Daniel

Daniel is the central figure of the Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. According to the biblical account, he was a young man of noble Judean descent taken to Babylon in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, an event the narrative places in the early sixth century BCE. Selected with three companions for training in the language and literature of the Chaldeans, he received the Babylonian name Belteshazzar. The opening chapter stresses his determination not to defile himself with the royal food and wine; God grants him and his companions knowledge and skill, and to Daniel a particular understanding of visions and dreams.

The court tales that follow present him as an interpreter of royal dreams and portents. He explains Nebuchadnezzar's dream of a great statue of mixed metals, later interprets a dream of a tree that is cut down, reads the mysterious writing that appears at Belshazzar's feast, and is himself delivered from a den of lions after jealous officials exploit a decree forbidding prayer. His three companions are saved from a fiery furnace. These stories portray fidelity to the God of Israel under foreign domination and assert divine sovereignty over successive empires.

The latter chapters of the book contain apocalyptic visions reported in the first person: four beasts from the sea, a ram and a he-goat, the prophecy of seventy weeks, and revelations concerning persecution, the desecration of the sanctuary, and a final resurrection. In the Jewish canon the book stands among the Writings rather than the Prophets; classical rabbinic tradition does not rank Daniel with the literary prophets. Christian Bibles place him among the Major Prophets, and he is cited as a prophet in the New Testament. He is venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, whose Roman Martyrology lists him on 21 July, and in the Eastern Orthodox Church, which commemorates him on 17 December together with the Three Holy Youths.

Modern historical-critical scholarship generally dates the Book of Daniel to the mid-second century BCE, in the context of the persecution under Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and treats the figure of Daniel as a literary rather than a historically documented person of the Neo-Babylonian age. The work contains historical discrepancies with the known sixth-century record, including the unattested ruler Darius the Mede and the portrayal of Belshazzar. No contemporary extra-biblical source confirms Daniel's existence. Nonetheless he became an enduring exemplar of wisdom, prayer, and apocalyptic hope in Judaism and Christianity. In Islamic tradition he is known as Daniyal and appears in later narratives, though not in the Qur'an. Traditional tombs have been associated with him at Susa in Iran and at other sites; none is historically verifiable. The biblical text supplies no birth or death year, no named spouse or children, and no account of his death.