Handout 5 - Chilton “on Dan. 7" - in Rabbi Jesus p.158-9 (Emphases mine GCS)

The visionary material in Daniel explores the cosmic battle between the "one like a person" and the angelic representatives of the great empires that had conquered Israel. It was written both as an apocalyptic prediction of the end of the world and as propaganda to promote the Jewish revolt launched in 167 B.C.E., which, to the surprise of everyone involved, actually succeeded. Daniel was written shortly after "the abomination of desolation" (Daniel 12:11), when the Seleucid king, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, ordered swine offered on the Temple altar (because roast pork was a favorite food of the god Zeus). Outraged Jews banded together to form an unstoppable guerrilla army, willing to go on suicide missions against a foe that greatly outnumbered them and whose equipment dwarfed their own. The revolt succeeded in 164 B.C.E., and the Maccabees came to power. The Temple was rededicated after the altar stones that the swine had defiled were hidden until a faithful prophet should arise to tell the king and high priest what to do with them (1 Maccabees 4:44-46).

In Daniel's cosmic battle, which mirrored the battles taking place on earth, the Seleucids are represented by the fourth and last beast, a ruthless creature, hideous beyond compare (cf Dan 7:19-20a): "And then I [Daniel] desired to ascertain about the fourth beast that was different from all the others, very dreadful, its teeth of iron and its nails of brass, devouring, smashing, and crushing what remained with its feet; And about its ten horns that were on its head and the other [horn] which arose and the three horns that fell before it."

These horns represent the various Seleucid kings and generals who vied for power within their corrupt empire. But Daniel's predictions have a particular target, the last horn which the text goes on to describe (Dan 7:20b-21): "And about the horn that had eyes and a mouth speaking great things, and an appearance bigger than its companions. And I saw that this horn made war with the holy ones and prevailed against them."

nt The book of Daniel was written just before the success of the Maccabees in restoring the worship of Yahweh in the Temple in 164 B.C.E. But the "Daniel" it refers to was a figure in the Babylonian court centuries before. One of the characteristic traits of what is called apocalyptic literature is that it is composed in the name of a great person from the past, so that his or her alleged predictions of history seem accurate, at least as concerns the time until the actual composition of the book.

Walter Wink in The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of Man p.51

“Under the pressure of the crisis (under Antiochus IV), the author of Daniel 7 presented to the world a new mutation in God-consciousness. It marked the revelation of a new archetype: humanity was seen to be moving into Godhead. ... Godhead is here undergoing a transformation toward the emergence of future possibility, rendered symbolically by the drawing of humanity toward the divine and its receiving dominion over the bestial empires”.

from HarperBiblDict

Daniel, the hero of the Book of Daniel, is represented as a Jew in the Babylonian exile who is skilled in the interpretation of dreams and is miraculously preserved in the lions’ den.

Daniel was already the name of a legendary wise man in Ezek 28:3 and was linked with Noah and Job (Ezek 14:14). This legendary figure is probably related to the Dnil of the Ugaritic Aqhat legend (from about 1500 BC). Dnil was a judge who defended the fatherless and the widow. The function of judge is suggested by the name Daniel [Heb.”my judge is God” or possibly “judge of God”] and appears again in the story of Susanna. The author of the biblical book probably took over the legendary name for his fictional hero...

It is difficult to disentangle the history of the text of Daniel, and the role of the Additions in it is only one of the series of thorny problems. Daniel seems to have grown by accretion, beginning with the stories of chaps 2-6. The Additions are only the final stage in that process...All of these passages seem to have been added to the Hebrew-Aramaic archetypes of the versions of Daniel in the LXX and Theodotion sometime between the composition of Daniel during the Maccabean revolt (167-164BC) and 100BC, the probable date of the LXX translation of Daniel...

In its final form the book of Daniel was intended to offer hope and consolation for the persecuted Jews. It shows no sympathy for the armed revolt of the Maccabees. Instead it advocates a stance of piety and acceptance of martyrdom...

Daniel is the only OT example of the apocalyptic genre.