SOME LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE REGARDING ITS DATE. 



243 



n, forms the preformative of the future ; but in Biblical Aramaic 

 the old preformative y is employed, as in the papyri. The I 

 had originally an optative or jussive meaning, as it usually 

 has in Daniel, though sometimes it has the meaning of the 

 future. In Daniel it occurs only in the verb "to be." 



The personal pronouns of the 3rd pers. pi. in Biblical Aramaic 

 are not those used in classical Aramaic, but agree with those 

 found in the papyri. 



It is remarkable that, while the papyri generally spell the 

 Persian regal name Darius somewhat differently from that 

 adopted in Biblical Aramaic, the only place in which the spelling 

 of this word is precisely the same as in the Bible is in P. 13489, 

 which is in all probability the oldest in the whole collection 

 from Assouan and Elephantine, being dated second of the 

 month Epiphi, year thirty-seven of Darius (I), i.e. 494 B.C. 

 In this MS. the king's name is written "CTV"^*!! as in Dan. vi, 1 

 (Aram.) ; while in other and later papyri the spellings are 

 trirf^l"!? etc.* Strangely enough, on the other hand, in the 

 next oldest papyrus, P. 13493, dated the twenty-eighth of 

 Paophi, second (?) year of Xerxes, i.e. 482 B.C., that king's 

 name is not spelled quite as in the Biblical Aramaic, but in a 

 manner which is nearer to the original Persian. Yet here, too, 

 we find that there is a reason, for the Biblical spelling of the 

 name is taken from the Babylonian Akhshiwarshu, represented 

 exactly in the form used in Dan. ix, 1. This serves to shew 

 a close connexion between Babylon and the composition of 

 Daniel. The BibUcal form of each name is thus proved not to 

 be late, but very early, and to have good authority to support it. 



It would expand this Paper too much were we to mention 

 in detail all the various matters in which a careful study of the 

 papyri supports the antiquity of Daniel. But we cannot con- 

 clude without a brief mention of one other fact of no slight 

 importance. There are in Daniel not a few words regarding 

 the meaning of which the LXX translators were in considerable 

 perplexity, and this perplexity expressed itself in later trans- 

 lations also. Sometimes the translators made a guess at the 

 meaning of such words, guided by the context, at other times 

 they contented themselves with merely transliterating what 

 they could not translate. Examples are not far to seek. For 

 in Dan. i, 11, 16, the LXX cannot translate -^^^^^^n' 



The form in Dan. is that used in Bab., the other the Persian. 



R 2 



