{2}DANIEL{/}

The author of the book of Daniel must have been one of the teachers of the Law who, in the days of the great persecution at the time of the Maccabees, encouraged the spiritual resistance of his people. He must surely have included himself among those guides of the faith whom God would reward in a special way [Dn_11,33] and [Dn_12,3]. While the Maccabees were heading the armed resistance against the oppressors, these masters of the Law, suspicious of politics and weapons, limited themselves to giving an example of faithfulness to God's Covenant and to his laws.
The core of his message is in chapters [Dn_7,1] to [Dn_12,1] and can be summarized as follows:
- the great persecution against the Jewish people is part of God's plan for salvation;
- the persecuting kings, especially Antiochus Epiphanes - remembered so many times in a figurative way - will not succeed in destroying the believing people;
- not long after the persecution, the kingdom of God will come.
The author also adapted the stories found in chapters [Dn_1,1] to [Dn_6,1] to his message. These stories taught the Jews who settled in foreign countries, and who at times served the kings there, that they should not compromise the demands of faith and the practices of the Law under any circumstances, whether in terms of foods [Dn_1,8] or of idolatrous worship (chaps. 2 and 6).
{K}Was There A Man Named Daniel?{/}
The Jewish community that compiled the biblical books placed the book of Daniel, not among the prophets of the 6th century (the time of Daniel), but rather among the last books of the Bible. The book was not placed among the prophets, but under the heading of writings about religious teaching. They did this because they were aware that the "story" of Daniel and his visions was not an historical account, but rather a literary fiction.
We must realize that in the two centuries before Christ this way of speaking about present events as if God had revealed them to some famous persons of the past, was current. So they would tell of this person's visions, predicting events actually happening in the present, and  then tell how this visionary received the religious interpretation of these events from God: the saving plan of God was being fulfilled.
In those days, the art of using symbolic numbers (three and a half, six, seven, ten), and symbolic colors (white was a sign of victory), and of having angels intervene was prevalent. This category of books is called {C}apocalypse{/} or revelations. Some "revelations" are found in the Bible, the  most prominent of them are the apocalypse of Daniel and that of John.
In Oriental writings, {C}Daniel{/} was the name of an ancient sage [Ezk_14,14]. From there emerged  the character Daniel, a prophet and a sage, who supposedly lived among the exiles in Babylon. His words and example were to enlighten the Jews who lived among pagans.
There are three very famous passages in this book. In [Dn_7,9] to [Dn_7,14] we have the text referring to the Son of Man ({C}the Human One{/}). Jesus refers to this text when he presents himself as the Son of Man ({C}the Human One{/}) ([Mk_13,26] and [Mk_14,62]). In another text, [Dn_12,13], we have an announcement of the resurrection of the dead. The prophecy in [Dn_9,21] to [Dn_9,27]{C} {/}has lent itself to many commentaries about the end of the world. We will see, however, that such prophecies refer to many things except the end of the world.
