The language of the book [of Daniel]—part of which is Aramaic (2:4–7:28)—probably indicates a date of composition later than the Babylonian Exile (6th century BC). Numerous inaccuracies connected with the exilic period (no deportation occurred in 605 BC; Darius was a successor of Cyrus, not a predecessor; etc.) tend to confirm this judgment. Because its religious ideas do not belong to the 6th century BC, numerous scholars date Daniel in the first half of the 2nd century BC and relate the visions to the persecution of the Jews under Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175–164/163 BC).
–Encyclopedia Britannica
Gary: I find it interesting that a significant percentage of scholars believe that the Book of Daniel was not written by a Judean prince held captive in Babylon or Persia, as Jews and Christians have long believed, but by someone living in Jerusalem during the second century BCE. I wonder if Jesus knew the Book of Daniel was written by a fraud.
Pro golfer, Christian blogger and author, Kermit Zarley: More likely you’re the fraud, Gary. Modern scholars became persuaded by the Neoplatonic skeptical scholar Porphyry of the 3rd c. CE by his book Against the Christians in which he argues that Daniel was written in Maccabean era of the 2nd c. BCE mostly because he claimed that Daniel 11 was history after the fact about the 2nd-3rd c. wars between the Ptolemies and Seleucids, with Antiochus Epiphanes as the lead character to the end of the chapter. But I show in my next book that is all rubbish and that Daniel was indeed a 6th c. BCE doc. produced by the Judean Daniel, as some distinguished OT scholars still claim in recent times.
Gary: The majority of experts say you are wrong, Kermit. I’m sure you have spent a lot of time studying the subject, but you are not an expert. Trust majority expert opinion, folks. That is what is wrong with our culture today. Everyone thinks he or she is an expert on all issues.
Zarley: No, there have been excellent Old Testament scholars in modern times who believed the exile Daniel wrote the book of Daniel in the 6th c. BCE. Edward Earle Ellis was one. He was research prof. at SW Baptist Seminary Fort Worth. Besides, for those people who are true Christians and therefore believe the New Testament gospels are historically trustworthy, as I do, Jesus made it perfectly clear that he believed this, that Daniel wrote the book of Daniel. As for my qualifications, my works speak for themselves.
Gary: Imagine if historians found the following document:
“In the seventeen hundredth, seventy seventh year of our Lord, whilst traveling from Boston to Philadelphia, I did come upon a large company of the enemy. I therefore made haste by another route. I was eventually compelled to pass a number of days in the north of New Jersey, hanging out until the troops had moved on.”
Should we believe that the author of this document lived in the late eighteenth century? No! Why? Because he uses language that no one in the late eighteenth century used. He uses language that someone in the late twentieth, early twenty-first century would use—“hanging out”. This is how experts are able to date texts. The Book of Daniel uses language that was not used until several centuries after the Babylonian Captivity. There is no bias. There is EVIDENCE.
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End of post.
Escaping Christian Fundamentalism 
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