Abide: Daniel 1-6

Daniel and the Lions Den was a central story in my childhood. It had it all: prophets, courageous acts, lions, dens, miracles, what's not to like? I fear though, that sometimes we, Latter-day Saints, forget everything else that Daniel experienced and taught, and what else took place in the book named after him. When we focus on lions and less on the being that sent the angel to close the lion's mouth, we can lose focus on what's most important. We'll discuss the work of God in its many forms today on Abide: a Maxwell Institute podcast. My name is Joseph Stuart. I'm the Public Communication Specialist at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University. Kristian Heal is a research fellow at the Maxwell Institute. And each week we discussed the week’s block of reading from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Come, Follow Me curriculum. We aren't here to present a lesson, but rather to hit on a few key themes from the Scripture block so as to help fulfill the Maxwell Institute's mission to inspire and fortify Latter-day Saints and their testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and engage the world of religious ideas. Joining us again today is Dr. Catherine Gines Taylor, Nibley Postdoctoral Fellow at the Maxwell Institute. Her two most recent publications include: Late Antique Images of the Virgin Annunciate Spinning from Brill and Material Culture and Women's Religious Experience in Antiquity, co-edited with Carolyn Osiek and Mark Ellison. You can hear more about that book on Maxwell Institute Podcast #129.

Joseph Stuart: Welcome back, Catherine.

Catherine Gines Taylor: Thank you. It's so lovely to be here with you.

Stuart: The pleasure is all ours. Krisitan, we're looking at the book of Daniel today. What should we know before we dive in?

Kristian Heal: The Book of Daniel is set in the exile during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar and his successors. However, scholars think it was written much later and took its final form towards the middle of the second century BCE, as a response to the reign of Antiochus the fourth Epiphanus, the Greek solution king who ruled Judea from 175-164 BCE. If the book was written so late, why set it during the first generation of the Babylonian exile? One answer as Lawrence Wills notes is that this setting allows the author to address the challenging issues of Jews living under foreign kings. Read this way, the book of Daniel offers enduring answers to the questions of what it means to live our religion in a fraught and often hostile world. How God blesses and preserves us as we live our religion, and how God might bring about a transformation of the world. These are perennial issues that perhaps explain why this book has has such an important place in the Jewish and Christian tradition. The book divides naturally into two halves: chapters 1-6 tell a series of six court stories, featuring Daniel, a Jewish sage, and his companions, told in the third person, they are reminiscent of the stories of Joseph and Esther. The stories are familiar and have lots of potential for modern application. They are tales of living Jewish dietary restrictions in a foreign land. Of dream interpretation. Of the faithfulness of the Jewish people to their God. And of the power of the God of Israel to protect his covenant people outside the promised land. In the first half of the book, Daniel interprets dreams which have to do with God's power of in the first half of the book, Daniel interprets dreams that have to do with God's power over the succession of kingdoms that rule over Judea, while in the second half, chapters 7-12, Daniel describes four apocalyptic dreams and visions in the first person that each treat the succession of kingdoms, and the rise of Antiochus is the fourth, using different imagery. Placed together, the whole book is an apocalypse.

Stuart: You're using the word apocalypse in a way I'm not used to hearing what does apocalypse mean?

Heal: Apocalypse just means Revelation. And what is revealed is usually, as it says in Daniel 2:28, what will happen at the end of days, including the redemption of God's people from their oppressors. For the book of Daniel, the end times are the events that will follow the desecration of the temple by Antiochus the Fourth. All the visions and prophecies point towards this desecration as the catalysts for the last day's events. This is all laid out in great detail in chapter 11 and the beginning of chapter 12. The book of Daniel as a whole prophesies some great divine intervention, in response to the desecration of the temple, that some stone cut out of the mountain would roll forth and destroy this solicit upstart and that the long hoped for restoration of Israel would happen. Instead, the book of Daniel became paradigmatic for multiple apocalyptic movements and expectations, inspiring many to use its more cryptic parts to try and predict the end of days. This is quite understandable. Daniel was, after all, a prophet, as Jesus said in Matthew 24:15

Stuart: Where else do we encounter similar ideas about apocalypse and the Old Testament?

Heal: The book of Daniel is the only apocalypse in the whole Old Testament as a whole book, although other books such as the Ezekiel and Zechariah have apocalyptic elements. However, several other apocalyptic books were written by Jews in the Second Temple period, including First Enoch, Jubilees, and Fourth Ezra. These books are also the soil in which the book of revelation is planted.

Stuart: What other distinctive features does Daniel have?

Heal: Another interesting thing about Daniel is that it's written both in Hebrew and Aramaic. The Aramaic portion starts in chapter two verse four, and ends in chapter seven verse 28. There Aramaic was the lingua franca of the Middle East in the first millennium before Jesus and became the dominant language of the Jews by the time of Jesus, which is why Jesus spoke Aramaic. In the Hebrew Bible, the book appears between Esther and Ezra Nehemiah in the writings. In the Old Testament, it appears among the prophets immediately prior to the books of the so called “12 Minor Prophets.” During the transmission of the book, it grew, acquiring three substantial editions. These additions survive only in the ancient versions, especially in the ancient Greek version of the book. And Catherine is going to show us more about these a little bit later.

Stuart: So, it sounds like there's a lot going on. What do you see as the overall message of the book of Daniel?

Stuart: Well I took away from this reading is that the ultimate message of the book of Daniel, is that God is in charge. This is enacted most dramatically with King Nebuchadnezzar, especially chapter four. This is an implicit warning to all future rulers of this region, not to overreach. If you have power, it has been given you by the God of Heaven, and he can just as easily take it away, or worse, render you insensible until you come to your senses, poor King Nebuchadnezzar walks right into this trap. “I Nebuchadnezzar was living at ease in my home, and prospering in my palace.” This opening sentence seems to only point in one direction, that ease is going to be disrupted. The King’s disturbing dream and Daniel's interpretation predicts the manner of this destruction. But Daniel offers a preemptive solution, atone for your sins with righteousness, and your iniquities with mercy to the oppressed, so that your prosperity may be prolonged, beautiful message–be better, do better, and be kind to the oppressed. Perhaps King Nebuchadnezzar remember these words, perhaps he took care to live more righteously, and mercifully, but this resolution waned until a year later, looking over his great kingdom, he declared, “Is this not magnificent Babylon, which I have built as a Royal Capital, by my mighty power, and for my glorious majesty.” As the words left his mouth, the judgment that was promised descended upon Him, He was rendered senseless, and left to wander his kingdom like a beast, until he had learned that the Most High has sovereignty over the Kingdom of Mortals, and gives it to whom He will. There it is, in chapter four, verse 26, this, the message of this book. The theological vision of Daniel is clear: whoever seems to be in charge, God is actually in charge. Whoever seems to have power, God actually has the power, whoever seems to be wealthy, God actually has the wealth, and he gives it to whom He will, and as the story suggests, takes it from whom He will. Eventually, King Nebuchadnezzar comes to his senses and praises and acknowledges the God of Heaven, the Most High God, “For His sovereignty”, he says, “is an everlasting sovereignty, and his kingdom endures for generations to generations.” The exile had taught Israel this great and vital lesson: Their God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, was also the God of heaven, and the whole earth.

Stuart: Thanks, Kristian for that really helpful overview. Catherine, how did early Christians read the book of Daniel?

Taylor: The text of the Old Testament used by the early church was almost always the old Greek translation or Septuagint. Another version was also known to them called the Theodotian redacted version from the second century CE. Both of these versions contain material that are additions to the Jewish canon, and they're often referred to as Deuterocanonical. One edition that was both important and very popular for early Christians was the story of Susanna.

Stuart: So I'm not as familiar with the story of Susanna, could you give us a brief overview?

Taylor: Actually, many people when I mentioned that I work on this story are really perplexed, they've never heard of this or even in association with the book of Daniel. So the story of Susanna is this: Susanna is a fair Hebrew woman, a wife of Joachim. And in the very earliest verses of the book, she is discussed as one who was brought up in righteousness and in knowledge of the law by her parents, and that she is part of this household, a place where judges in Israel come and meet because that is also the commission of her husband. Susanna is met in her garden one day by two lecherous lawyers, elders, as she is attempting to bathe in private in her garden. One day, as Susanna is bathing in her garden, these two elders come and approach her and lust after her, demanding that she lay with them, or else they will tell her entire community that she was caught with a young man in her garden. Well, she refuses, of course, to be part of this blackmail, and she is in fact brought before her community, she is arrested, with the consequence of this accusation being death. Daniel is at this point, a young man who devises a plan of questioning for these elders, which they ultimately fail. But the really lovely part of this story, she calls upon God to save her without any intermediary, and she is rewarded by God, giving the spirit of discernment to Daniel, who recognizes the false accusers, who are instead put to death, and she triumphs in the end. This first century edit of the book of Daniel presented this story, as the first in the series of narrative accounts associated with Daniel. This narrative sequence was most familiar to early Christians, so they read the account of Susanna and her encounter with Daniel as an inauguration of his prophetic call. Eventually, his call will lead to the ultimate defeat of idolatry. And in exilic Persia, the scholar Catherine Brown Katz, has shown that this pre-Christian version of the text is the one adopted by Theodosian, used by the earliest Christians and referenced in the New Testament. It isn't until the third century that origin appropriates the text and as Susanna Drake has pointed out, “Assigned the Susanna narrative last in chapter order to demonstrate her persecution as a prefiguration of the church, with Jews being set up as the primary offenders.” And Susanna Drake takes this up as a very, you know, as an early anti-semitic example. By reordering the story out of sequence, it was possible for origin to elaborate on the differences, deviances and tyranny of the Jews against the Christians for his own agenda. Jerome follows after origins example, when he translates Daniel in the Vulgate. And to and he also shunts Susanna to the penultimate position, extinguishing the pre Christian order of the story.

Stuart: That's fascinating. I wish that I had known this history before. How is it showing up outside of the text of Daniel? How is it showing up in places outside of the Septuagint text?

Taylor: Early Christians were so enamored and fascinated with this story, that we actually find a lot of material and artistic evidence that demonstrates how they used Susanna, the story of Susanna, and the type of Susanna as a trope for divine salvific intervention, also as an archetype for conjugal fidelity, but also very importantly, as a model for female literacy and education, components that were very important to Christian piety. The Susanna type is found amongst early Christian art, including on sarcophagi, that kind of medium that I work in. In Gerona, Spain, there's a unique sarcophagus front that focuses entirely on the history of Susanna, and it's set into the wall of the sanctuary of the church, overlooking the altar. We will attach an image of this sarcophagus for you to follow along, but what you see is a female figure veiled in an orant position, also holding a book and we find that there are two trees that flank her and we find the two male figures gazing around the trees at her, perhaps to gesture her to follow after them. I suggest that this scene correlates very well with the first scene in the Susanna narrative that can also be read in conflation with the figure of the deceased in the guise of wise Susanna with an honorary parapetasma or cloth of honor behind her. The next scene shows the more diminutive and de-veiled Susannah, set within an architectural structure. Here, Susanna has been formally taken by the elders, and publicly accused of adultery. Notice that she still retains the capsa or set of scrolls at her feet, a clear indicator of her knowledge of the law of God. Next, we also find two small figures, one male and one female, standing behind the elders, perhaps associated with Susanna’s parents who are definitively described in the text as those who taught her the law of the Lord. Very early on in my studies of the Susanna story, I noticed that it ran in parallel with the story of the son, who was taught in Proverbs 1: 9-10 the instruction of the Father and the law of the mother. This is one of the original contributions that I published in my article “Educated Susanna” also linked in the show notes. “The story quickly evolved as the false elders point and accused her in the company of her community, indicated by the multitude of figures gathered around them. Enter Daniel. Daniel, whose hand is on the head of the Veiled Suzanna with the two elders in the background, following true discernment and judgment, the two elders are driven forward to their end by a figure with a sword, perhaps a wingless angel of the Lord or guard.” So Susanna’s history is going to be underscored by a multitude of themes here, as we'll continue to discuss.

Stuart: Well, thank you for that. And do remember to sign up for the show notes by googling “Maxwell Institute newsletter” so that you can see the images and also a sampling of the secondary sources that we use to put our show together. Catherine, as you mentioned, Susanna is used as a figure or a type in art, what are some of the themes that she's used to signify?

Taylor: Susanna’s history is underscored by themes of law and judgment. And I think sometimes these themes grow hazy when we focus only on the element of sexual distraction that many emphasize in her account. What I've seen in this account is, and it particularly as it shows up in the material record, is that Susanna becomes the great wise foil, against which the folly of the elders is held constant. She was educated in the Law of Moses by her parents. “Susanna's Learned status and her beauty are combined in her desirable state, as the wife of the elder judge Joachim. Her house and household are the locus of mysteries of knowledge and of the law. Her own words, from her beginning to her end, articulate a special knowledge of God, His mysteries and His ways.” In the account of Suzanna which you can find in Daniel 13: 3, 42 we find that Susanna articulates how she has come to know God, and that God knows hidden things. For example, in verse three, we see that her parents being just instructed their daughter according to the law of Moses, and we see her own wisdom in both her accusation and supplication, in verse 42. Then Susanna cried out with a loud voice and said, “Oh, Eternal God, who knowest hidden things, who knowest all things before they come to pass.” She goes on to supplicate him for salvation. She literally takes on the guise of woman wisdom. The account of Susanna maps directly on to the pre-createdness of wisdom as parsed out in the poetic form of Proverbs 8. One of God's primary mysteries is to exercise his arm in the impossible circumstances, in order to reveal himself to the righteous in four short verses in the Susanna account, we see the series of events set in divine motion that ultimately result in Susanna’s deliverance. “Then Susanna cried out with a loud voice and said, “Oh, Eternal God, who knowest hidden things, who knowest all things before they come to pass thou knowest that they have borne false witness against me, and behold, I must die. Whereas I have done none of these things which these men have maliciously forged against me.” And the Lord heard her voice and when she was led to be put to death, the Lord raised up the holy spirit of a young boy, whose name was Daniel.”” Not only does Susanna evoke wisdom in calling upon God, even if it results in her death, she becomes wisdom, an attribute, to inaugurate Daniel as a boy prophet.

Stuart: Catherine, again, this is so fascinating. And I love that you're drawing out these broader themes. And we've looked at one sarcophagus or listened to you speak about one sarcophagus, if you haven't seen the show notes yet, but I'm wondering how do these sorts of broad themes play out on the ground in the lives of individuals?

Taylor: There are two genres that wisdom literature typically follows. First, the encomium or speech of praise. And second, the Exort Ettore discourse used to persuade or convince someone to a particular course of action. Interestingly enough, Christian sarcophagi could also function in these same ways, lauding the life of the deceased while also calling the living to emulation, even if it was to an idealized type. While wisdom is discussed here as having divine status in Proverbs, and of course, this mapping onto the Susanna story, we find that Susanna in the guise of Woman Wisdom, is also readily associated with the real lives of women, as bearer and source for material wealth, status, attributes of honor and well being, she becomes the embodiment of the Greek concept of Sophrosyne, a self contained agent of divine action. Her attributes spring up and provide substance even as a tree of life. Likewise, Susanna, also associated and familiar with wisdom, becomes the embodiment of it standing at the gate armed with text, and the word in the very moment in which her actions decide her fate. One aspect of her patristic heritage that has not been very closely examined in art historical evidence, is the fact that Susanna was used as an exemplar in even ordinary ways, especially in advocating for the education of women. By the fourth century, there's a recognizable shift in the way that Sussana is discussed. The focus is less on her presentation as a victim, and more on how she acts as an exemplar. Although some scholars would limit her example to that of sexual propriety in the face of danger, the representations that I look at on sarcophagi and other art would focus instead on her Paideia. Susanna, in her garden, is shown dressed as a matron exercising this kind of modesty and piety. She wears a stola and paola with scrolls in either in her hand or with a screening of our scroll box near her feet. Patristic rhetoric also changes its tone with an emphasis on Susanna’s wisdom and excellence of character and soundness of mind. In this way, Susanna is associated with right minded action and self embodied wisdom. Clement of Alexandria had clearly set forth a precedent for Susanna’s association with Sophrosyne when he identified her among young women capable of exceptional dignity. And fathers like Mathodios, and then Asterias of Emasia regularly encouraged female devotees to follow Susanna’s example, Asterias in homily 6.7 encouraged: women emulate Susanna. In this way, you will guard your Sophrosyne and courage as she did hers. So we find that early Christian narratives and art present very compelling iconographic elements that demonstrate the powerful trope of wisdom presented for mimesis by early Christian women. These women were already impacting the legitimization of Christianity in the world, and they could look to Susanna educated in the law of God, acting as a wisdom figure to marshal their own efforts in the cause of Christianity. And they are abundantly memorialized for those same attributes.

Stuart: This is the perfect place for us to end today. Have a blessed week, y'all. Thank you for listening to the Maxwell Institute podcast. Could you please rate, review and subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening to this podcast, and recommend it to others so that we can fulfill the Maxwell Institute's mission to inspire and fortify Latter-day Saints and their testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and engage the world of religious ideas? Thank you, and have a great week.