Page "Book of Daniel" Paragraph 4

Critics of Daniel, at least since the third century works of Porphyry view the Book of Daniel as a pseudepigraph dated around 165 BCE that concerns itself primarily with the Maccabean era and the reign of the Seleucid king Antiochus Epiphanes.

Those who share this view typically adhere to the Maccabean thesis when analyzing the Book of Daniel.

The stories of chapters 1-6 are considered to be a literary genre of legends that are older than the visions of chapters 7-12.

The visions in the latter half of Daniel are theorized to be written by an anonymous author in the Maccabean era, who assembled the legends with the visions as one book, in the 2nd century BCE.

According to this view, it is not considered to be read as a prophecy of western political history or of an eschatological future.

Rather, the critical focus is on the witness to the religiosity of the Maccabean time period.