[Dialogue] Spong, 11/27/08: The Origins of the Bible, Part XVI: Daniel

Fri Nov 28 13:17:52 EST 2008

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Thursday November 27, 2008 

The Origins of the Bible, Part XVI: Daniel

History is not well served by the way the Bible is organized. For example, the Torah (Genesis-Deuteronomy), which seems to tell a continuous story, was actually written over a period of about five hundred years and describes events that occurred over as long a time frame as fourteen hundred years. Yet it is always read in worship as if it is a single story, which makes some of its described events little more than historical nonsense. To take another illustration, a book like Isaiah was written in three parts. The first, roughly chapters 1-39, was composed in the 8th century BCE; the second part, roughly chapters 40-55, was written some two centuries later in the late 6th century BCE; and the third, chapters 56-66, is the work of a 5th century BCE author. Yet for most of both Jewish and Christian history this book has been read as a single cohesive work, making a proper interpretation of its pages all but impossible. 
The same distortion of history is found in the lineup of the prophets. The four so-called major prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel, are placed in that order in the Bible. Yet Isaiah is written time-wise on both sides of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Daniel is in fact a work of the 2nd centur
y BCE but, just to confuse things, purports to be written at the time of the Babylonian Exile in the 6th century BCE. Someone who seeks literal truth or literal history in these pages of the Bible will be quite frustrated. 

When I began this series of columns on the origins of the Bible early this year, I knew that I would at some point have to make a decision on what order I would follow. I could treat the books of the Bible as they are written or I could re-organize the entire text on the basis of history and their time of writing. I decided to do both. I have thus far treated the Old Testament in the order that it appears in our printed Bible. I started with the documents behind the Torah that produced the books from Genesis to Deuteronomy, then turned to the prophetic movement, dealing with the books of Joshua through II Kings. Even there, however, to make a continuous story I had to skip over such books as Job, The Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations and even the tiny but significant book of Ruth, in order to deal with the prophets as they appear in the Bible. I will go back to these books later. When I come to the New Testament I will treat it in the order that it was written, not the order in which it appears in the Bible. This means that I will begin with Paul and then move to the gospels. That way everyone becomes confused but I think truth will be better served. 

The timing problem becomes most apparent this week when I reach the book o
f Daniel, which is a piece of mythological, allegorical writing designed to strengthen Jewish resistance to the Seleucid king, Antiochus Epiphanes, during the period of the Maccebean revolution in the 160's BCE. This means that the book of Daniel should not time-wise even be in the Bible at all. It should be part of the Apocrypha, that group of inter-testament books that are no longer considered a constituent part of the Old Testament, at least in Protestant Christianity. It is also true that several stories that were originally additions to the book of Daniel, like "Bel and the Dragon," the "Prayer of Azarias and the Song of the Three Young Men" and "Susanna," were in fact taken out of Daniel and placed into the Apocrypha by later biblical editors, but the book of Daniel itself was kept in the canon of the Old Testament despite not belonging there. This act of inclusion means that the stories left in Daniel have become far better known in the Christian world than those relegated to the Apocrypha. We are generally familiar with Daniel in the Lion's Den and with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace. Familiar phrases from Daniel have also enriched our language, like calling God "The Ancient of Days," referring to some impending doom as "the handwriting on the wall," a fatal weakness as possessing "feet of clay," or taking on strong opponents as "entering the lion's den." It is also a fact that Daniel in the Old Testament and the book of Revelation in the New Testament are the two bibli
cal works that are quoted most frequently by those who like to predict the end of the world. We have happily passed through many such projected dates in western history, yet predictions still come from the loony fringe of religion. I do not think they are worth much consideration. 

My favorite end of the world story came when I received a warning letter from a priest that the world was about to come to an end. He had a specific date and time on which he seemed sure that this would happen. He quoted a number of biblical sources, including Daniel, to prove his point. I must say that I did not begin to make preparations. A few days later I received an invitation from the wife of this priest inviting me to his 50th birthday celebration. The party was scheduled for about ten days after the end of the world. What a relief! Not even his wife believed his theory. 

When we turn to the content of the book of Daniel, we discover that it is divided into two primary sections. The first is a series of stories about Daniel which fills chapter 1-6. The second section is a series of visions that have played a role in the development of Christian history. The first vision has a character in it known as the "Son of Man." It was Ezekiel who first introduced this phrase to our religious vocabulary. When Ezekiel used it, however, it was just a title by which God called Ezekiel, simply Ezekiel's name. It designated him only as a human being. It had no divine connotations. When Jesus used=2
0that title many years later, however, it had a much more dramatic meaning. It was in fact a claim of divinity. That title had to have made quite a journey for its meaning to have been transformed that dramatically from Ezekiel to Jesus. It did, and it was in one of the visions of Daniel that it was transformed. "Son of Man" in Daniel was the name of an apocalyptic supernatural divine figure who would usher in the Kingdom of God and put an end to the persecution of the faithful. The "Son of Man" in Daniel traveled on the clouds of heaven and was given dominion, glory and kingship. All the nations of the world would serve him. His throne would be everlasting and of his kingdom there would be no end. We become aware, when we read the New Testament, that these images were attached to the Jesus story, first by Matthew in his parable of the Judgment, when the Son of Man will separate the sheep from the goats and, second, in Matthew's account of Jesus appearing as the resurrected one to the disciples out of the sky on a mountain top in Galilee. In that narrative he came on the clouds clothed with the authority of heaven and earth to send the disciples out on a mission "to all the world." Luke also borrows Daniel's imagery when he told the story of Jesus' ascension. 

Daniel was also a pivotal book in the Jewish development of ideas about life after death. In the last chapter of Daniel the author refers to the time at the end of the world when the great deliverance would 
come. "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth," says Daniel, "shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to everlasting shame and contempt." Reward and punishment from this time on became the major feature of life after death. 

Prior to the 2nd century BCE, the Jewish people spoke little about life after death. The only concept generally abroad was that of "Sheol." Sheol was located in the "middle of the earth." It was not a place of reward or punishment, it was simply the abode of the dead. No one looked forward to it. No one was comforted by it. Everyone who died went to it. If it was described at all, it was described as shadowy or as shades of life, ghostlike with no sense of joy. 

When Daniel was written, however, religious persecution against the Jews had reached horrendous proportions. The Jews were forced by their enemies to eat food they regarded as unclean. The Temple was itself polluted with the installation of the head of a swine in the "Holy of Holies," an unclean animal in the very dwelling place of God. The Jews called it "the abomination of desolation." Those Jews who refused to violate their religious practices were summarily executed. The book we call II Macabees, written at the same time the book of Daniel was written, tells the story of seven brothers who, along with their mother, were arrested and were compelled to eat the flesh of a swine. The oldest brother refused and his tongue was cut out. Then he was scalped and his hands and feet were20chopped off. Finally, he was taken, still breathing, to a fire and burned up. With this vision still vivid, the next brother was told he should eat the flesh of the swine or suffer the same fate. He refused and was similarly disposed of. This procedure continued until all seven brothers had been murdered. Then the mother died. It is a dreadful story. 

That story, however, became a powerful instrument in giving birth to a new concept and a new passion among the Jews for life after death. That is what finds expression in the 12th and final chapter of Daniel. The driving theme was that without life after death for these faithful martyrs the very justice of God was at stake. If faithfulness to God is not rewarded beyond this life then God cannot be just. Then evil does in fact triumph over God. So heaven and hell became the categories of divine justice and the afterlife was employed to make fair this unfair world. The book of Daniel was pivotal in this transformation and, as such, exercised an enormous influence on the development of Christianity as the afterlife became crucial to the human sense of justice in both the crucifixion of Jesus and the later persecution of the Christians in loyalty to their Christ. The Book of Daniel is not a profound book, but one wonders what Christianity might have looked like if it had not been for this book. For me, however, to think of the afterlife as a place of reward or punishment distorts that concept completely. That, however, is the subject for 
a future column, perhaps a future book.

–John Shelby Spong

Question and Answer 
With John Shelby Spong

Evelyn Evans, via the Internet, writes: 
I am an Anglican, but having accepted the concept of a non-theistic God, I feel uncomfortable attending church with all its outdated forms of worship. To leave the church, however, is to lose my "church family" and the human contact, as well as my part in the church's ministries, all essential to the expression of God's love. What shall I do? 

Dear Evelyn,

I share your concern. I have in the course of my career attended churches with grand musicians and able choirs that use, without any obvious sense of being disconnected, a formal if slightly medieval liturgy. Frequently, its ordained leadership is all male and its leaders give no sense of being aware of the theological revolution raging in the Christian world, inaugurated early in the 19th century by such people as Hegel and Alfred North Whitehead. The liturgy followed on many Sundays reflects little more than a world that no longer exists. That liturgy still talks of God as "a being" who is external, presumably who lives above the sky, who desires to be flattered with our words of praise and who stands ready to judge. 

These churches also seem unaware of the revolution in critical biblical studies that broke upon the Christian world almost 200 years ago. For example, their lay readers will frequently talk about the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians o
r to Timothy, neither of which Paul wrote. In sermons many clergy make the unconscious assumption that the gospels are history, that the wise men really followed the star and that Jesus really said all of the things attributed to him in the gospel. Adult education is almost non-existent in so many churches and where it is present it is mostly ineffective because the necessary time is never allotted, since liturgy (which is always the clergy favorite) not education is the priority. The only time real change can come to such churches is when there is a change in clergy leadership. Even then, real educational engagement is resisted since church has become for most people anything but a place to be challenged and to grow.

Clergy tend to be kind, loving and caring people, but many of them have been trained to assume that Christianity is still at the center of the world. It is not, however, the 13th century, though one would never guess that from the medieval sounds that confront many worshippers each week.

I will never abandon this institution, as dismal and boring as some of its manifestations are, because I believe change can only come from within and I must be part of the church to be able to participate in its transformation. That is, however, a vocation that hardly inspires in today's generation.

It would be a step forward if churches could just sing a hymn once in a while that was written later than the 19th century.

– John Shelby Spong

Send your20questions to support at johnshelbyspong.com 

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