ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the relevance of some activities for the court tales of Daniel in light of culturally proximate sources. While the evidence differs in quality and quantity in each case, the chapter suggests that each of these three activities were important to a culturally predominant masculinity in the historical context. The chapter provides sources from the cultural group that composed the court tales of Daniel, namely other portions of the Hebrew Bible. Texts comparing men to women for being defeated in war provide additional relatively explicit statements about the gendering of physical violence, displays of strength, or killing in a martial context in the Hebrew Bible. The court tales of Daniel emerged in a context wherein a culturally predominant masculinity involved physical violence and power, especially in a martial context. The chapter shows that even as a name could be made through martial prowess, producing sons to perpetuate the father's name was central to a culturally predominant masculinity.
