Daniel (biblical character)
Daniel (Hebrew: דָּנִיּאֵל; Dāniyyêl; Syriac: ɕɢɛɐɐɝ, Daniyel; Arabic: دانيال; Danyal; Persian: دانيال, Dâniyal, Greek: Δανιήλ, Daniēl; Latin Daniel) is a character from the Bible, considered the author and main protagonist of the Book of Daniel, which is presented as his autobiography, followed by some prophetic visions of an apocalyptic nature.
In Judaism Daniel is considered the author of the homonymous book, which is part of the Writings, or Ketuvim, (the Hebrew Bible is made up of three sections, namely: Torah, Prophets and writings), but not a prophet. However, eight copies of the book found among the Dead Sea Scrolls and additional accounts in the Greek text are a testimonial to Daniel's popularity in Second Temple times.
Christians, on the other hand, include him among the major prophets of the Old Testament. In the Catholic, Orthodox and other Eastern Churches he is also revered as a saint.
The current consensus among historians, accepted by various denominational authors, is that Daniel is a legendary character, under whose name it was written, in the 17th century II a. C., an apocalyptic book that alluded to the reign of the Hellenistic monarch, Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
The name Daniel
Daniel is a Hebrew name consisting of two parts: the first segment comes from the verb דין (din) 'to judge', 'contend'; or 'argue and the final portion is אל ('El), 'God', 'divinity'. The particle י (i) has been interpreted either as a hiriq, denoting ownership, or as a first-person possessive yod (as in modern Hebrew). both Daniel is usually translated as 'God is my Judge' or 'Judgment of God'. The Judaica Encyclopedia interprets it, in the light of Gen 30,6, as "God is the defender of my rights".
Life of Daniel
The only references to Daniel are found in the biblical book that bears his name, which can be complemented with the data provided by Flavio Josefo, whose sources are unknown. According to this author, Daniel belonged to a noble family from the Kingdom of Judah, perhaps related to royalty.
Training
Nebuchadnezzar II ordered to choose a group of young Hebrews for his service, having to be previously educated in the traditions of the scribes. The chosen ones were Daniel and three young men from the same tribe: Ananias, Misael and Azarías who were entrusted to the care of Ashpenaz, chief of the eunuchs.
The young people were introduced to the Mesopotamian culture, learning its language, its writing and its literary tradition, which is why they received names in the late Akkadian language; the biblical text transcribes them as Beltsasar or Baltasar (Balâtsu-usur, ' Protect his life' or Bēl-šarra-uṣṣur, & #39;Bel, protect the king'), for Daniel, and Sadrac, Mesac and Abednego, for the other three young people respectively. They were housed in the royal palace, today identified with the archaeological zone of Kasr, on the western bank of the Euphrates.
Jewish tradition holds that these young men were made eunuchs.
Daniel and his companions, despite residing at court, maintained their kosher eating practices revealing, always according to the story in his book, that this regime made them healthier than the other young people who They lived in the palace. After a three-year training, Daniel and his three companions were presented before Nebuchadnezzar who, the text says: & # 34; found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in his kingdom & # 34; 3. 4;.
In the court of Babylon
In the second year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, the monarch had a dream that left him deeply distressed, for which he summoned his astrologers and experts in divinatory arts, and demanded that they interpret it; To make sure that they would not deceive him when interpreting his dream, he put them to the test by explaining that there was a great difficulty: he told them that he had forgotten his own dream. Given the lack of satisfactory response from his wise men, the king became irritated and ordered them to be executed. Daniel, who had not been present in that episode, was also arrested but, upon learning about what had happened, he spoke with Arioc, head of the guard, and requested a period of time to be able to respond to the sovereign. The request was granted. Meanwhile, Daniel and his companions prayed to Yahveh asking him to reveal the mystery to them.
That night, in a vision, the king's dream was revealed to Daniel and, the next day, the prophet appeared in court subsequently providing the account of Nebuchadnezzar's dream as well as its corresponding interpretation. This fact it marked the recognition of Daniel, who was subsequently appointed governor of the province of Babylon and chief of wise men and experts. Similarly, the three young Jews were given important posts in the imperial administration.
Daniel remained at the royal court throughout Nebuchadnezzar's reign and remained attached to it when Belshazzar succeeded to the throne. The book of Daniel omits the existence of Evilmerodach, Neriglissar, Labashi-Marduk, and Nabonidus, considering Belshazzar as to have been the son of Nebuchadnezzar. Some authors postulate that the term son is not used literally, but in the sense of descendant.
In all those years the stories mention the episode of the golden idol, in which the three young men were thrown into a fiery furnace, and another that, presented as a testimony of the king himself, narrates the transformation of Nebuchadnezzar into a beast.
Baltasar's Banquet
Chapter 5 of the Book of Daniel tells of the episode known as Baltasar's banquet (or Belshazzar). On that occasion the sovereign co-regent of Babylon —since the first monarch was his father Nabonidus— was celebrating a feast in the company of his nobles when he had the idea of drinking from the sacred vessels stolen from the Temple of Jerusalem. Immediately a mysterious writing appeared on the wall, traced by a spectral hand, which none of the wise men was able to interpret. Called Daniel, at the suggestion of the queen who remembered his performance from the past, he censured the king and, without accepting his promises of gifts, deciphered the writing. The text announced, in Aramaic, the fall of Babylon into the hands of the Persians.
Baltasar kept his promise and made Daniel third lord of the kingdom, but that same night the city was taken and the king was killed.
In the lions' den
According to what is narrated in the book of Daniel, after the fall of Babylon Belshazzar's successor was Darius the Mede, a character unknown by any other historical source apart from the biblical book.
Under the reign of this sovereign, a plot by the satraps against Daniel took place, which led to his confinement in the den of lions; This intrigue took advantage of the protagonist's fidelity to God, since a capricious edict suggested to the king by those forbade any petition, whether to a god or a man except the sovereign, for 30 days (Daniel 6:1-9). When Daniel learned that the edict had been signed, he went into his house and prayed three times a day, as he used to do before; then said men found him praying to God, for which he was accused of violating the royal edict of the king and, therefore, thrown into the den of lions, in which he suffered no harm. (Daniel 6:10-16).
The next morning, when Darius verified the portent, he ordered Daniel to be released and his accusers thrown into the pit, who immediately perished when they were brutally devoured by the beasts (Daniel 6:19-28).
The deuterocanonical section on the History of Bel and the Dragon also mentions the succession of Astyages, the enthronement of Cyrus II the Great and the episode by which Daniel reveals the fraud of the priests of Bel that they had convinced the king that the god ate the offerings, when they were the ones doing it.
The Prophet
During much of his life, says the book of the same name, Daniel received various apocalyptic visions that announced, through symbols and numerical keys, the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth.
Death of Daniel
About Daniel's death there are no biblical testimonies and later traditions do not clarify whether he returned to the territory of Judea or remained in Mesopotamia, but the latter seems the most certain.
Since he was still living during the reign of Cyrus, in Babylon from 539 B.C. C., it is possible that he reached a centennial age. His death is situated, then, between the third year of the reign of the aforementioned Persian sovereign, that is, between 536 and 530 BC. C., when Ciro dies (because his presence is no longer mentioned in the time of Cambyses). It is very likely that it took place in Babylon, but since his tomb was venerated in Susa, some authors favor the latter city.
Tomb of Daniel
There are at least six different locations that claim to hold Daniel's tomb:
- Babylon, in the current Iraq. This site is based on Martyrologium Romanum which he dedicates on 21 July to commemorate him and declares that he was buried in that city, in a royal crypt.
- Susa, Iran. According to an ancient local tradition, shared by Jews and Muslims, the prophet was buried in that city. Testimony of Arab, Syrian and Persian writers since the centuryVII They tell the story of that tomb; Benjamin of Tudela (1160) narrates in his writings as it was claimed by the dwellers of both shores of the Coaspes River (now Karkheh, the Ulai of the Bible) until the shah Shanjar (maybe Sharvaraz) ordered to place the coffin in the center of a bridge that crossed it. Today the place of it is a popular sanctuary. The mausoleum dates back to the second half of the centuryXIX, characterized by its conical tower of white plaster that crowns the work and the two small minarets. This type of towers is typical of the southwest of Iran and the neighboring areas of Iraq.
- Kirkuk, Iraqi Kurdistan. In the citadel of Kirkuk there is also a tomb attributed to Daniel. The site was originally a Jewish religious building, later a Christian church and finally a Muslim mosque. At the same time, there are four graves that are said to belong to Daniel and the three young.
- Samarkand, Uzbekistan. On the outskirts of Samarkand there is another tomb of Daniel. According to a local legend, Tamerlán tried to conquer Syria or, according to other versions La Meca, without success until one of his advisors assured him that his defeats were due to the presence, in that territory, of the prophet's tomb. In a military action, the conqueror managed to seize the body, to which he transferred to his domains in Central Asia. From this tomb it handles a water source to which healing properties are attributed.
- Muqdadiyah, Iraq. In 2007, after a bombing in the village of Al Wajihiya, near Muqdadiyah, some sources mentioned the presence of Daniel's tomb as a target of local insurgent groups. The tomb, located in the Diyala Government, was attacked and damaged, including its green dome.
- Mala Amir, Iranian Kurdistan. The Jewish Encyclopedia points out another tomb of Daniel five days from Dizful, near Mala Amir.
Prophecies and visions
For more information on this topic see: Book of Daniel
According to the book of Daniel, this prophet received two visions during the first and third years of Belshazzar. In them different fantastic animals appeared before his sight to represent the succession of kingdoms after the Babylonian Empire until an indeterminate time when they would be destroyed and someone like a son of man who probably represents "the saints of the Most High", that is, the rest of the Jewish people, would assume power in a renewed world.
Perhaps the most famous prophecy attributed to Daniel is that of the Seventy Weeks. The biblical narration says that in the first year of the aforementioned King Darius, Daniel found in the writings of Jeremiah that the end of the seventy years of desolation of Jerusalem was approaching. He then received a revelation transmitted through Gabriel announcing the reconstruction of the city, the death of an Anointed One (Messiah) and the fulfillment of all the prophecies. The prediction fixed the terms for these events by means of weeks which, according to all commentators, correspond to periods of seven years. Another well-known prophecy is that of the ram and the goat, in which the defeat and conquest of the Median Empire and the Persian Empire at the hands of Alexander the Great is shown.
Later, always according to the biblical book, when the third year of Cyrus (536) was running, Daniel received new apocalyptic visions where he is shown the protective angels of Persia, Javan (Greece) and Israel contending in favor of their respective nations. Invasions and wars in the land of Israel are also announced to him, carried out by enigmatic characters designated as the king of the north and the king of the south , possibly some of the Hellenistic sovereigns. Daniel describes the existence of a kingdom that will oppress the chosen people, imposing new laws, prohibiting worship according to the Torah and demanding the worship of the sovereign. Ultimately the kingdom will be destroyed by the power of God. This kingdom, according to biblical criticism (including confessional authors) is the Seleucid under Antiochus IV, called Epiphanes, against whom the Maccabees rose up.
Traditional exegesis, however, considers that the oppressive sovereign corresponds to the End Times. This is how Jesus of Nazareth seems to have understood it, who alludes to these prophecies according to the gospels, and John, the author of the Apocalypse, who describes how the Lamb, image of the Christian messiah, breaks the seals of the sealed book mentioned by Daniel (Daniel 12:4).
Daniel as a historical figure
There is a reference to Daniel in the book of Ezekiel (chapter 14:14); in it he is considered a model of a wise man, this has led to consider that the passage refers to Dan-El, a mythical Canaanite and Phoenician hero, a position rejected by Dressler, but accepted by a large part of the academic community..
The trend among Biblical commentators using the literary analysis method is that the book of Daniel is a popular narrative intended to highlight some important issues for the Jewish nation in the years prior to the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes. The language of the The book and the inaccuracies about the period in which it is set (Neo-Babylonian empire and Persian conquest) in contrast to the thoroughness of Antiochus's descriptions, tend to suggest this notion. This is also the consensus among historians and archaeologists.
Fundamentalist authors, on the contrary, consider him a historical figure. According to these scholars, the wise man mentioned by Ezekiel corresponds to the prophet, since Ezekiel refers to him in a context of example of fidelity to the God of Israel, whereas Dan-El of Ugarit was an idolatrous polytheist, so they cannot be the same. However, the context mentions Daniel together with characters who lived in the past, such as Noah and Job, models of wisdom, and it does not seem to allude to a younger contemporary of the prophet.
Taking an intermediate position between both postulates, the Encyclopaedia Iranica considers that Daniel would have been a historical prophet of the VI a. C., but that the Biblical stories regarding the figure of him developed centuries later and that the book did not reach its final form until the time of Antiochus (167-164 BC).
Liturgical commemoration
The Orthodox Church celebrates the Feast of Saint Daniel, the Prophet along with the Feast of the Three Young Men on Patriarchal Saints Sunday, which usually falls between December 11 and 17, that is, the last Sunday before Christmas. The prophecy of chapter 2 of his book (D. 2:34-35), about the stone that destroyed the idol with feet of clay, is often used in hymnology as a metaphor for the Incarnation. Thus the "stone" it is Christ and the one that has been "not cut off by human hand" refers to the virgin birth, the Virgin Mary being, or the Theotokos, the "uncut mountain".
In the Catholic Church, his name day is celebrated on July 21.
He is also commemorated in the Missouri Lutheran Church Calendar of Saints along with the Three Young Men on December 17, coinciding with the Orthodox celebration.
The Coptic Church, for its part, celebrates it on Baramhat 23, equivalent to April 3.
In Rabbinic Literature
According to rabbinic tradition, Daniel belonged to royalty; his fate was prophesied by Isaiah himself when he told King Hezekiah: "and your sons, whom you have engendered, shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon." Daniel is also praised with these words: "If I were in one pan of the scales and all the wise men of the Gentiles in the other; he would be heavier than all of them'. It is said that Nebuchadnezzar admired him very much, despite the fact that he had refused to pay him divine honors and that when the young man revealed the dream he had forgotten he had no doubt that his interpretation of it was correct.
Daniel in Islam
Muslims consider Daniel a prophet, despite not being mentioned in the Qur'an. Islamic traditions say that he preached in Iraq during the reigns of the Persian kings Lahorasp and Cyrus, to whom he taught the oneness of God and exhorted the people to return to his worship. The historian Al Tabari tells that Daniel raised with his prayers a multitude of people dead a thousand years ago, an episode that historicizes the parable of Ezekiel 37 1 10. Cyrus had put him in charge of teaching the true religion, when Daniel asked him for permission to rebuild the Temple and return to Palestine, the king agreed to the first request but refused to let him go, claiming that "if I had a thousand prophets like you, I would like all stay with me." In other traditions, however, the prophet is considered to be the king of Israel after the return from the Babylonian Captivity. Daniel is also credited with inventing geomancy ("'ilm al-raml") and authoring the book "Usul al-Ta'bir" (Principles of the Interpretation of Dreams). Al Masudi says that there were actually two Daniels. The Ancient One, who lived between the time of Noah and that of Abraham; author of the aforementioned sciences and Daniel, the Younger, Cyrus's maternal uncle, author of the "Kitab al-Jafar" (Book of Divination) and numerous predictions about the kings of Persia.
Daniel in Western Tradition
Daniel has been a very important figure in the Christian tradition due to the aforementioned Prophecy of the Weeks that would announce, according to some theologians, the exact birth and death of Jesus Christ. In the same way his predictions about apocalyptic wars and the succession of Empires made him a favorite of the preachers of the Parousia, especially when calculating the date of such an event. As a studious young man, full of trust in God, he appears in Renaissance designs, especially Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel.
