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“Conventional Bible chronology”?? Way back in 1910, the
Catholic Encyclopedia (“Job”), stated:
The author of the book is unknown, neither can the period in which it was written be exactly determined. . . . It is now universally and correctly held that the book is not earlier than the reign of Solomon [approximately 960-920 BC].
Protestant evangelical (“conservative”) scholar Gleason L. Archer, in his book,
A Survey of Old Testament Introduction (Chicago: Moody Press, 1964, gave his opinion:
Inasmuch as Job contains no references to historical events and reflects a non-Hebraic cultural background concerning which we possess little or no information, it is not easy to assign a probable date for the lifetime and career of Job. . . .
The last word of the book of Daniel
It is not news to students of the Bible that the book of Daniel was written in two ancient languages, Hebrew and Aramaic. Daniel starts the book in Hebrew but, beginning with Daniel 2:4, he shifts to Aramaic and continues in it until the end of chapter 7. Then, beginning with chapter 8, he resumes in Hebrew. However, when it comes to the very last word of the book, we discover something interesting. Daniel starts the last word in Hebrew but adds to it an Aramaic ending. It appears as if in the last word, he tries to connect the two languages employed in the book. Some scholars have argued that Daniel was probably tired and just by mistake connected the two languages, something easily done by people proficient in two or more languages. However, the big question remains: Could it be that Daniel intentionally added an Aramaic plural ending to a Hebrew word?