The Fundamentals - 1910: Vol.7

100 The Fundamentals statement itself is nonsensical, like many other things in the Talmud, but whatever its meaning, it places Daniel on the same footing as Ezekiel and the rest. The other objection is as follows.’ “Chapter 11 [of Daniel] with its four world-kingdoms is wonderfully cleared when viewed from this standpoint [i. e. as a Maccabean pro- duction]. The third of these kingdoms is explicitly named as the Persian. (11:2.) The fourth to follow is evidently the Greek”. Every phrase in this is false. The chapter says nothing about four world-kingdoms. Nor does 11:2 say explicitly, or any other way, that the Persian was the third; nor that the Greek was the fourth,. No explanation or modification of these astonishing state- ments is offered. How could the writer expect to escape detection? True, the Baba Bathra is inaccessible to most people, but Daniel 11 is in everybody’s hands. Daniel was a wise and well-known man in the time of Ezekiel, else all point in the irony of Ezek. 28:3 is lost. He was also eminent for goodness and must have been esteemed an especial recipient of God’s favor and to have had inter- course with the Most High like Noah and Job. Ezek. 14:15, 20: “When the land sinneth, though Noah, Daniel and Job were in it, they shall deliver but their own souls”. A strik- ing collocation: Noah the second father of the race, Job the Gentile and Daniel the Jew. Daniel is better attested than any other book of the Old Testament. Ezekiel mentions the man. Zechariah appears to have read the book. The bungling attempt of the Sep- tuagint to alter a prediction of disaster to one of promise; our Saviour’s recognition of Daniel as a prophet; these are attestations. Compare Ezekiel; there is not a word in the Bible to show that he ever existed, but as he does not plainly predict the Saviour no voice is raised or pen wagged against him.

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