"The historical errors" of the Book of Daniel are the
first ground of the critic's attack. Of these he enumerates the following:
(1.) "There was no deportation in the third year of Jehoiakim."
(2.)
"There was no King Belshazzar."
(3.) "There was no Darius the Mede."
(4)
"It is not true that there were only two Babylonian kings - there were
five."
(5.) "Nor were there only four Persian kings-there were
twelve."
(6.) Xerxes seems to be confounded with the last king of
Persia.
(7.) And "All correct accounts of the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes
seem to end about B.C. 164."
Such is the indictment under this head.
Two other points are included, but these have nothing to do with history;
first, that the decrees of Nebuchadnezzar are extraordinary - which may at once
be conceded; and secondly, that "the notion that a faithful Jew could become
president of the Chaldean magi is impossible "-a statement which only
exemplifies the thoughtless dogmatism of the writer, for, according to his own
scheme, it was a "holy and gifted Jew," brought up under the severe ritual of
post-exilic days, who assigned this position to Daniel. A like remark applies
to his criticism upon Dan. ii. 46 - with this addition, that that criticism
betokens either carelessness or malice on the part of the critics, for the
passage in no way justifies the assertion that the prophet accepted either the
worship or the sacrifice offered him.
So far as the other points are
concerned, we may at once dismiss (4.), (5), and (6), for the errors here
ascribed to Daniel will be sought for in vain. They are "read into" the book by
the perverseness or ignorance of the rationalists. And as for (7), where was
the account of the reign of Antiochus to end, if not in the year of his death!
The statement is one of numerous instances of slipshod carelessness in this
extraordinary addition to our theological literature. The Bible states that
there was a deportation in the reign of Jehoiakim the critic asserts there was
none; and the Christian must decide between them.
(As regards (5) and
(6), the way "kisses and kicks" alternate in Dr. Farrar's treatment of his
mythical "Chasid" is amusing. At one moment he is praised for his genius and
erudition; the next he is denounced as an ignoramus or a fool! Considering how
inseparably the history of Judah had been connected with the history of Persia,
the suggestion that a cultured Jew of Maccabean days could have made the gross
blunder here attributed to him is quite unworthy of notice.
And may I
explain for the enlightenment of the critics that Dan. xi. 2 is a prophecy
relating to the prophecy which precedes it? It is a consecutive prediction of
events within the period of the seventy weeks. There were to be "yet" (i.e.,
after the rebuilding of Jerusalem) "three kings in Persia." These were Darius
Nothus, Artaxerxes Mnemon, and Ochus ; the brief and merely nominal reigns of
Xerxes II., Sogdianus, and Arogus being ignored - two of them, indeed, being
omitted from the canon of Ptolemy. "The fourth" (and last) king was Darius
Codomanus, whose fabulous wealth attracted the cupidity of the
Greeks.)
Nothing can be clearer than the language of Chronicles ; and,
even regarding the book as a purely secular record, it is simply preposterous
to reject without a shadow of reason the chronicler's statement on a matter of
such immense interest and importance in the national history. But, it is
objected, Kings and Jeremiah are silent upon the subject. If this were true,
which it is not, it would be an additional reason for turning to Chronicles to
supply the omission. But Kings gives clear corrobcration of Chronicles.
Speaking of Jehoiakim, it says: "In his days Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon,
came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant three years; then he turned and
rebelled against him." Daniels tells us this was in his third year, and that
Jerusalem was besieged upon the occasion. This difficulty again springs from
the habit of "reading into" Scripture more than it says. There is not a word
about a taking by storm. The king was a mere puppet, and presumably he made his
submission as soon as the city was invested. Nebuchadnezzar took him prisoner,
but afterwards relented, and left him in Jerusalem as his vassal, a position he
had till then held under the King of Egypt.
But Dr. Farrar's statements
here are worthy of fuller notice, so thoroughly typical are they of his style
and methods. For three years Jehoiakim was Nebuchadnezzar's vassal. This is
admitted, and Scripture accounts for it by recording a Babylonian invasion in
his third year. But, says the critic :- "It was not till the following year,
when Nebuchadrezzar, acting as his father's general, had defeated Egypt at the
battle of Carchemish, that any siege of Jerusalem would have been possible. Nor
did Nebuchadrezzar advance against the Holy City even after the battle of
Carchemish, but dashed home across the desert to secure the crown of Babylon on
hearing the news of his father's death."
The idea of dashing across the
desert from Carchemish to Babylon is worthy of a board-school essay! The critic
is here adopting the record of the Babylonian historian Berosus, in complete
unconsciousness of the significance of his testimony. We learn from Berosus
that it was as Prince-royal of Babylon, at the head of his father's army, that
Nebuchadnezzar invaded Palestine. And, after recording how in the course of
that expedition Nebuchadnezzar heard of his father's death, the historian goes
on to relate that he "committed the captives he had taken from the Jews" to the
charge of others, "while he went in haste over the desert to Babylon." Could
corroboration of Scripture be more complete and emphatic? The fact that he had
Jewish captives is evidence that he had invaded Judea. Proof of it is afforded
by the further fact that the desert lay between him and Babylon. Carchemish was
in the far north by the Euphrates, and the road thence to the Chaldean capital
lay clear of the desert altogether. Moreover, the battle of Carchemish was
fought in Jehoiakim's fourth year, and therefore after Nebuchadnezzar's
accession, whereas the invasion of Judea was during Nabopolassar's lifetime,
and therefore in Jehoiakim's third year, precisely as the Book of Daniel
avers.
It only remains to add that Scripture nowhere speaks of a general
"deportation" in the third year of Jehoiakim. Here, as elsewhere, the critic
attributes his own errors to the Bible, and then proceeds to refute them. The
narrative is explicit that on this occasion Nebuchadnezzar returned with no
captives save a few cadets of the royal house and of the noble families. But
Dr. Farrar writes: "Among the captives were certain of the king's seed and of
the princes." Nor is this all: he goes on to say, "They are called 'children,'
and the word, together with the context, seems to imply that they were boys of
the age of from twelve to fourteen." What Daniel says is that these, the only
captives, were "skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and
understanding science." What prodigies those Jewish boys must have been! The
word translated "children" in the A.V. is more correctly rendered "youths" in
the R.V. Its scope may be inferred from the use of it in i Kings xii. 8, which
tells us that Rehoboam "forsook the counsel of the old men, and took counsel
with the young men that were grown up with him." This last point is material
mainly as showing the animus of the critic.'
( The question of course
arises how this battle should have been fought after the successful campaign of
the preceding year. There are reasonable explanations of this, but I offer
none. Scripture has suffered grievously from the eagerness of its defenders to
put forward hypotheses to explain seeming difficulties.)
But the
Scripture speaks of King Nebuchadnezzar in the third year of Jehoiakim, whereas
it was not till his fourth year that Nabopolassar died. No doubt. And a writer
of Maccabean days, with the history of Berosus before him, would probably have
noticed the point. But the so-called in. accuracy is precisely one of the
incidental proofs that the Book of Daniel was the work of a contemporary of
Nebuchadnezzar. The historian of the future will never assert that Queen
Victoria lived at one time in Kensington Palace, though the statement will be
found in the newspapers which recorded the unveiling of her statue in
Kensington Gardens.
(The only reason for representing Daniel as a mere
boy of twelve or fourteen is that thereby discredit is cast upon the statement
that three years later he was placed at the head of "the wise men" of Babylon.
It is with a real sense of distress and pain that I find myself compelled to
use such language. But it would need a volume to expose the errors,
misstatements, and perversions of which the above are typical instances. They
occur in every chapter of Dr. Farrar's book.)
The references to Jeremiah
raise the question whether the book records the utterances of an inspired
prophet, or whether, as Dr. Farrar's criticisms assume, the author of the book
wrote merely as a religious teacher. This question, however, is too large to
treat of here; and the discussion of it is wholly unnecessary, for the careful
student will find in Jeremiah the clearest proof that Scripture is right and
the critics wrong. The objection depends on confounding the seventy years of
the "Servitude to Babylon" with the seventy years of "the Desolations of
Jerusalem "- another of the numerous blunders which discredit the work under
review.' "The Captivity," which is confounded with both, was not an era of
seventy years at all.
(The careful reader of Dr. Farrar's book will not
fail to see that his references to the Scriptures generally imply that the
prophecies came by the will of the prophets; whereas Holy Scripture declares
that "No prophecy ever came by the will of man; but men spake from God, being
moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Pet. i. 20, 21).)
The prophecy of the
twenty-fifth chapter of Jeremiah was a warning addressed to the people who
remained in the land after the servitude had begun, that if they continued
impenitent and rebellious, God would bring upon them a further judgment - the
terrible scourge of "the Desolations." The prophecy of the twenty-ninth chapter
was a message of hope to the Jews of the Captivity. And what was that message?
That "after seventy years be accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you, and
perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place." And
that promise was faithfully fulfilled. The Servitude began in the third year of
Jehoiakim, B.C. 606.1 It ended in B.C. 536, when Cyrus issued his decree for
the return of the exiles. By the test of chronology, therefore - the severest
test which can be applied to historical statements - the absolute accuracy of
these Scriptures is established.
(These "seventy years" dated, not from
their deportation to Babylonia as captives, but from their subjection to the
suzerainty of Babylon. That is, the year beginning with Nisan, B.C. 6o6, and
ending with Adar, B.C. 6o5.)
Owing to the importance of this
Jehoiakim "error" I have added an excursus upon the subject. See Appendix
I.