2014, Mike Parker http://bit.ly/ldsarc For personal use only. Not a Church publication.

Background on Daniel
Who was Daniel?
According to Daniel 1:17, Daniel and his
three friends were taken from Jerusalem to
Babylon when Nebuchadnezzar attacked
Judah. During the Jewish exile these young
men served in the palace as the kings
courtiers.
His name in Hebrew (daniyel,)
means my judge is God.
Daniel and his three friends all received new
Babylonian names (1:7). Daniel was
renamed Belteshazzar (guard his life), an
invocation for the Babylonian god Marduk
to protect the king.
The only other reference to Daniel in the
Old Testament is in Ezekiel, who mentions
him twiceonce in conjunction with Noah
and Job (Ezekiel 14:14) and once as an
example of wisdom (Ezekiel 28:3). There
has been some debate over whether Ezekiel
was referring to the Daniel of scripture or an
older legend of a wise and righteous king
Daniel who protected widows and orphans.
The Book and Its Authors
The first half of the book of Daniel (chs. 1
6) was written in the third person by
anonymous authors (except for portions of
ch. 4, which were purportedly written by
Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar). Three
stories depict Daniel as an interpreter of
dreams (chs. 2, 4, 5). In the others, God
protects Daniel and his friends when they
are faithful to his Law (chs. 1, 3, 6).
The second half of the book (chs. 712) was
written in the first person and ascribed to
Daniel. In this portion Daniel has a series of
four symbolic visions (chs. 7, 8, 9, 1012)
that are explained to him by angels.
The book of Daniel has many additions to
the text that are not usually printed in
Protestant Bibles. The first three were
written between the Old and New
Testament periods, and are included in the
books of the Apocrypha.
o The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of
the Three Young Men (66 verses inserted
between Daniel 3:23 and 3:24).
o Susanna (Daniel ch. 13).
o Bel and the Dragon (Daniel ch. 14).
o Among the Dead Sea Scrolls was found a
book (called 4QPsDan) that describes
Daniel reciting the history of the world
before the ministers of the king. It has
similarities to Daniel ch. 2.
o There are also several medieval
apocalypses attributed to Daniel, written
between the 7th and 9th centuries A.D.
Daniel and Ezra are the only Old Testament
books not written entirely in Hebrew: Daniel
2:4b7:28 is in Aramaic, the common
language spoken by Jews after the return
from their captivity in Babylon.
In the Septuagint and the Christian Old
Testament Daniel is placed with the Major
Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel). In the
Hebrew Bible Daniel is part of the Writings,
or Kethuvim (fourth from the end, before
Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles).
Historical Difficulties
There are numerous and significant historical
difficulties in Daniel. These errors provide
strong evidence that the book was not written in
the 6th century B.C. (when Daniel was living in
Babylon), but was instead written much later.
1:1. Nebuchadnezzar didnt capture
Jerusalem in the third year of the reign of
Jehoiakim (606 B.C.); he took it during the
reign of Jehoiachin, son of Jehoiakim (597
B.C.). See 2 Kings 24 and 2 Chronicles 36.
2:1. The dating here is inconsistent with 1:1.
5:12; 7:1; 8:1. Belshazzar was the son of
Nabonidus, not Nebuchadnezzar. He was in
charge of Babylon during his fathers
absence, but was never king himself.
(According to the Nabonidus Chronicle,
discovered in 1882, Nabonidus left Babylon
and spent several years in north Arabia. The
Prayer of Nabonidus, found among the
Dead Sea Scrolls, claims that he suffered an
inflammation that was healed by a Jewish
seer, which is likely the source of the story of
Nebuchadnezzars madness and exile.)
5:316:1; 11:1. No such person as Darius
the Mede is known to history. It was Cyrus
the Persian who overthrew Babylon in 539
B.C. There were three Persian kings named
Darius, the first of whom reigned 522486
B.C. and created 20 provinces overseen by
satraps (not 120).
9:1. Darius was not the son of Ahasuerus
(Xerxes I). In fact, the opposite is true:
Ahasuerus was the son of Darius, and
reigned after him (485465 B.C.). Neither of
them was of Median descent. (This verse is
probably an early attempt to deal with the
historical problem in 6:1.)
2014, Mike Parker http://bit.ly/ldsarc For personal use only. Not a Church publication.
Dating the Book of Daniel
Although some of stories in the book of Daniel
probably date to earlier centuries, it was
completed in the 2nd century B.C. The message
of the book, the imagery it employs, the dual
languages in which it was written, and its
historical mistakes all point to one time period:
167 B.C.
597586 B.C. In a series of sieges, Babylonian
king Nebuchadnezzar deported almost all the
residents of Judah. While in exile in Babylon,
the Jews began using Aramaic as their day-to-
day language and adopted the Babylonian
calendar.
539 B.C. The Persian king Cyrus overthrew the
Babylonian Empire. As a way of gaining favor
with nations that had been deported by the
Babylonians, he allowed all peoples in exile to
return to their homelands. Some Jews returned
to Jerusalem and began rebuilding the temple.
As a Persian province, Judah (Yehud Medinata)
enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy for
over 200 years.
332 B.C. Alexander III of Macedon (Alexander
the Great) overthrew the Persian Empire and
conquered the entire ancient Near East. The
province of Judah fell under Greek rule. Over
the next 300 years, Greek language and
scholarship became the norm among Jews.
323 B.C. Alexander died and his empire
disintegrated. Judah became part of the
kingdom of Egypt, ruled by the Greek dynasty
of the Ptolemies. Ptolemaic rule was mild:
Egypts Alexandria became the largest Jewish
city in the world, and the Greek Septuagint
translation of the Torah was completed in the
3rd century.
195 B.C. Following the Fifth Syrian War (202
195), Judah came under control of the Syrian-
Greek Seleucid Empire.
167 B.C. The Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV
Epiphanes attempted the complete
Hellenization of the Jews. His officers forced
Jews to eat pork and other unclean foods,
required them to worship Greek gods under
penalty of death, and erected an altar to Zeus in
the temple at Jerusalem. This sparked a Jewish
rebellion, which ended in the expulsion of the
Syrians and the re-consecration of the Temple
under the Maccabees.
The stories in the first half of Daniel encouraged
the Jews suffering under Antiochus IVs
persecution to worship the Lord and obey his
Law. These stories explained how the Lord
protected Daniel and his three friends when they
were faithful under similar circumstances.
The visions in the second half of Daniel
specifically prophesied against Antiochus IV,
who is the little horn that speaks arrogantly (7:8;
8:9), the prince that comes to destroy Jerusalem
and the temple (9:26), and the vile person who
works deceitfully and sets up an abominable
desecration in the temple (11:2139).
Structure of the book of Daniel
The book of Daniel can be outlined as follows:
1. Stories about Daniel (16).
Daniel and his three companions are
introduced and tested to see if they will eat
only food acceptable under the Law. (1).
Daniel is able to interpret the kings dream of
the statue and the stone cut out of the
mountain (2).
Daniels three companions are tested in the
fiery furnace (3).
Daniel interprets Nebuchadnezzars dream
of the tree and predicts the kings madness
(4).
Daniel interprets the writings on the wall (5).
Daniel in the lions den (6).
2. Daniels apocalyptic visions (712).
The vision of the four beasts and the Ancient
of Days (7).
The vision of the ram and the he-goat (8).
Daniel reinterprets Jeremiahs prophecy of
70 years (9; cf. Jeremiah 25:814).
The vision of the end of days (1012).
o Daniel is strengthened by the angel
Michael (10).
o Michael reveals events leading up to a
final conflict between the forces of good
and evil (11).
o The vision of the resurrection and
judgment; Michael tells when these things
will be (12).
o
Sources: The Anchor Bible Dictionary 1:66162; 2:1837;
Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible 31115;
The Jewish Study Bible 164065;
The New Oxford Annotated Bible 125377;
Wikipedia, History of ancient Israel and Judah.