Evidence · Case 03 · Reliability of Scripture
Daniel
One exhibit from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
About 8 copies of Daniel were found. They preserve the same switch from Hebrew to Aramaic and back that appears in the later Masoretic text.
Sources
Explore the archive by manuscript, site, and language
- Peter W. Flint, “The Significance of the Biblical Dead Sea Scrolls,” Southwestern Journal of Theology 53.1 (2010), manuscript table (opens in a new tab)
Southwestern Journal of Theology 53, no. 1 (2010): 15-25
Objections & responses
- The Qumran Daniel fragments date to within decades of the book’s likely composition in the 160s BC, which supports the critical late dating and undercuts its predictive prophecy. Doesn’t that cut against apologetics?
Only textual stability is claimed here, and on that point the fragments are unambiguous: the Hebrew-Aramaic-Hebrew structure and the wording match the later text. On dating, the earliest Daniel fragment (4QDan-c) is usually placed around 125 BC, which some scholars argue is too soon after a 165 BC composition for the book to have reached scriptural status, while others disagree. That is a separate debate that belongs in a discussion of prophecy, and it is deliberately not smuggled in here.