The Book of Daniel (content)

Daniel is written from the perspective of someone living at the time of the Babylonian Captivity, and the first half is about the author keeping his faith despite many tribulations. The second half, from chapter nine onwards, are a supposed prophesy detailing what will befall Israel in the next five centuries. This prophesy is amazingly accurate up to a point, then suddenly gets a lot wrong, and most modern scholars date the book to that point, about 167 BC.

Context

At the time Daniel was written (assuming a later dating), Israel was ruled by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, of the Seleucid Empire. The Jews were split between those who embraced Hellenisation and those who did not. Rumours had circulate Jerusalem that Antiochus had died in battle in Egypt, and the traditionalist Jews took the opportunity to seize power. The rumours were untrue, and when Antiochus returned, he sided with the Hellenised Jews, and set about stopping the traditional practices of Judaism, and among other things prevented offering and sacrifices in the temple. Later he defiled it further (possibly setting up an idol to Zeus or sacrificing an unclean animal). This was the "the abomination that causes desolation", and the motivation to write the Book of Daniel. These events are related in 1 and 2 Maccabees.

Daniel predicted the end times within just a few years of that event, and that clearly failed to happen. The later Jews - including Jesus - reinterpreted the text to refer to a future event, so for Jesus, the "the abomination that causes desolation" was yet to come - the first sign of the apocalypse.

Chapters 1 to 8

The first chapters relate a series of stories designed to show how great God is and the importance of keeping to his laws, especially when oppressed by foreign rulers. These may well be older stories, but they all have the same message for Jews living under Antiochus - keep the faith.

It is notable that in these chapters Daniel is the brilliant interpreter of dreams, whilst in the rest of the book, Daniel needs an angel to guide him when interpreting.

Chapter 9

Much of chapter nine is prayer that I will not discuss.

Chapter 9 also refers to Jeremiah's prophecy (Jeremiah 25:11) that the Jews would be freed in seventy years, referring to the Babylonian Captivity. Although they did get freed, Israel never became great again, and was subsequently ruled over by Medea, then Persia, then Greece and then the Seleucids. So now that prophesy is recast as seven times seventy (an alternative view is that Jeremiah's seventy years have expired when Daniel is supposedly talking). The seven years refers to the 7-year sabbatical cycles.

Daniel 9:24 “Seventy ‘sevens’[c] are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place.[e]

The temple was destroyed in 587 BC. Seventy times seven years would take us to 97 BC. There is some wriggle room, as it is not certain what the starting point is, and they had 360 days in a year, which could have affected the figure. However, there is no simple solution, and most people say he was just using a vague approximation, or got it wrong. Seven was considered a divine number, and starting from Jeremiah's seventy years, just multiplying by seven to get a long time was, I guess, all the author intended.

This verse also lays out the six objectives for Israel:

to finish transgression
to put an end to sin
to atone for wickedness
to bring in everlasting righteousness
to seal up vision and prophecy
to anoint the Most Holy Place.

I would suggest that achieving some of those objectives was the driving force behind the Pharisees belief that the Jews had to follow every Biblical law precisely (which is to say that Daniel reflects what the objectives were, not that it was necessarily the sole source of those objectives). This is also part of the message of Jubilees (written perhaps 10 years later).

25 “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One,[f] the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. 26 After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing.[g] The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. 27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’[h] In the middle of the ‘seven’[i] he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple[j] he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.[k]”[l]

This talks of Jerusalem rebuilt with new streets and a trench (perhaps a defensive moat). This is probably the rebuilding after the Babylonian Captivity, but their woes are not over and there are wars to come. The "anointed one" is the messiah - that is what messiah literally means - and many take this as a prophecy about Jesus. More likely it is about Onias III, whose murder (171 BC) is mentioned in Daniel 11:22.

The ruler is Antiochus, and the covenant was a deal he made with the Hellenised Jews. The author was hoping Antiochus would rule for just seven years (he ruled from 175 BC to 164 BC), and after three to four years stopped the Jews making sacrifices in the temple.

Chapters Ten and Eleven

These are mostly a history (pretending to be prophesy) of Israel as it is take in conquest by one nation after another, Midea, Persia then Greece, under Alexander the Great. When Alexander died, his empire was split up into four, and chapter eleven is mostly concerned with the Ptolemies, the kingdom to the south, and the Seleucids, the kingdom to the north.

However, at verse 36 of chapter eleven, it moves from history to speculation. Antiochus did not conquer Egypt, and was struck by a sudden disease in 164 AD from which he later died (described in 2 Maccabees).

Chapter Twelve

The last chapter describes the apocalypse which was expected to follow from Antiochus death. This would be when God's kingdom came to earth, when the dead would rise, the righteous to everlasting life:

12:1 “At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered. 2 Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. 3 Those who are wise[a] will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever. 4 But you, Daniel, roll up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge.”

This general resurrection has been pretty much abandoned by Christianity, but is very much what Paul was writing about, for example in 1 Cor 15.

The chapter ends with a very specific prediction:

11 “From the time that the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination that causes desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days. 12 Blessed is the one who waits for and reaches the end of the 1,335 days.

Clearly this failed to happen, and now many Christians and Jews consider it to mean years (as a year is but a day to God). Most select a start day that is slightly less than 1290 years ago (from whatever year it is now), which then has the end times just around the corner.

That is almost certainly not what the author meant. Note that 1290 days is slightly more than three and a half years (1278 days), i.e., half a 7-year cycle (and remember those 7-year cycles are important to Daniel). What he is saying is there were three and a half years from Antiochus stopping sacrifices in the temple and the event Daniel calls the desolation.