This Week We Will Read the Book of Daniel

  In this last week of Ordinary Time (and the liturgical year) the Church’s first readings will be taken from the Book of Daniel.  The Old Testament Book of Daniel is similar to the New Testament Book of Revelation.  It is apocalyptic. 

          “Apocalypse” means to “reveal” or “uncover.”  It is a particular type of Biblical genre, usually heavy with symbolism, and normally dealing with the end times, i.e., eschatology.  The latter is why the Church turns to these readings at this point in the Church year. 

          Apocalyptic writings are not intended to scare people: the Biblical message, especially in the New Testament, is repeatedly “be not afraid!”  Not being scared, however, does not mean not being forewarned.  Death is coming for each of us.  The end of the world and Last Judgment will come for all of us.  God provides us with what we need for these events and wants us to reckon with them: a key element in apocalyptic literature is “be prepared.”  In fact, apocalyptic writing is intended to be consoling literature; we should be assured, knowing that God and good has the final word in human history.  The only thing we need to do is conform our wills to God’s.

          Apocalyptic writings normally occurred in settings of persecution.  The Book of Daniel is set in Babylon, where the Jewish People were carried into exile.  In many ways, the Babylonian Exile was the “end of the world” for Israel.  The defining feature of Jewish life was the Exodus, which consisted of three elements: (i) freedom from Egypt; (ii) the covenant with God (“you will be My people, I will be your God”); and (iii) the Promised Land of Israel.  When Judah was carried into Babylonian Exile, it seemed all that was lost: they were no longer free, they felt God had abandoned them and knew they were being punished for their sins against Him, and they lost the land.  Daniel offers them assurance that, even in exile, God remains with them and promises them a better future if they repent.

          There are debates about when the Book of Daniel was written.  The traditional view makes it contemporaneous with events it details, i.e., the 5th century B.C.  Many modern scholars claim the Book was written around 200 B.C., i.e., after the Exile but set in that context to support Jewish fidelity during the Maccabean period, which was the focus of last week’s readings.  Babylon’s Nebuchadnezzar and the Seleucid Antiochus Epiphanes are both seen as persecutors of God’s People.

          Babylon was a multicultural empire: it ruled many subject peoples.  That meant that promising young men from those subject peoples were brought to Babylon to be inculcated in Babylonian ways, to make them liaisons between the government and their peoples.  That’s the case of Daniel and his companions.  As was the case in last week’s readings, food is the issue.  Daniel and friends do not want to eat the meals they are being fed in Babylon because those meals do not comply with Jewish dietary laws.  That doesn’t mean the Babylonians were negligent, inadvertently failing to ask, “does anybody have allergies?”  No—imperial rulers wanted people assimilated to their lifestyles and ways of understanding things, abandoning their pasts.  In the case of the Jews, their assimilation or non-assimilation was readily observable by their eating habits.  For the early Christians – as we saw with St. Cecilia, whose feast we celebrated Saturday – their aggregation to the Roman Empire was evident by their sexual habits: chastity and virginity were marks of a Christian. 

In Monday's reading, [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112425.cfm ] the powers-that-be in Babylon are concerned that if Daniel and friends do not eat the king’s generous offerings but instead adhere to Jewish kosher rules, they will be skinnier and look less healthy, obvious proof that they were not assimilating and their assimilators not doing their jobs.  It’s why they press Daniel and friends to eat, but why Daniel and company say they will keep their dietary laws and that God will provide well for them (which their assimilators understand also to mean getting them off the hook).  We’ll meet Daniel again this week when he interprets dreams, visions, and writing on the king’s walls for him.  By week’s end, we will reach visions that the Church also understands as applying to the end of the world.  Let’s read with care!