Daniel - Introduction

Daniel

Introduction

Although Daniel is grouped with the major prophets, it is something of a unique book in the Old Testament. We could say that it is the Old Testament equivalent of Revelation in the New Testament, and there are many links between the two. 

The first half of the book is narrative, containing some well-loved stories. The second half is apocalyptic, consisting of dreams and visions. Daniel does look towards the very end, but also deals with specific events as well. Daniel names particular kingdoms, Revelation does not, which is perhaps a pointer to how we should interpret Revelation. Daniel is also written in two languages.It starts off in Hebrew from 1:1 to 2:4a, then it continues in Aramaic, reverting back to Hebrew after the end of chapter 7.

Historically the narrative covers events from 605 BC and Nebuchadnezzar to Cyrus in 537 BC. The majority of commentators think the book was written sometime in the second century BC and is largely fictional. As with Isaiah, one of the reasons is that they do not seem to think that God can foretell the future. I think God may differ on that point! There are other reasons as well, including linguistic reasons, and supposed historical inaccuracies. We need to be very careful about historical inaccuracies for the evidence for ancient historical events is often very limited, and there are a number of cases where the Bible has later proved to be right! With regard to Daniel, the commentary by Joyce Baldwin (see below) gives a useful analysis of why Daniel should not be rejected! So for a detailed argument for accepting Daniel as being written by Daniel see Baldwin (or equivalent source). Here is a summary of arguments for the authenticity of Daniel from my study Bible:

• The four empires are the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek and Roman. So even with a 2nd century BC writing, it is still looking forward a significant time period.

• Linguistic evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls argues for an earlier writing of Daniel.

• The prophetic nature of Daniel cannot be dismissed.

Anyway, let’s get to the important stuff! Daniel is living in an ungodly kingdom, having been carried off, along with his friends, into exile. What we see in the narrative sections is an example of how to live in an alien and ungodly kingdom. Daniel lived through about four rulers. So we get wisdom on how an individual, or group of individuals, can live Godly lives in such circumstances. The visions then give a grand overview of what is going on, and the nature of the spiritual battle. So we see what is happening at a very down-to-earth level, and what is going on in the “heavenly realms” (to use terminology from Ephesians. So we have a practical and a spiritual understanding, and the two go together.

Bibliography

Daniel - An Introduction and Commentary, Joyce Baldwin, TOTC, IVP (1978).