SOME LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE REGARDING ITS DATE. 



237 



We can hardly consider the expression " the Great Sea " 

 (Dan. vii, 2) as a proper name, though the Mediterranean is 

 so called in Joshua i, 4, etc. But in any case the expression 

 is in Babylonian applied to both the Persian Gulf and the 

 Mediterranean. The former is more fully described as " the 

 great sea of the going forth of the sun " (Tidmtum rabltum sha 

 sit shanshi, Sennacherib, Taylor Cylinder, IV, 24, and Sch. 

 K.A.T., p. 140, bis, also called tdmtim shaplui ska set shamshiy 

 the Lower Sea of the sun's going forth), and the latter as " the 

 Upper Sea of the setting of the Sun " (Tamtim elenitu sha shalam 

 shamshi), and "the Great Sea of the Amorite land" (K.A.T., 

 pp. 91, 157, 140). 



There are various other Babylonianisms in Daniel, apart from 

 Babylonian words already dealt with. For instance, " ' im 

 leylya " (Dan. vii, 2), ivith the night, i.e., at night, during the 

 night, is like the Assyrio-Babylonian itti halti, with {i.e., during) 

 life (Muss-Arnolt, p. 127). This is accounted for by what we 

 contend was the place of the composition of the book. 



II. 



We now proceed to deal with the Grammar of BibUcal Aramaic 

 as compared with that of the Aramaic papyri. Referring to 

 this subject in general, Eduard Sachau says : " The language 

 in which they " {i.e. the Egyptian Aramaic papyri) " are 

 written is in all essential parts identical with that of the Aramaic 

 chapters in the books of Ezra and Daniel, and their phraseology 

 affords close points of contact with that of the official documents 

 in the Book of Ezra."* 



This testimony is true, as every student of the subject will 

 admit. 



There is only one point in which a slight exception has been 

 detected, viz., that the relative pronoun in Daniel and Ezra 

 (in fact, in all Biblical Aramaic) is uniformly DI, whereas in 

 the papyri it is usually Zl, as is the case also in the short Aramaic 

 inscriptions found in Nineveh and Babylon, as well as in CiHcia, 



* " Die Sprache, in der sie geschrieben sind, ist in alien wesentlichen 

 Stiichen identisch mit derjenigen der aramaischen Kapitel in den Biichern 

 Esra und Daniel, und ihre Phraseologie bietet nahe Berlihrungen mit der- 

 jenigen der amtlichen Urkunden im Esrabucli " {Drei aramdische Pap., 

 p. 3). 



