Reading Daniel as a Text in Theological Hermeneutics. By AARON B. HEBBARD.

Abstract

Only as I came to write a review did I rediscover that I provided a blurb for this monograph. I had better therefore review it positively, though that is not difficult (it also sports an enthusiastic blurb from Professor David Jasper, who supervised the Glasgow dissertation that lies behind it). The monograph begins by noting that ‘the book of Daniel is all about interpretation’. Its aim is to instil in its readers ‘faith, wisdom, and interpretive skill’. It ‘is to be read as a textbook in theological hermeneutics’. Dr Hebbard tells us that, having already determined on an interdisciplinary approach to the book, he realized that Daniel himself ‘was the interdisciplinarian already at work showing me the way to do interdisciplinarity in that he maintains religious, academic, social, and political perspectives integrally and proficiently. Furthermore, the challenges presented in the book such as narrational shifts, bilingualism, and genric interplays prove Daniel to be literature that demands interdisciplinarity in its reader as well. With this in mind, we must begin to read Daniel as an exercise in the theory and practice of interpretation.’ Dr Hebbard means his ‘must’; I am not sure about ‘must’, though I am happy to agree with ‘may’. Given the sophistication of his hermeneutical insight, his defence of the idea that he alone has discovered the true meaning of the book after others have been studying it for two millennia seems laboured.