DATE AND PLACE.
DATE.
Almost everything, excepting its absence from the original, points to
the Song having been from the beginning a part of the LXX text of
Daniel. Its date therefore in this case would be the date of that text.
The way in which it is worked into the canonical Daniel narrative
suggests that, if there be any variation as to date in the three
additions, this is seemingly the earliest.
That the LXX translator invented this enlargement out of his own genius
seems highly improbable; nor, were it not for its absence from the
original Daniel, few would have doubted that he obtained the whole of
his material from the same quarter. In such case our 'apocryphon' would
obviously ante-date the LXX text.
It is not unlikely that the Alexandrian translator worked up certain
traditions (J.M. Fuller, S.P.C.K. _Comm._; see also Bevan, _Dan._ Camb.
1892, p. 45), or, if Gaster's discovery be what he thinks, written
narratives. What sources, however, were used in preparing its LXX Greek
form can only be conjectured, and that on very slender data.
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