Pseudepigrapha are literary works that were forged in the names of famous biblical characters like Adam, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Enoch, and many others. Most of them were written from the second century BC to the early centuries AD, and they are so obviously spurious that not even staunch Bible believers consider them authentic. They can, however, make important contributions to biblical studies by giving insights into the religious thinking of the times when many biblical books were written.
The writer of 1 Enoch, for example, called angels "watchers" so often that the first section of this book (chapters 1-36) has been called "The Book of Watchers." This term was used in reference to angels nowhere in the so-called canonical books of the Bible except in Daniel. In relating his dream of the tall tree that reached into heaven, Nebuchadnezzar told Daniel that he had also seen "a watcher and a holy one" come down from heaven and give orders to cut the tree down, chop off its branches, and scatter its leaves and fruit (4:13). This "holy one" concluded his orders to destroy the tree by declaring that his sentence on the fate of the tree had been rendered "by decree of the watchers" and ordered by "the holy ones" (v:17). In his interpretation of the dream, Daniel also referred to the angel as a "holy watcher" (v:23).
That 1 Enoch has been assigned a 2nd-century BC date, which has not been seriously disputed, is relevant to the debate on the dating of Daniel, because other pseudepigrapha dated at this same general time show that it was then customary to refer to angels as watchers. Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, dated in the late second century, used the same designation, i. e., watchers, as did 1 Enoch in referring to the "watchers before the flood," who had been charmed by women and filled with desire until they transformed themselves into human males and cohabited with the women (5:6). Jubilees, another 2nd-century BC work, narrated the same myth about "angels of the Lord, who were called Watchers," coming from heaven to engage in sexual relations with human women (4:15, 21-23). Jubilees 7:21-23; 8:3; and 10:5 also referred to angels as watchers, as did the "Testament of Naphtali" (3:5).
That Daniel was the only book in the canonical Bible to refer to angels by a name that was widely used in the 2nd century BC is certainly not conclusive evidence that Daniel also dated from this period, but it does add to the compelling cumulative effect of other evidence of a late authorship of Daniel.
John J. Collins, whom Everette Hatcher praises elsewhere in this issue of TSR as a critic whose commentary on Daniel set a standard by which all commentaries should be judged, dated the usage of "watchers" for angels significantly after the 6th-century BC.
Daniel 4 is the only passage in the Hebrew Bible where the noun 'iyr is commonly understood to refer to a heavenly being. The meaning is assumed by the juxtaposition with "holy one" and the statement that he came down from heaven....The "Watchers" are widely attested in Jewish literature of the Hellenistic and early Roman periods. The most famous attestation is in the "Book of the Watchers" (1 Enoch 1-36), where the term is used for the fallen angels....
The oldest nonbiblical attestations are probably those in the Enochic "Book of the Watchers," which is roughly contemporary with the tales in Daniel 1-6, dating from somewhere in the century before the Maccabean period. Attempts to identify the Watchers in earlier material are hitherto inconclusive... (pp. 224-225).
The fact that John J. Collins thinks that the use of "watcher" in Daniel dates it to the late centuries BC is certainly no conclusive evidence that Daniel was written at this time, but the facts that "watcher" was widely used at this time and that no conclusive identifications of the term have been made in earlier literature do make this a piece of important cumulative evidence in dating Daniel to the 2nd century BC.
One must also wonder why Hatcher, who holds Collins in such
high regard, would reject the criteria that led Collins to assign a
late date to the book of Daniel.
