Daniel - Book Report 4

W.
Sibley Towner, Daniel, Interpretation (Atlanta: Knox, 1984), 1-180
members of a tiny persecuted minority struggling to survive in the face of an imperial policy
committed to eliminating all non-conforming sects and to destroying the religion of Judaism
itself. Most of us have not experienced the burning of our sacred books, the proscription of our
regular worship customs; most of us have not had the food we most detest forced down our
throats nor have we wept to see the corpses of our newly circumcised male infants hanging on
the necks of their dead mothers. According to I Maccabees 1:41–64 and II Maccabees 6–7, such
were the circumstances in which the people who wrote and first read the Book of Daniel lived.1
oppressed as they were, the greatest source of hope lay not in God’s mercy, but in his wrath2
It is the contention of this commentary that the Book of Daniel is of theological significance to
all contemporary Jews and Christians, even to those vast masses whose personal circumstances
do not replicate the circumstances in which the Book of Daniel was written. This is not simply a
tract for hard times! One does not have to be an underground freedom-fighter, a slave, or a
survivor to understand the appeal of this book. This is a tract for relatively good times as well,
though we take a risk in reading from our perspective of affluence—the message handed down to
us may be our indictment!3
ome modern readers of Daniel, particularly persons in the ranks of American Protestantism,
agree that Daniel is a book of signal significance but do so on the completely different premise
that the book is in fact a timetable for our future. For such persons, its value is related to its
ability to help us pinpoint our location on that timetable and to say how close we are to history’s
destination, namely, God’s triumphant final intervention in the affairs of humankind4
ome modern readers of Daniel, particularly persons in the ranks of American Protestantism,
agree that Daniel is a book of signal significance but do so on the completely different premise
that the book is in fact a timetable for our future. For such persons, its value is related to its
1
Towner, W. S. (1984). Daniel. Interpretation, a Bible commentary for teaching and preaching (2).
Atlanta: John Knox Press.
2
3
4
ability to help us pinpoint our location on that timetable and to say how close we are to history’s
destination, namely, God’s triumphant final intervention in the affairs of humankind5
The Book of Daniel does not map the future. The Book of Daniel does render for us a picture of
the agent of our coming redemption at work. In a narrative way, it makes certain profound
religious truth claims about the future and thus evokes in us faith in God’s success. And it is
precisely that faith that makes this book so valuable to us.6
Daniel is a non-historical personage modeled by the author(s) of the book after the ancient
worthy who is linked in Ezekiel 14:14, 20 with righteous Noah and righteous Job, and who is
described (Ezek. 28:3) as a wise man. As is the case with other Jewish apocalyptic writings, an
ancient saint and sage has been selected to be the bearer of a message to an audience living in a
totally different era.7
Lieterary structure, date, and language:
Book of Daniel contains the writings of several authors working at different times.8 divergent
content of the two halves of the book requires this thesis, as does the fact that the book is written
in two languages9
Daniel 1–6 contain six hero stories told about Daniel and his friends in the novelette style
favored by late Israelite wisdom circles. By their vocabulary and their knowledge of cultural
realia, these stories betray considerable exposure to both Persian and Hellenistic influences. In
their essentials these tales are assumed to have come down from the third century B.C. or even
somewhat earlier. The three apocalypses and the prayer-vision of Daniel 7–12, on the other hand,
can be dated rather more precisely to the first third of the second century B.C. (see the discussion
5
6
7
8
9
of Dan. 11:2–39 and 12:5–13). They are visionary accounts narrated by Daniel himself, and they
share the sectarian outlook of other apocalyptic writings of the last two centuries B.C. 10
To account for the bilingual character of the book, the entire book (except for the “interpolated”
prayer 9:4b–20) was originally written in the lingua franca of that age, Aramaic; and that 1:1–
2:4a plus chapters 8–12 were later translated into Hebrew perhaps in the interest of rendering the
book more acceptable to a community whose estimate of the sacredness of the Hebrew tongue
waxed even as the vernacular use of it waned 11
identity of the authors
The authors of the book were people who acted and thought like its heroes12
10
11
12

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Daniel - Book Report 4

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Sibley Towner, Daniel, Interpretation (Atlanta: Knox, 1984), 1-180

Lieterary structure, date, and language:

identity of the authors

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