SOME LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE REGARDING ITS DATE. 239 



had gone completely out of use. That a later, but unsuccessful, 

 attempt to bring the spelling up to date was made with reference 

 to other words also is clear from the fact that the QrT is much 

 nearer to the spelling of the Targums than the Kthib. Not a 

 page of Ginsburg's edition of the text is destitute of examples 

 of this. But in this later revision the text was not altered, only 

 the pronunciation. The change of the Z forms into those 

 in D must have been made much earlier. 



To shew the error of Driver's contention that the use of the D 

 forms in Daniel proves its composition to be late, it is enough to 

 urge two other considerations. One is that the D forms are in the 

 present text used throughout all Biblical Aramaic, and yet 

 it is admitted fairly generally that the historical documents in 

 Ezra-Nehemiah are genuine. If the D versus Z argument fails 

 here, and is admitted to be of no validity, the same applies to 

 Daniel too. The other matter of importance is to note Eduard 

 Sachau's change of mind as to the time when the alteration in 

 the pronunciation of Aramaic introduced the D forms into the 

 spelling. He writes : " The transition in Aramaic from the 

 oldest to the younger sound-duration is thus prepared for, not 

 in the age of Alexander, as I formerly assumed, . . . but, on 

 the contrary, as early as the middle of the time of the Achae- 

 menides " {op. cit., p. 35). It is right that such a distinguished 

 German Orientalist should thus frankly admit that he was 

 mistaken in fancying that it was in the Alexandrian period 

 that the D forms gradually took the place of those in Z, whereas 

 it is now evident that the change occurred much earlier. But 

 his admission confutes Dr. Driver's contention that Daniel 

 could not have been written in Babylon or in a period earlier 

 than the Alexandrian. 



We may remark that it was not only in certain pronouns 

 that the change of Z into D gradually took place in Aramaic 

 but in many nouns too. It is well known that one of the 

 characteristic features in that language is its use of D where 

 in Hebrew Z occurs.* But these Egyptian Aramaic papyri 

 introduce us to a period at which, though the D had come into 

 the pronunciation very commonly, it had not yet been generally 

 accepted in place of Z in writing. Sachau quotes the following 



* So, too, the change of <s^ into t or th is characteristic of Aramaic. 

 In P. 13491, line 5, dated ^457 B.C., ^pj^ occurs for the usual ^pj^s 

 Cf. Dan. V, 25. 



