sign in sign up
<<
Home , Daniel (biblical figure), Job (biblical figure)

THE BOOK OF IN ITS CONTEXT

MICHAEL A. KNffiB

I. THE FORMATION OF THE The Book of Daniel in the canonical form known to us from the Hebrew represents the crystallisation in a particular location and at a quite precise point in time- or its immediate surroundings shortly before the rededication of the temple in 165 BCE-of the traditions concerning Daniel and his companions that were then in circulation. It appears from Dan 12:11-12 that the book that we possess was subject to revision very shortly after its completion, and it is in any case widely recognised that the book has a complex history of development, and in particular that the individual stories of which chapters 2-6 are composed belong in a different location-the eastern diaspora-and go back to the early Hellenistic or the Persian period. The fact that Daniel appears as the hero of the stories on which this collection is built remains something of an enigma in that there are no traditions outside of the Book of Daniel which provide a clue as to why he might have been made the hero of them. At best a connection has been suggested with the traditions preserved in Ezek 28:3 and 14: 14,20 concerning the Daniel who was famed for his wisdom and piety I-as if, somehow, he was regarded as a younger contemporary of . But the fact that in Ezek 14: 14, 20 Daniel is mentioned alongside and indicates that he belongs in the remote past,2 and a link has frequently been made with the tradition, recorded in Aqhat, concerning the pious chief Daniel, who is said to have "judged the cause of the widow, tried the case of the orphan."3 The exile Daniel is a very different figure and belongs in

I Cf., for example, J. J. Collins, Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993) 1-2. 2 Cf. W. Zimmerli, Ezechiel (2 vols., BKAT 13/1-2; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1969) 1.321; 2.670 [ET, Ezekiel: A Commentary on the Book of the Ezekiel (2 vols., Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979, 1983) 1.314-15; 2.79-80]. 3 Aqhat 17 col. v 7-8, 19 i 23-25; cf. 1. C. L. Gibson, Canaanite Myths and Legends (2nd ed., Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1978) 107, 114. THE BOOK OF DANIEL IN ITS CONTEXT 17 a very different context. It is in fact commonly accepted that the Daniel of the Book of Daniel is presented as a wise man of a mantic type, and that the stories about him and his three companions in chapters 2-6 are court tales which depict the activities and rivalries of courtiers in the service of the king. Of the four stories about Daniel himself, three exploit as a major element in the narrative the theme of Daniel's ability as a mantic, and it was no doubt because Daniel is presented in chapters 2- 6 as a mantic that it should have seemed natural that he himself should be made the recipient of divine revelations in the four narratives that follow in chapters 7-12. In an earlier study I have drawn attention to the importance of inner-biblical exegesis in the formation of -12, and I argued that this points to the essentially scholarly character of this materia1. 4 So far as Daniel 9-12 is concerned, the significance of inner-biblical exegesis has long been recognised, but here refere,:ce should parti• cularly be made to the discussion of these chapters by M. Fishbane, under the rubric "The Mantological Exegesis of Oracles," in his comprehensive treatment of inner-biblical exegesis entitled Biblical Interpretation in Ancient . 5 The presupposition of the manto• logical exegesis of oracles is that the meaning of the prophecy is unclear, and that it requires decoding or explanation in the same way that visions and omens also require explanation. The reason for this may be that the prophecy was regarded as failed or unfulfilled, or that it was thought to have relevance in any case to an age later than that of the original prophecy, and the effect of such exegesis was to reapply the original prophecy to a new situation. 6 The reinterpretation of Jer 25:9-12 (cf. 29:10) in Daniel 9 represents a very obvious example of this kind of mantological exegesis. But the reuse of earlier prophecy is also a prominent feature of Daniel 10-12, and although not all the

4 See Knibb, '''You are indeed wiser than Daniel': Reflections on the Character of the Book of Daniel," in A. S. van der Woude (ed.), The Book of Daniel in the Light of New Findings (BETL \06; Leuven: Leuven University Press and Peeters, 1993) 399-411. 5 See M. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (New York: , 1985) 441-524. Fishbane discusses the mantological exegesis of prophetic oracles as a second basic type of mantological exegesis alongside that of dreams, visions and omens. 6 For references and more details for what follows, see Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 479-95; Knibb, '''You are indeed wiser than Daniel,'" 404-1 \.