More Apocalypse! Jeff and Tyler dive into the Hebrew Bible book of Daniel. This is one of the original apocalyptic texts in the Bible and there’s a lot to unpack. The more we can understand the symbols in this book, the more the book of Revelation and other apocalyptic texts start to make sense!
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SHOW NOTES:
[00:12] Introduction. Review of apocalyptic, and background for Daniel.
[03:40] unpacking Daniel 7
[06:03] Why is Alexander the Great the G.O.A.T. ?!
[17:04] The role of Daniel in later Jewish and Christian interpretation. The importance of the “beast” symbol.
[22:40] The Son of Man Vision and Jesus. Suffering leads to victory?
MORE DETAIL:
[00:12] Background on Daniel (see Jeremiah 29) Daniel and friends are examples of how to “seek the welfare” of Babylon while staying faithful to God.
Daniel 7-12 is the main “apocalyptic” section of the book.
[03:40] Daniel chapter 7. The Revelation takes up so many of these same images—winds, beasts, clouds etc.
[06:03] Alexander the Great is in the background in most of these images. Especially Daniel 8. Alexander conquered the world by the age of 32; then his kingdom was immediately split into 4, with one eventually coming to power.
In the original understanding of these texts the “fourth beast” of chapter 7 is most likely Alexander (320’s BC), leading to the Seleucids, leading to Antiochus IV Epiphanies (160’s BC). Antiochus’ persecution of the Jews would have been one of the worst things the people could imagine. It’s the reason we have the book of the Maccabees, where we get the story of Hanukkah.
[17:04] How Daniel continues to speak today even if it’s original focus was on Alexander the Great etc… Jesus and other early Christians and Jews continued to re-read Daniel in new fresh ways.
“Beasts” link us back to Genesis 1 and 2…
[22:20] The Son of Man. the one to finally rule over the beasts like Genesis 1 pointed to.
This all points to Jesus! Matthew 26:64 is Jesus quoting Daniel 7. “Coming on the clouds” in NOT a description of transportation, but an image about power and authority.
How does suffering, and particularly the suffering of the Son of Man lead to God’s victory? It’s all there in Daniel!
