Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

I'd go even further: my guess is that the rabbis (or whoever) realized that
Daniel was a late, fictional, composition, which does not preserve the words
of someone who actually acted as a messenger for God. They included it in
the canon nevertheless, because they considered its message about the end of
days to be important, but they did not wish to give its author prophetic
authority. In this way. Daniel is like Job, which the rabbis also considered
to be "a Mashal" rather than a historical text.
As I wrote, just a guess, which I expect some on this list to take exception
to.


Yigal Levin


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Shoshanna Walker" <rosewalk AT concentric.net>
To: "B-Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2006 3:51 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Daniel 11:22


> No one says that Daniel doesn't receive prophecies.  However, he
> receives them from angels and not from G-d.
>
> I sent a previous email about why Daniel wasn't considered a prophet
>
> Shoshanna
>
>
>
> Yigal,
>
> In fact, many countermissionary sites take issue with the Christian
> understanding of Daniel as a prophet, emphasizing that Daniel is
> included in the Ketuvim for good reason: because Daniel himself was
> not a prophet. I would move this topic, considering the present
> question, to include 12:1-2, which cannot but be taken prophetically.
>
> "And at that time, Micha'el will stand up, the great minister who
> stands over the sons of your people. And there will be a time of
> trouble which has not been since being a nation until that time. And
> at that time, your people will be delivered, all who are found written
> in the book, and many of those who sleep in the dusty ground will
> arise: these to eternal life, and these to shame and eternal
> disgrace." (Daniel 12:1-2)
>
> I do not think that I've seen this understood in any aspect other than
> the resurrection at the time of Mashiach. If Daniel does make
> prophecies about the future of the world, why is he not included in
> the Nevi'im? I guess this is not the determining factor, since 1 and 2
> Divrei haYamim (Chronicles) contain the same basic information as the
> Samuel/Kings records, yet they are not in the Nevi'im while the latter
> are. Surely, exclusion of Daniel from Nevi'im does not mean that he
> was not a prophet. Why do we then make it a point in our argumentation
> that Daniel was not a prophet? He could not be less of a prophet than
> Joshua, who did not deliver oracles about the future. Maybe Daniel was
> a "dreamer" (×ó×ï×ú×ù) rather than a "seer" (×ó×ï×ñ×î) or "prophet" 
> (×Ý×ë×ô×ê).
>
> It's an interesting question for sure.
>
> дÐÝаÐê - ש×ú×û×ê
> Yonah
>
> On 8/29/06, Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il> wrote:
> > And now a serious question: if "the rabbis" (of the "great assembly")
> > considered Daniel to be prophetic, why was it not included in the Nevi'im
> > (as it is in the Christian canon - that is, together with the "prophetic
> > books")?
> >
> > Yigal