In this 5 minute recording I try to introduce Daniel, a book that has been placed among the prophets in Christian Bibles (following the tradition of the old Greek translation) but is not a “prophet” in the Hebrew Bible. The book contains two sorts of material, stories about Daniel, like this one “Daniel in the Lions’ Den”, and records of Daniel’s visions, which seem to speak in a half hidden coded language. The visions are rather like Revelation in the New Testament, and scholars class both as “apocalyptic” (from the Greek for uncover or reveal what is hidden). The stories are most like the stories of Joseph and Esther.
I also suggest that reading chapter 6 (Daniel in the Lions’ Den) with chapter 3 (The burning firey furnace) adds an important link between Daniel and the Christian message in the New Testament.
Interesting Tim. I seem to vaguely recall in a book called Eden to Rome, by a triumverate of South African Scholars a kind of structural analysis of this book that pointed to the // stories of Daniel and faithfulness and the people of God. Apocalyptic literature is so badly misused that serious treatment is difficult. Well you avoided the numerilogical predictions that were so dear to my mother’s heart ! (Thank God)
Yes, numerology and the like are very appealing the trouble is (I think) that Jesus tells us that the major goal of such systems (knowing the time of the end) is impossible for humans. Although it is often not so much that that people find attractive it is the sense that history is running on a divinely planned timetable.
In a sense that IS close to what the visionary sections of Daniel are about, except in both Daniel and Revelation (and even more in the shorter apocalyptic fragments in other books) I also get a sense of a God who somehow responds to human (and diabolic) challenge and brings a good end. More like Joseph’s understanding in Gen 50:20.
Maybe for a challenge when I finish the E100 I’ll have to do a few 5 min slots on apocalyptic – this one was cheating because it was a straight narrative 😉