I have heard competing thoughts about pseudonymity. Bart Ehrman says it was never acceptable. Some other scholars argue that pseudonymity was accepted in ancient times, and that ‘Daniel’s’ audience would realize that the author Daniel wasn’t authentic– and wouldn’t have a problem with it. If Bart is right, and I think he is, it seems hard to imagine that his audience would be fooled, and that Daniel would have been regarded as authentic within a relatively short period of time. Here is the argument of how I think all of this all could have happened:

 

One of these two seems likely to be true (It doesn’t necessarily matter which is true, to the overall argument)

1) There was a real Daniel living in the sixth century. He was heroic, for whatever reason. Over time, legends would build about him. 

2) There was no Daniel. For whatever reason, at some point in time, legends began to build about a hero living during the early period of the exile…possibly to give hope to people living later in the exile.

 

Over the next several centuries, these legends flourished. These were accepted as true stories. Daniel became a well-known hero, whether he existed or not, or how close to the truth the stories about him were. (Most scholars think that the early stories from Daniel, the lions den and the fiery furnace for example, date much earlier than the rest of the book. They would have been circulating long before 165 BC, either in written or oral form, and were probably very well known. 2nd century author(s) used this Daniel as their hero, and incorporated these stories into his book. Why? To show that just as God was in control when Babylon and Persia were in power, God was now in control when Antiochus IV was persecuting the Jews– and he would soon intervene.)

 

One of these two is true

1) The view that some scholars put forward is correct–pseudonymity was an acceptable practice in the second century BC.

2) Bart Ehrman is correct– it was never acceptable to write under someone else’s name.

 

If number 1 is correct, there is no issue. The writer(s) took some of the old legends and added their own material. Their audience knew what was happening; he was not attempting to fool them, he was trying to fool the Seleucids; this is why he never directly refers to anyone in the Greek era by name. Anyone caught holding a copy of this book saying that God was about to overthrow Antiochus IV would be killed for treason.

 

Now, if Bart is correct, pseudonymity was never acceptable, the rest of this post attempts to answer the question: how would 2nd century author(s) fool an audience into thinking that the book they had just written was a sixth century book, written by the actual Daniel? In order to answer this, we have to think like they would have thought. From what I can tell, this is what a lot of them probably would have believed.

1) There was a real Daniel, an early hero from the sixth century.

2) The stories about him were real (lions den, fiery furnace)

3) These stories are so amazing. They would have been told and retold for generations.

 

Look at Daniel 12:4  ‘But you, Daniel, keep the words secret and the book sealed until the time of the end.’ Also 8:26 ‘seal up the vision, for it refers to many days from now.’

 

These verses are the key to all of this. They seem to have been placed here in order to explain to the audience one weird fact…if it had been written in the 6th century, why no one had seen the entire book of Daniel before. The reason that would have been given by the second century author(s)? Daniel wrote a book, sealed it until the time of the end (about 165 BC), and the book has just now been unsealed (discovered) by us.

 

Now, wouldn’t people say ‘Wait, I know these stories about the lion’s den and the fiery furnace…those stories weren’t sealed; this is just a forgery.’ Possibly–but not necessarily everyone would think this. Here is the rationale: the stories got passed on, because they were amazing stories. You really can’t ‘hide’ stories like that; people are going to tell them to other people. And there’s no real reason to seal a story about Daniel escaping lions, it doesn’t predict the future. But the visions– they would have been sealed, and unknown until the 2nd century. (8:26 says to seal the vision of that chapter.) Why? Because they concerned events culminating in the time of the second century. They weren’t interesting or relevant to someone living in 300 BC. The visions were all being fulfilled, right before their very eyes. (The visions also were hard to comprehend, and not nearly as interesting as escaping death from lions, so it is conceivable that visions wouldn’t be handed down for generations.)

 

So, what happens? Daniel (2nd century Daniel), in about 165 BC, makes predictions about Antiochus being killed within the next couple years…and the temple being rededicated. And the resurrection of the dead.

 

Was he right? Actually, while I don’t think the dead were resurrected, Antiochus did die, right around the time he was supposed to…and not the way Daniel thought. And the Seleucids were defeated. The temple was rededicated, fairly close to the time predicted, after Antiochus had desecrated it for 3 years. This was unbelievable. Maybe he was right about everything–the other things that appeared to be wrong, we just misunderstood.

 

That’s essentially what they wanted. Certainly all the Jews wanted the persecution to end. They defeated the Seleucids. Some (not all) were concerned about losing their religious identity. The temple was rededicated. Both of these events happened, fairly close to the right time. Maybe the resurrection of the dead got delayed for some reason. Some Christians admit that Jesus thought he would return in the 1st century, but they rationalize that this got delayed by God for some reason. If we make these kinds of rationalizations, maybe they did too.

 

The Jews had been in danger of losing their religious identity, and were being persecuted. They won. Maybe ‘Daniel’ had a big hand in all of that. Maybe this book gave people hope. I don’t know. If there was a book written right around the time of intense persecution, that inspired people to hold onto their faith, and they had a tremendous victory that seemed to confirm Daniel’s predictions, it is not difficult to see how Daniel would be seen as authoritative within the period of decades…maybe immediately.

 

Think about what happens now. How many times have people believed that the ‘end’ was very soon? Most people are unconvinced…but ‘Daniel’ seemed to be fairly accurate on enough things. The timing of a couple of events would have given him quite a bit of clout.

 

It could be that the issue of Daniel’s authenticity was hotly debated for decades. You don’t need to convince everyone… Maybe only a small minority of people accepted this at first. Maybe someone important believed it. It may have been a hard sell in 165 BC. By 150 BC? Easier. 130? Much easier. 100? Very easy. Every decade that goes by, there are fewer and fewer people who know the real story. It just looks like a book that claimed to be written in the 6th century, and appeared to predict 400 years of history.

 

All of this would explain a lot of things that I have read, that haven’t been able to add up until now.

1) who the reference ‘Daniel’ is in Ezekiel (if there really was a 6th century Daniel)

2) how there is evidence that some of the book was written much earlier than the second century

3) Robert Alter’s (Strong as Death is Love) claim that the Hebrew in Daniel attempts to look older than it really is

4) how writer(s) could fool an audience into thinking it was an old book, without anyone previously having seen it in its entirety

5) why it seems to have been an authoritative book in The DSS by the late 2nd century.

6) why an obviously fictional account of Daniel’s stories would have inspired 2nd century Jews–they thought the stories were true