According to Luke. That story says that the rich man died and was buried; “and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus in his bosom.” He then pleaded for Abraham to send Lazarus with some water to mitigate the anguish in which he found himself (Lk. 16:19-24). In Revelation, when the Lamb opens the fifth seal, John the Prophet sees “the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne.” They cried out to God asking how much longer they are going to have to wait for the judgment that will avenge their blood (Rev. 6:9-10). These scenarios could only be conceived after the notion of an independent living soul entered the apocalyptic imagination in the Book of the Watchers. Besides, Enoch’s tour of the universe in this book provided a proto-apocalyptic model for future descriptions of journeys to the frontiers of the heavens. The tour of the universe serves to prove that God is in complete control of what takes place in the world and that, even if the spirits of the Giants are bringing havoc among women and men at the moment, those who introduced evil in the world are now in prison and all evil doers, together with the Watchers and the Giants, will be annihilated at the final judgment. The righteous are thereby assured that they will be receiving their reward. Certainty that God is in control is what gives hope.
This survey of Ezekiel, Zechariah and the Book of the Watchers in First Enoch reveals how different themes and concepts, both of the nature and identity of human beings and of the origin and agents of evil in God’s world, mark the transition from prophetic to apocalyptic biblical literature. While still working within the prophetic understanding of the God of history, these texts move in different directions as they address different historical circumstances. The widening of the horizon within which the Jews lived and the necessity to keep their faith in the promises of God forced them to seek new means for the expression of their faith. In this way these books provided the colors used by the authors of apocalypses with which to paint a relevant picture of the God of creation. The books here reviewed, however, did not quite reach the apocalyptic worldview of God and his world. They reveal that, as the Jews experienced life in a world full of confusing forces that brought about doubts and sometimes despair, they sought new ways to express their faith in the power and justice of the God they worshiped. In the process, they came up with a new conception of the world in which they lived.
Daniel
The prophet Ezekiel refers to Daniel as a most righteous and wise man. He was known as a paragon of righteousness who, if God were to punish Israel for her sins, though he was quite righteous would not be able to save any other member of his family. He would be able to save only himself. This illustration is used by Ezekiel to establish the significance of the change from a corporate, tribal to an individual, personal identity (Ez. 14:14). This legendary ancient worthy, listed by Ezekiel in the company of legendary Noah and Job, was not only remembered for his righteousness but also for his wisdom. Thus, in his taunt of the King of Tyre, Ezekiel sarcastically quotes the king claiming to be “wiser than Daniel” (Ez. 28:3). Other ancient texts from the neighboring nations also know a Dnil, or Danel, who is remembered for his extraordinary wisdom, particularly texts from the XIV century B.C.E. found at Ugarit. Whether the author of Daniel is telling stories that had come to him about a Daniel who went to Babylon as an exile from Judea, or is giving the legendary Daniel a more recent Babylonian setting, cannot be determined.
What is clear is that the court tales describe Daniel as a man with “learning and skill in all letters and wisdom … and understanding in all visions and dreams” (Dan. 1:17). King Nebuchadnezzar appointed him “chief of the magicians, because I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in you and that no mystery is difficult for you” (Dan. 4:9, 18). King Belshazzar’s wife tells him that Daniel is “a man in whom is the spirit of the holy gods” and “light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, are found in him,” and that “King Nebuchadnezzar, your father, made him chief of the magicians, enchanters, Chaldeans, and astrologers, because an excellent spirit, knowledge, and understanding to interpret dreams, explain riddles, and solve problems were found in this Daniel” (Dan. 5:11-12). In line with these characterizations, the ultimate accolade is given by the angel sent to give Daniel an explanation for the delay of Jeremiah’s prophecy that after seventy years Israel’s fortunes would be restored (Dan. 9:2). He tells Daniel, “O Daniel, I have come out to give you wisdom and understanding … to tell it to you, for you are greatly beloved” (Dan. 9:23). That he is “greatly beloved” by God is repeated twice by the angel (Dan. 10:11, 19). Then. when presidents and satraps, out of envy, seek for a legitimate accusation against him “they could find no ground for complaint or any fault, because he was faithful, and no error or fault was found in him” (Dan. 6:4). They, therefore, set up a trap as a means to accuse him of disloyalty to the king and send him to the den of lions. When Darius, after having anxiously spent the night unable to sleep, in the early morning calls on Daniel in the lion’s den, he answers, “My God sent his angel to shut the lion’s mouths, and they have not hurt me, because I was found blameless before him, and also before you, O king” (Dan. 6:22). These descriptions and this claim would be considered gratuitously self-serving in the writings of any author. They can only be taken for what they are when one understands that they were made by another person who is trying to establish his own credentials through Daniel’s reputation. All indications point out that Daniel was written pseudonymously.
Like in other pseudonymous texts, e.g. First Enoch, Baruch and Ezra, in Daniel are found also the usual devices used by authors impersonating a famous ancestor. Prominent among them is the accounting of past history as prediction, that is vaticinia ex eventu. In every case the accuracy of their “predictions” comes to an end at the time when the author is writing. Whenever the author writes about events in his actual future the descriptions are nebulous, and in many cases prove not to be what actually happened. Another characteristic is the need for the visionary to seal the vision because it does not concern his own times. It has to do with what will happen much later, at the time of the end, that is, at the time when the actual author is writing. Thus, the interpreting angel tells Daniel, “Seal up the vision, for it pertains to many days hence” (Dan. 8:26), or that the vision tells “what will befall your people in the latter days” (Dan. 10:14). The author, of course, thinks that those days have arrived. “Predicting” ominous events of the recent past, the angel warns Daniel, “the end is not yet at the time appointed” (Dan. 11:27). This means that the author is writing about a present that is just short of the time of the end for the benefit of his contemporaries. Thus, the past history presented as what Daniel “predicted” would happen between his time in Babylon, around 580-537 B.C.E., and the author’s actual time in Jerusalem, around 167-164 B.C.E., serves to guarantee the authority of the information that the author presents as the solution to the crisis being experienced by his contemporaries.
Another device in common use is to have the ancient worthy confess that when he received the vision, or the angel’s interpretation of it, he was troubled and confused. In the case of Daniel, after the angel had interpreted the vision for him, he confessed, “I, Daniel, was overcome and lay sick for some days, then I rose and went about the king’s business; but I was appalled by the vision and did not understand it” (Dan. 8:27). After the angel “swore by him who lives for ever” that the holy people would be persecuted only “for a time, two times and half a time” and then Michael would arise to put an end to their suffering and reward them with resurrection, Daniel says, “I heard, but I did not understand” (Dan. 12:8). In another occasion, he says, “As for me, Daniel, my thoughts greatly alarmed me, and my color changed; but I kept the matter in my mind” (Dan. 7:28). In other words, full understanding of the vision will be possible at the time of the end, that is to say the author’s time. Both the sealing of the vision, and the lack of its understanding when received “by Daniel in Babylon,” only serves to explain why the “prediction” was not known until now, the author’s time.
Further evidence that the book offers vaticinia ex eventu is the designation of the dreams or visions as mysteries (Dan. 2:19, 22, 27, 29, 47). As pointed out earlier, the way this word was meant in antiquity is not the way in which it is used in modern times. In antiquity a mystery was discrete information not available to the public at large. It was, in fact, not available on the basis of human
