Page "Book of Daniel" Paragraph 31

E. C.

Lucas is more cautious in his assessment of linguistic arguments as well.

Evaluating Collins ' approach, he considers " the wide geographical spread from which the material comes and the implicit assumption that linguistic developments would have occurred uniformly throughout this area " a weakness and concludes, " The character of the Hebrew and Aramaic could support a date in the fifth or fourth century for the extant written form of the book, but does not demand a second-century date.

" He agrees with Collins that there are " clear differences " between Qumran Hebrew and the Hebrew of Daniel.