I agree with Colonel Alves that the Apostle Paul had regenerated men specially in view when he used the expression "spirit, soul and body," in 1 Thess. v, 23. But we need not conclude from this that there is not a sense in which the threefold division does apply to all men. In fact, this brings us up to the point doubted by some speakers, whether the spirit in the unconverted can be considered dead, or dormant. I still think that both expressions are true; I have quoted Scripture in proof of both. The spirit is never non-existent, therefore the word dormant best expresses its condition in the unregenerate. The command to all such is "Awake, thou that sleepest." With regard to Mr. Theodore Robert's remark that "the spirit of Napoleon controlled multitudes of men for mischief," I certainly think that it was the soul which was so vigorous. It is a mighty power in the case of thousands of unconverted men, by whose example, influence, or eloquence, large numbers of men are continually moved to action good or bad. 66 Dr. Anderson-Berry has called attention to an important point, when he reminds us that our Lord was "troubled in spirit," and St. Paul was refreshed in spirit," with similar instances. With respect to this, we must remember that in spite of every attempt to classify our nature, its several parts are so interfused and blended that they act together, at any rate in the regenerate. Our Lord evidently had a human spirit in addition to the Divine Spirit by which He was filled. So the definition in the Athanasian creed, "of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting," is evidently inadequate. Some of Mr. Klein's remarks with regard to "the body with its life," appear to refer to the yuxỳ which is constantly translated life in the New Testament. Apart from this, the body can have neither wish nor instinct. I certainly cannot understand how the spirit of man can ever be omnipresent or omniscient. In a glorified condition it may be independent of time or space; but it cannot claim attributes which only belong to God. Should we not say that the spirit ought not to have freewill of its own, and that its desires ought to be, “Let Thy will be done"? So too, when Mr. Klein says, So too, when Mr. Klein says, "the spiritual influence must conquer in the long run," we quite believe that this will be the case with every true follower of Christ. With regard to another observation of Mr. Klein's, I have already intimated my agreement with Alford, that the soul is the ego, or the personality. But when dominated by the spirit, it ceases its wilfulness. I desire to return cordial thanks to those who have treated my observations with so much kindness and leniency. 632ND ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING, HELD IN COMMITTEE ROOM B, THE CENTRAL HALL, PROFESSOR T. G. PINCHES, LL.D., M.R.A.S., IN THE CHAIR. The Minutes of the previous meeting were read, confirmed and signed, and the Hon. Secretary announced the Election of the Rev. John Wick Bowman, M.A., D.D., as an Associate. PROF. PINCHES rose to explain that, owing to the unfortunate illness of Dr. St. Clair Tisdall, he had been asked to read the paper. He undertook the task with considerable diffidence, owing to the very special nature of the paper. THE BOOK OF DANIEL: SOME LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE REGARDING ITS DATE. By the Rev. W. ST. CLAIR TISDALL, D.D. THE Τοῖς τοι δικαίοις χὦ βραχὺς νικᾷ μέγαν. (Sophocles). HE question of the date of the composition of the Book of Daniel, as it at present exists in the Massoretic Text of the Old Testament, has long been under discussion. The Higher Critics have given their verdict regarding its genuineness, and they have, in their own opinion, decided its date within a very few years. To mention one of their latest pronouncements, the Peake Commentary on the Bible says: "No Old Testament Scholar of any repute now maintains that the Book was written by Daniel" (p. 323). This writer admits, however, that it is referred to in the so-called Sibylline Oracles (dating from about 140 B.C.), the "Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs" (109107 B.C.), and the First Book of Maccabees (circa 100 B.C.). Notwithstanding this, the Higher Critics in general have persuaded themselves that the Book of Daniel was written only a few years before the earliest of these works, viz., in 167-165 B.C., and yet within a little over a score of years had grown famous and gained credence far and wide, even among people speaking a language REV. W. ST. CLAIR TISDALL, D.D., ON THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 207 entirely different from the Semitic tongues in which it was composed. Even those critics who are willing to allow an earlier date are convinced that its origin cannot be put back farther than to a period considerably later than Alexander the Great's conquest of Palestine in 332 B.C. It is not our duty to state the arguments brought forward in support of this conclusion. They may be read in a multitude of books which deal with the subject. Our purpose in the present Paper is to consider only the question what light the language of the original documents, illustrated by others of ancient and known dates recently discovered, throws upon the matter. The late Professor Driver, in his well-known Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, and again in his little work on Daniel in the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, though admitting evidence from many other sources also, rightly lays great stress on the information to be gained as to the date of the Book from a careful study of its words in the original languages, Hebrew and Aramaic. New evidence has been brought forward since Dr. Driver wrote, which seems to me to necessitate an entire reconsideration of the subject. This is drawn largely from the facts learned from the Aramaic papyri discovered comparatively recently in Egypt, and especially in the ruins of some houses in the remains of ancient Syene (Assouan) and Elephantine. Do these new facts confirm the Critics' conclusions or confute them? In answering this question it will be well in the first place to hear Dr. Driver's own words, and then see whether they can any longer be maintained to be correct. Dr. Driver wrote in 1894 (I.L.O.T., pp. 467-476): "In face of the facts presented by the Book of Daniel, the opinion that it is the work of Daniel himself cannot be sustained. Internal evidence shews with a cogency that cannot be resisted that it must have been written not earlier than circa 300 B.C., and in Palestine; and it is at least probable that it was composed under the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes, B.C. 168 or 167." Dealing with the evidence of language alone, he proceeds to sum up his conclusions thus: "The Persian words presuppose a period after the Persian Empire had been well established: the Greek words demand, the Hebrew supports, and the Aramaic permits, a date after the conquest of Palestine by Alexander the Great (B.C. 332). With our present knowledge, this is as much as the language authorises us definitely to affirm; though ovμpwvía as the name of an instrument (considering the history of the term in Greek) would seem to point to a date somewhat advanced in the Greek period." Elsewhere he refers to two other Greek words, ψαλτήριον and κίθαρις, contained in Daniel as still further confirming his argument. He adds: "Whatever may be the case with κίθαρις, it is incredible that ψαλτήριον and ovμowvía can have reached Babylon circa 550 B.C." same Let us examine this latter point first, since Dr. Driver lays so much stress upon it. He is willing to give up xioapis, because, as is well known, Homer uses* it in Asia Minor (probably) long, perhaps many hundreds of years, before Daniel's time; and hence Dr. Driver admits that both the word (used in Dan. iii, 5; vii, 10, 15) and the thing may have been well known before the Macedonian Period in Palestine. To the ordinary mind it does not seem altogether impossible that, if one Greek musical instrument had become known in Babylonia before Daniel's time, two others should have been introduced along with it, especially as the names of other instruments mentioned in the connexion, whether themselves Greek (as was at one time affirmed by critics, though they now admit their Eastern origin) or not, were not long afterwards known in Greece. To insist, as Dr. Driver does, that these two names of musical instruments prove a date after the conquest of Palestine by Alexander the Great " for the composition of the Book of Daniel because they occur in it seems hardly justifiable. But if he is right, what are we to say to the occurrence of even more words of Greek in dated Aramaic papyri found in Egypt and belonging to a time considerably earlier than the Macedonian conquest of that country? Although the papyri from Assouan and Elephantine are all more or less fragmentary, yet in the small collection published in the original Aramaic by Arthur Ungnad in 1911, the total bulk of which is considerably less than that of the Aramaic part of Daniel, there are several Greek words. About three of these there is no room for doubt. These are the words: στατήρ, ἀρσενικόν, and Kov. About yet another word† there may be some doubt, though Levi, in his Chaldäisches Wörterbuch seems to be convinced of its Greek origin. These papyri date from 494 B.C.‡ to about the end of that century, and are therefore * Iliad III, 54; XIII, 731; Odys. I, 153; VIII, 248. |