Some Literary Affinities of the Book of Daniel

Abstract

The task of setting the literature of the Old Testament against its environment becomes more formidable with every decade, as scholars in the related fields of Near Eastern literature publish texts which, directly or indirectly shed light on the world of the third, second and first millennia B.C. Needless to say each text raises questions of interpretation, if not also of translation, but nevertheless it is a privilege to have access to documents of great antiquity, thanks to the devoted work of experts in these fields. It has happened recently that, in the course of publishing their texts, a number of scholars have indicated parallels between certain so-called prophetic works and the book of Daniel. The purpose of this paper is to look in more detail at these suggested perallels in order to assess their relevance and possible bearing on our understanding of that, book. Half a century ago J. A. Montgomery wrote of Daniel, 'its essential value lies in its reflection of the conditions of that Oriental complex of life on which we are too ill -informed. This dominant interest of the book has been too much overlooked by both radical critic and apologist in their zeal for attack or defence, and the religious and literary merits of the book have accordingly, suffered. What is here said refers almost entirely to cc. 1-6'./1/ The research of the last fifty years has done much to supply the knowledge of the ancient Near East which was then lacking. The Babylonian background of chapters 1-6 has been confirmed, and on some literary features of chapters 7-12 the Akkadian 'prophecy texts' shed their light.