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The eclipse of Daniel's narrative: The limits of historical knowledge in the theological reading of Daniel
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 August 2017
Abstract
This article uses Hans Frei's famous image of the ‘eclipse’ of biblical narrative to explore the link between situating the book of Daniel historically and grasping its theological point(s). The critical/conservative stand-off over the book of Daniel is rehearsed by way of key agenda-setting Victorian voices, and it is then argued that Frei's perspective allows the reader to move on from assessing descriptive accuracy towards focusing on ascriptive purpose(s). Various examples of how such an ascriptive approach might clarify Daniel are considered, including specific attention to the complexities of Daniel 11’s problematic relationship to what did and did not happen to Antiochus Epiphanes.
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References
1 Watson, So Francis, ‘Does Historical Criticism Exist? A Contribution to Debate on the Theological Interpretation of Scripture’, in Nelson, R. David, Sarisky, Darren and Stratis, Justin (eds), Theological Theology: Essays in Honour of John Webster (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), pp. 307–18Google Scholar.
2 Frei, Hans, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1974)Google Scholar.
3 Pusey, E. B., Daniel the Prophet: Nine Lectures, delivered in the Divinity School of the University of Oxford (Oxford: James Parker & Co, 1864), p. iii (cited here from the 1868 2nd edn)Google Scholar.
4 Ibid., p. 1. These words open the first lecture of the series.
5 Jowett, Benjamin, ‘On the Interpretation of Scripture’, in Essays and Reviews (London: Longman, Green, Longman & Roberts, 7th edn, 1861 [1860]), pp. 330–433 Google Scholar.
6 Ibid., p. 404.
7 Farrar, Frederic W., History of Interpretation (London: Macmillan and Co., 1886)Google Scholar.
8 Farrar, Frederic W., The Book of Daniel (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1895), p. 41, n. 1Google Scholar.
9 Ibid., p. 62 (emphasis added).
10 Ibid., p. 102, where he even continues ‘History, literature and criticism, and the interpretation of human language do belong to the domain of pure reason; and we must not be bribed by the misapplication of hypothetical exegesis to give them up for the support of traditional views which advancing knowledge no longer suffers us to maintain.’ (!)
11 Collins, John J., Daniel (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), pp. 18–20 Google Scholar. The Elephantine papyri date from the fifth century bce and represent one of our main sources of ‘official Aramaic’, along with the biblical texts; cf. Shepherd, Michael B., The Verbal System of Biblical Aramaic: A Distributional Approach, Studies in Biblical Literature 116 (New York: Peter Lang, 2008), p. 43 Google Scholar.
12 Moore, George Foot, ‘Συμφωνία Not a Bagpipe’, Journal of Biblical Literature 24/2 (1905), pp. 166–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
13 Driver, S. R., The Book of Daniel (Cambridge: CUP, 1905), p. lxiiiGoogle Scholar.
14 See Shepherd, Verbal System, p. 43, who concludes that there is too little Greek to draw conclusions, and that similarities between biblical Aramaic and fifth-century bce Egyptian Aramaic do not allow linguistic considerations to rule out a date as early as the fifth century. I think Shepherd's view is a little close to ‘one cannot prove it isn't true’, but the caution is helpful.
15 Childs, Brevard S., Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979), p. 613 Google Scholar. In fact he added ‘One could almost wonder whether there is a reverse ratio’.
16 Farrar, Daniel, pp. 17, 89.
17 See e.g. in the 430s, Theodoret's wondering about the historical identity of Darius the Mede in his commentary, cf. 5:31. See Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on Daniel, trans. Hill, Robert C., Writings from the Greco-Roman World 7 (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2006), pp. 153–7Google Scholar.
18 The key framework for Frei's argument is found in The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative, pp. 1–16; but the terminology of ‘ascriptive’ over against ‘descriptive’ narrative is elsewhere, notably on pp. 122–3 of his essay, ‘The “Literal Reading” of the Biblical Narrative in the Christian Tradition: Does it Stretch or Will it Break?’, in his Theology and Narrative: Selected Essays, ed. George Hunsinger and William C. Placher (Oxford: OUP, 1993), pp. 117–52; and perhaps most clearly contrasted in his Types of Christian Theology, ed. George Hunsinger and William C. Placher (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), p. 125; cf. also p. 84.
19 See Farrar, Daniel, 27, in fact citing Bevan, A. A., A Short Commentary on Daniel (Cambridge: CUP, 1893), p. 8 Google Scholar. One of the most thorough analyses of the cloth-cutting tendencies of conservative apologists for Daniel is still Grabbe, Lester L., ‘Fundamentalism and Scholarship: The Case of Daniel’, in Thompson, Barry P. (ed.), Scripture: Meaning and Method: Essays Presented to Anthony Tyrrell Hanson (Hull: Hull University Press, 1987), pp. 133–52Google Scholar.
20 Farrar, Daniel, pp. 44–5.
21 Collins, Daniel, p. 33.
22 Rowley, H. H., ‘The Unity of the Book of Daniel’, in his The Servant of the Lord, and Other Essays on the Old Testament (Oxford: Blackwell, 1952, 1965), pp. 247–80Google Scholar.
23 All these points need further development, but some aspects of a ‘mischievous’ reading in chs 1–6 are close to the engaging analysis of Valeta, David M., Lions and Ovens and Visions. A Satirical Reading of Daniel 1–6 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2008)Google Scholar.
24 Goldingay, John E., Daniel (Dallas, TX: Word, 1987), p. xl Google Scholar.
25 A helpful review of accounts of his death is Schwartz, Daniel R., ‘Why did Antiochus have to Fall? (II Maccabees 9:7)?’, in LiDonnici, Lynn and Lieber, Andrea (eds), Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Israel, JSJ Supp 119 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 257–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
26 See Schwartz, ‘Why did Antiochus have to Fall?’, p. 258. Porphyry's text is via Jerome's citation of it, trans. by Gleason L. Archer as ‘being overcome with grief, died’ – see http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/jerome_daniel_02_text.htm (accessed Feb. 2016). (Porphyry was a Neoplatonic philosopher, third century ce, whose Against the Christians is known only through Jerome's fourth-century refutations.)
27 Goldingay, Daniel, p. 305.
28 See Mittmann-Richert, Ulrike, ‘Why has Daniel's Prophecy Not Been Fulfilled? The Question of Political Peace and Independence in the Additions to Daniel’, in De Troyer, Kristin and Lange, Armin (eds), Reading the Present in the Qumran Library: The Perception of the Contemporary by Means of Scriptural Interpretations, SBL Symposium Series 30 (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2005), pp. 103–23Google Scholar; though see her brief comments at p. 105.
29 See Honigman, Sylvie, Tales of High Priests and Taxes. The Books of the Maccabees and the Judean Rebellion Against Antiochos IV (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2014)Google Scholar.
30 Ibid., p. 38 and passim.
31 Ibid., p. 401.
32 Thus, for the complete opposite presentation to that of Honigman, see Portier-Young, Anathea E., Apocalypse Against Empire: Theologies of Resistance in Early Judaism (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2011), e.g. pp. 176–216 Google Scholar. Sadly she does not address 11:40–5 in her account.
33 Honigman, Tales of High Priests and Taxes, pp. 220–1.
34 See Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture, p. 79: ‘irrespective of intentionality the effect of the canonical process was to render the tradition accessible to the future generation by means of a “canonical intentionality”, which is coextensive with the meaning of the biblical text’. Subsequent critics (notably James Barr) have worried away at what this means precisely.