Life After Death_ A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion - Alan Segal [172]
With Daniel, we are on the cusp of understanding the details of the social circumstances that produced this apocalyptic notion of resurrection. We have already seen that apocalypticism is one response to persecution, or to take a larger perspective, one possible response to colonial domination. We shall see others in future chapters. But before we came to understand the relationship between apocalypticism and social circumstances, we could only surmise how the Jews developed a religious form of apocalypticism. Daniel’s direct statements on astral immortality, promising a starry future to those who turn many to righteousness and resurrection for some of the good, was such an innovation in Hebrew thought that we must pause to investigate the circumstances that produced it.
The Form of the Book
THE BOOK OF Daniel contains two distinct content sections and two distinct languages: Hebrew and Aramaic. But the contents do not parallel the languages. Evidently the current, received book is composed of fragments from two different copies, one in Hebrew, the other in Aramaic, but the contents had already each assumed more or less in the form which we have today and the language break does not follow the change in subject matter. Why the current book came to be passed on in this form is anyone’s guess. We may be grateful for the quandary because it is possible that the book would not have been canonized if it had not contained some Hebrew. Certainly, no book written in Greek was ever allowed into the Masoretic Text by the rabbis.
Behind the seam produced by the change of language, we note another seam, almost as obvious, based on a change of content, which must underlie both the Hebrew and Aramaic versions. The first part of the book of Daniel consists of several miracle stories about the seer Daniel, purported to have lived during the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar, Darius the Mede, and Cyrus, a miraculously long lifespan. Nor do these reigns easily correspond with the historical personages. These stories make more sense as popular tales. They are stories that preach constancy to the laws of Moses, to the benefits of dietary regulations, and to the other special rules of Judaism, even though the penalty for keeping them may be martyrdom. They are almost the same kind of martyrdom stories we saw in the last chapter with one major innovation: The narrator depicts God as actually saving his righteous martyrs from the threatened martyrdom, thus miraculously preventing them from being martyred at all.3
The famous stories of Daniel in the lion’s den and the fiery furnace impress the readers with God’s special regard for those who follow his laws, as they portray God’s repeated deliverance of Daniel from the threatened martyrdoms. It is important that the heroes are in actual and real danger of death but preserved alive by divine intervention. It is, from this point of view, an important variation of the martyrology genre, showing the value of righteousness, steadfastness, and wisdom, even in the face of oppression. So although no explicit martyrdom appears, we have, in effect, a martyr tradition defined by the innocent sufferer delivered by God’s intervention. Although they are fictional, they teach real lessons in martyrdom, as well as promise salvation for the wise, persevering, and courageous.
Daniel is the name of a famous Canaanite hero, the father of Aqhat, the subject of an ancient epic. Furthermore, the name Daniel is a combined form of the word for judge (Hebrew: dan) with the suffix ’el which is a divinity name, usually translated as “great” when appended to another term. In form, it literally means “’El is my Judge.” Daniel was a wise ruler in the past, and Daniel’s wisdom, special skills, and revelatory knowledge are prominent aspects of the story. In this period, names ending with the suffix “-el” come to