to be inscribed. The extant inscriptions give us, however, 

 the knowledge of only a few hundred Achsemenian words. The 

 Avestic vocabulary is much more extensively known, for we 

 find a large number of words in the remains of the Avesta. 

 We have often to refer to that dialect in order to supplement 

 the defects in our scanty store of Achsemenian vocables ; but 

 this must be done with care, because we are not certain of the 

 exact date of the composition of the different parts of the work. 

 There are also some differences of reading in different MSS., 

 none of which is of great antiquity. Tradition tells us a few 

 slightly disquieting stories about the revision made under the 

 Sasanides. Yet the language of the Gathas is, in its essentials, 

 so little removed from that of the Rig Veda that its antiquity 

 needs no other demonstration. The other and more recent parts 

 of the book, as we now have it, are evidently in the same language, 

 in a form much more ancient than the PahlavT, in which alone 

 certain traditions are preserved. Unfortunately, the Avesta 

 deals exclusively with religion, and hence it omits all the part 

 of the language which treated of secular matters. Therefore 

 many w^ords are absent which we should like to know. But 

 as we know the grammar and composition of the language 

 fairly well, we are able oftentimes to detect Persian words in 

 Aramaic that are not actually extant in the Avesta or in the 

 Achgemenian inscriptions. This enables us to state with 

 certainty that not a few words in Daniel, Ezra, and the Egyptian 

 papyri are Persian, and often to ascertain approximately their 

 meaning. This much it is necessary to explain in order to 

 anticipate some possible objections, though none such can arise 

 with reference to two of the three Persian words which we have 

 quoted from the Assy rio -Babylonian inscriptions. 



