Studies in the Book of Daniel (2 Volumes)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1917. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XVIII DANIEL AND THE WISE MEN When Paul was at Philippi, he was accused of teaching customs which it was not lawful for the Philippians to observe, being Romans. Without a trial and uncondemned, he was beaten and imprisoned and put in the stocks. This illustrates the manner in which the critics accuse Daniel of becoming a Babylonian wise man, of observing customs which it was not lawful for him to observe, "being a strict Jew." They do not prove that the customs of the wise men were not lawful for a strict Jew to observe. To do this they should first show what a strict Jew might legally have been; and secondly, what there was in the customs and beliefs of a wise man of Babylon that made it impossible for Daniel to have been at the same time a strict Jew and a Babylonian wise man. This they have failed to show. They simply assert it, just as the Philippians asserted that Paul troubled their city by teaching unlawful customs. Again, as we shall see, they have failed to show how it would have been impossible for a Jewish writer of the second century B. C.,--the time of the Maccabees and of the Assideans,--to have written a work whose hero would have been represented as being both a strict Jew and a Babylonian wise man, if there had been an inconsistency in a man's being at the same time both of them. They have failed even to consider how a strict Jew, writing a book of fiction for the consolation of strict Jews, to be accepted by strict Jews as a genuine history, could have said that a strict Jew was a Babylonian wise man, if there was anything unlawful or improper in a strict Jew's being a Babylonian wise man, Certainly a strict Jew of the middle of the second century B.c. was as strict as one of the middle of the sixth. Certainly, also, a Chaldean...