As evident by Daniel’s own claim (12:4) and by his use of the autobiographical first person from chap-ter 7:2 onward, Daniel is the author of this prophetic book. Archer points out:
Despite the numerous objections which have been advanced by scholars who regard this as a prophecy written after the event, there is no good reason for denying the sixth-century Daniel the composition of the entire work. This represents a collection of his me-moirs made at the end of a long and eventful career which included government service from the reign of Nebuchadnezzar in the 590s to the reign of Cyrus the Great in the 530s. The appearance of Persian technical terms indicates a final recension of these memoirs at a time when Persian terminology had already infiltrated into the vocabulary of Aramaic. The most likely date for the final edition of the book, therefore, would be about 530 B.C., nine years after the Persian conquest of Babylon.69
While a youth, Daniel was taken as a captive to Babylon in 605 B.C. by Nebuchadnezzar. There he became a statesman in the court of Nebuchadnezzar and Darius. Though he did not occupy the office of a prophet, Christ identified him as a prophet (Matt. 24:15; Mark 13:14). As one who did not occupy the prophetic office, the book of Daniel is found in “the Writings,” the third division of the Hebrew Bible rather than in “the Prophets.”
If Daniel is the author as the book claims, then it written after the Babylonian captivity when Daniel and other young men were taken captive to Babylon in 605 when Nebuchadnezzar subdued Jerusalem.
But for various reasons, this date has been disputed with many critics arguing that Daniel is a fraudulent book which was written in the time of the Maccabees in the second century B.C. rather than the sixth cen-tury B.C. Concerning the arguments against the authorship of Daniel in the sixth century Ryrie writes:
The first attack on the traditional sixth century B.C. date for the composition of the book came from Porphyry (A.D. 232-303), a vigorous opponent of Christianity, who maintained that the book was written by an unknown Jew who lived at the time of Antiochus Epi-phanes (175-163 B.C.). This view was widely promoted by scholars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for the following reasons: it is alleged that Daniel could not have made these predictions, since they were accurately fulfilled and could therefore have been written only after the events occurred; Persian and Greek words used in the book would have been unknown to a sixth-century Jewish author; the Aramaic used in 2:4-7:28 belongs to a time after that of Daniel; and there are certain alleged historical inaccu-racies. In answer, we observe that predictive prophecy is not only possible but expected from a true prophet of God. Since Daniel lived into the Persian period, he would have known Persian words. The presence of Greek words is easily accounted for, since one hundred years before Daniel, Greek mercenaries served in the Assyrian army under Esarhaddon (683) and in the Babylonian army under Nebuchadnezzar. Recent discove-ries of fifth century B.C. Aramaic documents have shown that Daniel was written in a form of Imperial Aramaic, an official dialect known in all parts of the Near East at that time. Alleged historical inaccuracies are fast disappearing, especially with the information provided by the Nabonidus Chronicle as to the identity of Belshazzar (5:1) and with evi-dence that identifies Darius the Mede with a governor named Gubaru (5:31).
In addition, how can the use of relatively few Greek words be explained if the book was written around 170 B.C., when a Greek-speaking government had controlled Palestine for 160 years? One would expect the presence of many Greek terms. Also, the Qumran documents (Dead Sea Scrolls), dated only a few decades before the alleged second-century writing of Daniel, show grammatical differences that indicate they were written centuries, not decades, after Daniel. Further, the scrolls of Daniel found at Qumran are copies, indicating that the original was written before the Maccabean era.70
The book is named after its author. The Hebrew word for Daniel is Daniyyeál or Daniáel, which means either “God is Judge” or “God is my Judge.” The Greek form Daniel in the Septuagint is the basis for the Latin and English titles.
The theme of Daniel is God’s sovereign power as the one true God, who judges and destroys the re-bellious world powers and will faithfully deliver His covenant people according to their steadfast faith in Him. Daniel was written to encourage the exiled Jews through revealing God’s sovereign plan for Israel during and after the period of domination by the Gentile world powers. This is the time of the Gentiles which began with the Babylonian captivity but will end with the establishment of Messiah’s kingdom as the stone, one cut out without hands, became a great mountain and filled the whole earth (2:34-35; see also 7:13-14).
Though the words “king” and “kingdom” occur over and over again, the key idea is the plan of God for Israel which will end in the establishment of God’s Messiah King as ruler on the earth.
❝ 2:20-22. Daniel answered and said, “Let the name of God be blessed forever and ever, For wisdom and power belong to Him. “And it is He who changes the times and the epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings; He gives wisdom to wise men, And knowledge to men of understanding. “It is He who reveals the profound and hidden things; He knows what is in the darkness, And the light dwells with Him.
❝ 2:44. And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever.
❝ 7:14. “And to Him was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, That all the peoples, na-tions, and men of every language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting domi-nion Which will not pass away; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed.
One of the greatest prophetic chapters in the Bible is Daniel 9, the prophecy of the ‘seventy weeks’ determined for Israel (9:24-27). These verses give us the chronological frame for the nation of Israel and her Messiah from the time Daniel to the establishment of Messiah’s kingdom on earth.
The key people are Daniel who was taken to Babylon as a youth, served in government and became God’s special mouthpiece to Gentile and Jewish nations; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, three more youths who were chosen for special training along with Daniel (their former and Jewish names were Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah). Other important persons are Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon in 605 B.C., Darius who succeeded Belshazzar as king, Cyrus, the Persian monarch, and Michael, the archan-gel who ministered to Daniel in chapter 10.
One of the key portraits of Christ in Daniel is that of the coming Messiah who will be cut off (a refer-ence to the cross) (9:25-26). However, Christ is also portrayed as the great stone who will crush the kingdoms of this world (2:34, 45), the son of man (7:13), and the Ancient of days (7:22). The vision in 10:5-9) is most likely a Christophany, an appearance of Christ (cf. Rev. 1:12-16).