Resisting Daniel: The Church's Fear of Bearing Witness to a Difficult Book

Abstract

Three obstacles contribute to American Christianity's resistance to reading the book of Daniel: 1) a backlash against the overuse of Daniel in certain presentations of end times doctrine; 2) Daniel's complicated references to previous biblical prophetic traditions and visionary experiences; and 3) the depictions of suffering in the latter chapters of the book. A reading of Daniel 10 illustrates the latter two obstacles, calling for readers to hearken to Daniel's testimony to the suffering of the Jewish community in the second century BCE. Overcoming the resistance to the book by Christian ministers is a daunting task that requires readers to deconstruct popular notions of apocalyptic eschatology, attend to issues of genre and biblical authorship, and develop a working knowledge of the historical context from which the writers of Daniel operated. While demanding, such an effort would allow readers to hear the book as an expression of a community living under unjust rule, to begin perceiving and evaluating the relationship between human and divine power, and to practice attending to the testimony of the oppressed.