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Re: question
On Sun, 14 Apr 1996, David W. Suter wrote:
> The idea that Daniel is simply two
> writings from different times "stuck together" is only one possibility
> for understanding its literary history. Another possibility is that a
> writer has taken a previously existing set of stories about the limits of
> royal power and the problem of serving in the court of an alien king and
> added to it as a means of addressing the Maccabean crisis. My assumption
> is that Daniel is a fictional character whose "career" continues from the
> first half to the second half. Given the additional material that the
> book of Daniel seems to generate, which shows up in the Greek versions,
> it seems likely that Daniel is a traditional character in the lore of
> some group, which is actively generating (or preserving) stories
> associated with Daniel.
Agreed. And given that the original stories in 2-6 seem to demonstrate a
Persian or Babylonian context and the later additions a Judean one, one seems
compelled to speculate that the group we are talking about came to Judea
from the east around the beginning of the second century BCE. I believe
John Collins suggested this in his Hermennia commentary. This would
dovetail very nicely with the arguments of Jerome Murphy O. Connor and
Phillip Davies that other literature of this family from this same period
(eg. the original strata of CD) has similar origins and was later
modified to accomodate the specific circumstances of Judea in the
secondcentury BCE. J.M. O'Connor argues for a Hasmonean date for this
return but I prefer a somewhat earlier date of about 200 BCE or slightly
later (I think this period offers us a better context in which to
understand such a return--namely, the restoration of Coele-Syria to
the Seleucid realm and the Seleucid's encouragement of the entrenchment
of Jewish law).
Bruce Wildish
Toronto