The first eight chapters of our book of Zechariah strike the keynote of peace, and refer to the rebuilding of the temple (520 to 516 B.C.) as a contemporary event; while the remaining chapters presuppose war and conflict, and say nothing of the reconstruction of the temple. These considerations, and the fact that Israel's war with Greece is mentioned (Zech. 9:13), lead scholars to date Zechariah, chapters 9 to 14, at approximately 300 B.C., when the Jews were opposing the armies of Alexander the Great.
The prophet Jonah lived about 780 B.C, during the reign of Jeroboam II, king of Israel (II Kings 14:23-25), but scholars contend that our book of Jonah, which is written in a late style of Hebrew, was composed about Jonah by an anonymous author around 300 B.C. Some hold the prophet's deliverance from the "great fish" (Jonah 1:17) to be symbolic of Israel's deliverance from Babylon, since other Biblical writers employ a similar metaphor (see Isa. 27:1; Jer. 51:34, 44). Chapters 3 and 4 tell of Jonah's preaching to the Ninevites, and its results. He warned the men of Nineveh that within forty days their city would be destroyed (Jonah 3:4), but their swift exhibition of humility, penitence, and reformation was as swiftly followed by divine pardon (verse 10). This unexpected reversal of his message of doom angered the prophet (4:1), but he was reminded of his eagerness to preserve the life of a gourd which gave him shade without any tending on his part (4:6); this being so, why should not God preserve the Ninevites, who, though ignorant and even pagan, had shown sincere repentance? (4:10f.) The anonymous author of the book bore this message of kindly tolerance and compassion to the Jews, who, in his day, were fettered by a rigid nationalism. Indeed, the book has been described as "perhaps the most Christlike portion of the Old Testament" (Gordon: "Prophets of the Old Testament," p. 348).
The book of Daniel, like that of Jonah, is felt by scholars to have been published long after the period when its chief character lived. Daniel himself flourished in Babylonia during the sixth century B.C. (cf. Ezek. 28:3; 14:14, 20); but the style of the book, and the fact that it appeared too late to be placed by the Jews among their prophetic writings —though they included it in their Bible—show that it dates, at least in its present form, from the second century B.C, when the Hebrews were being bitterly persecuted by the Greeks, who sought to destroy their religion, as told in the Apocrypha (II Maccabees 4:11, 13; 5:11-13). To encourage his harassed countrymen, the unknown writer of our book of Daniel recorded the signal deliverances which, in an earlier age, had come to Daniel and his friends in similar trying circumstances (Dan. 6:16-23; 3:26, etc.). The book was presumably based upon written records or traditions dating from Daniel's own day. It also predicts the overthrow of those who sought to suppress true religion, while its concept of a universal, eternal kingdom of God (cf. Dan. 7:14, 27), and its stress upon the practice and efficacy of prayer (2:18f; 6:10; 9: 1ff.), anticipated the teachings of the New Testament.
