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Class
Prep
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- Daniel
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- The Book of Daniel has the distinction of being the only apocalyptic work accepted into the Jewish canon of scripture. As you read both the book itself and Collins' introduction to the work, speculate about why this book might have "made it in" while 1 Enoch did not. What is different about the two works?
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- Collins will help you to distinguish the story and discourse
layers and to discern the other apocalyptic features in the text.
Make a list of these features as you read Daniel, and include
specific references to chapter and verse to illustrate your claims.
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- Along with a list of apocalyptic features, outline the chief stories of the book (they break out exactly along the chapter divisions until chapters 10-12). Collins singles out chapters 2, 7, 9, and 10-12, so pay special
attention to these. The illustration to the right is a depiction
from one of these chapters, namely Dan 7:13-14. It is from a 12th-century
Christian commentary on the Apocalypse by Beatus of Liebana. It
raises interesting issues about how Christians would appropriate
the esoteric symbols of Daniel in their speculation about the
return of Christ.
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- Finally, recall Wallace's sociological analysis of revitalization
movements, and be able to account for the imagery and themes of
Daniel in terms of one or more types of "response to crisis."
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- Assigned Readings
- Primary: Daniel 1-12 (NRSV); Begin Morrison, Sula,
3-66
- Secondary: Collins 85-115
- Optional: Wilder, "The Rhetoric of Ancient and Modern
Apocalyptic" (ERes)
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- Further Reading
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- See also the section of the Course Bibliography on Daniel in the Bible, Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha & Dead Sea Scrolls section.
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- Links
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- Sources
- Photograph: British Library ADD 11695, Folio 240; reproduced
in Bruce Chilton, "The Son of Man: Who Was He?" Bible
Review 12 (August 1996) 37.
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