It is generally accepted that Daniel originated as a collection of Aramaic court tales later expanded by the Hebrew revelations.[31] The court tales may have originally circulated independently, but the edited collection was probably composed in the third or early second century BC.[32] Chapter 1 was composed (in Aramaic) at this time as a brief introduction of to provide historical context, introduce the characters of the tales, and explain how Daniel and his friends came to Babylon.[33] The visions of chapters 7–12 were added and chapter 1 translated into Hebrew at the third stage when the final book was being drawn together.[33]