It was information that was privately revealed to the elect few who had been judged worthy by God. Access to a mystery was gained by contact with those who already possessed it. In other words, a mystery was esoteric knowledge. It is because knowledge of a mystery depends on its having been revealed by a divine agent, that we now describe a text that makes use of this device as an apocalypse, and this literary genre as apocalypticism. This is a Greek word composed of apo, out of, and kalupto, to cover, to hide. What has been revealed has been taken out of hiding, what covered it has been removed. The author of an apocalypse has a revelation of divine origin for his contemporaries. To give his revelation ultimate validity, he introduces it with confirming authority by “predicting” events that have already taken place.
Also to be considered in terms of the formal characteristics of the book, is the language and identity of the pseudonymous author. Daniel contains two kinds of materials. One section consists of stories about Daniel and his companions in the courts of pagan kings, told by an anonymous narrator in the third person (chapters 1 – 6). Another contains visions which Daniel relates in the first person (chapters 7 – 12). Besides, the book was written in two languages:1:1 – 2:4a, and 8 – 12 in Hebrew, and 2:4b – 7:28 in Aramaic; but the languages do not match the division of the material according to their contents. Besides, the Greek translation of Daniel in the Septuagint has a prayer of Azariah (Abednego) and the Song of the Three Young Men added to chapter 3. The stories of Susana and of Bel and the Dragon, not found in the Hebrew canon of Scripture, also appear as separate units in the Septuagint. These additions to the Hebrew-Aramaic contents suggest that the text was edited putting together separate pieces, a process that continued for some time and gave rise to different recencsions of the text. That the compilation of existing materials in different languages was done by editors is also suggested by the presence of different visions with idiosyncratic details dealing with the same historical period. Most likely, by this means the editors indicated that by itself one telling of a vision does not exhaust the message being conveyed. Even multiple allegorical versions of an event may not quite capture its significance. Thus, the publication of different versions of apocalyptic visions was not intended to give information. The visions were meant to spark the imagination, and to awake desires that would bring about specific behaviors. The different descriptions of the same event open up horizons for understanding. This characteristic of the text has allowed readers of Daniel in later times to favor a particular version of the story in order to concoct scenarios that fit their own historical circumstances and thus identify their own time as the time of the end.
It is generally agreed that the “author” of Daniel were scribes in Jerusalem who edited preexisting materials. Their handling of the text also gave the text thematic unity. Their work, however, also makes it difficult to take at face value the details of the court tales. Besides the length of time involved, covering the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Darius the Mede and Cyrus, there are no historical records of a Darius the Mede. The Persian Darius who succeeded Cyrus was not from Media. Fundamentalists who have attempted to find Darius the Mede in the historical record have relied on anachronistic arguments from silence that prove nothing. Accounts of past events in antiquity were not primarily concerned to establish what had actually taken place. They tell the past with a specific agenda in mind, with either moral or political implications. Daniel is no exception. This text is not a historical but a theological work.
Reading Daniel Theologically
The court tales
While Jerusalem scribes, obviously, had significant historical records covering events from the Exile to the Maccabean War, the book’s agenda is what determines the twists in the story. Already in the third century C.E., Porphyry noticed that while the author “predicted” the course of events from the time of the Exile to the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, with recognizable historical correspondences, he could not do so beyond that time. Modern scholarship has found Porphyry’s observation valid and has determined, on the basis of it and other factors, that the book was written at the time of the Maccabean War, 167-64 B.C.E. Recognizing this fact helps to understand why the book was published in two languages. Facing the trials brought about by Antiochus’ suppression of Jewish customs and religion, and his imposition of Greek culture and religion, the author thought appropriate to adapt the court tales from the Babylonian exile, available in Aramaic oral traditions, as models of what faithful Jews were expected to do under the present circumstances.
By means of editorial devices the author/editors adapted the traditional tales and used them to offer advice to the readers of their apocalyptic visions. The vaticinia ex eventu were written using information found in their chronicles. Chapters 4 and 5 present parallel stories of pagan kings who exalted themselves. Nebuchadnezzar is depicted in a dream as a tree “whose top reached to heaven, and was visible to the ends of the whole earth … the beasts of the field found shade under it, and the birds of the air dwelt in its branches, and all flesh was fed from it” (Dan. 4:11-12). That all humanity could be fed from one tree is, to say the least, an exaggeration serving a purpose. Sometime later Nebuchadnezzar bragged, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” (Dan. 4:30). Apparently, he had not taken seriously what Daniel had told him as the meaning of his dream of the giant tree, “the Most High rules the kingdom of men, and gives it to whom he will” (Dan. 4:25).
Belshazzar, for his part, took the vessels of silver and gold which had been carried to Babylon as booty after the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple and used them so that “the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines might drink from them … They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood and stone” (Dan. 5:2, 4). They used sacred objects for profane drunkenness and idolatry. In these stories, a dream or a mysterious writing on the wall needs to be interpreted, and only Daniel, with the help of his God, is able to reveal the meaning of the dream or what was written on a wall by a non-human hand. The judgment of God on the hubris of these two kings took place swiftly. Nebuchadnezzar was reduced to live like a beasts of the field, while the words of his boast “were still in the king’s mouth” (Dan. 4:31). The other story tells that “that very night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was slain” (Dan. 5:30). Both stories have something important to say to the readers of Daniel about the author’s contemporary king, who is profaning “the temple and fortress, and [is taking] away the continual burnt offering. And [is setting] up the abomination that makes desolate” (Dan. 11:31): The hubris of Antiochus will bring upon him also a swift divine judgment. In fact Daniel predicts that Antiochus “shall come to his end, with none to help him” (Dan. 11:45). This actual prediction did not take place swiftly, however.
The stories in chapters 3 and 6 constitute another couplet. Both tell about Jews who disobeyed a royal decree, were punished by being placed where it is impossible to survive, but came out of those places having suffered no harm. On account of this marvelous demonstration of God’s power to rescue from places where no other god could possibly rescue anyone, those who had accused the Jews before the king are placed into those places, and the efficacy of their power to end human life is amply demonstrated. In chapter 3, envious of the fact that Nebuchadnezzar had appointed Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego over the affairs of the province of Babylon, “certain Chaldeans came forward and maliciously accused the Jews” of not paying heed to the king. They said, “they do not serve your gods or worship the golden image which you have set up” (Dan. 3:8, 12). Confronted by the king and asked whether the accusation was true, the three declared their confidence that their God would deliver them. They actually go further and affirm that if their God should decide not to deliver them, they would rather be martyrs than serve the gods of the king, or worship the image he has set up (Dan. 3:13-16). This, obviously, provides direct instructions to those facing martyrdom at the hands of Antiochus. Nebuchadnezzar’s challenge, “who is the god that will deliver you out of my hands?” (Dan. 3:15), is answered by no other than himself confessing, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abedenego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants, who trusted in him, and set at naught the king’s command, and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God” (Dan. 3:28). It is difficult to imagine that King
