One fact is, about Daniel the book, many of the current arguments against it beinwritten in the Babylonian captivity were put forth by Porphyry long ago -- not pointed out by 'modern Bible scholars' (who just took them over)
Porphyry wrote fifteen books AGAINST CHRISTIANITY
Porphyry (philosopher) - Wikipedia
At least according to the Word commentary, a Greek translation made the connection of events in 9:25 with the time of Antiochus more clear than it was in the text. So do allusions in 1 and 2 Mac. In Jewish usage, the book is part of the writings, not the prophets. I don't know what Porphyry wrote, but if he objected to Christian interpretation, he wouldn't have been the first to do so.
Part of the issue is understanding the purpose of the book. Even if it was written early, it was addressing Jews living during the time of Antiochus. This was a period when their faith was under attack, and there were all kinds of issues about how far it was appropriate to go in accommodating the world around them. I believe the author was using traditional stories that at least nominally addresses a previous crisis (though a few people have suggested that the first half is actually historical, and the visions are from later, based on that).
I'm concerned that seeing it as a prediction from hundreds of years before misses the point of the work, which is an author trying to help his contemporaries use their tradition to address contemporary problems. Here's a paragraph from the preface to the Word commentary:
"It has seemed worthwhile because Daniel thus needs rescuing from at least three kinds of would-be friends who are actually foes that imperil its being heard.
"One kind is those who preoccupy themselves with merely historical questions about the accuracy or otherwise of its presentation of sixth and second-century history, as if the solving of such questions constituted the interpretation of the book. Another kind is those who have turned Daniel into children’s stories (the young men in the fiery furnace/Daniel in the lion’s den), when the stories are of such deadly seriousness about problems facing adult believers living their lives in a strange land—like ourselves—that they almost require protecting from use in a children’s context because of the trivializing this leads to. A third kind is those who treat the visions as mere coded preview of events to unfold in the Middle East, threatening to deprive them of their power to speak to situations when people are not merely exiled in a strange land but faced with the total dissolution of faith and hope. If the commentary contributes to one or two readers of Daniel finding themselves in its stories and reflecting in the light of them on their own lives, or to their looking on past, present, and future in the light of its own visionary perspective on past, present, and future, I shall be happy. I should add, however, that it has been my experience with Daniel as with other books that an appreciation of its inherent significance and its particular meaningfulness for us emerges from close working with the text in all its detailed “irrelevance,” and I cannot promise that one hears the Scriptures speak without that close and prosaic work."
