ABSTRACT
Daniel, one of the latest books in the Bible, reflects a world in which Judaism is threatened by Hellenism. On the surface, the stories in Daniel tell of Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king who destroyed the kingdom of Judah, burned the Temple down and exiled the Judaeans. The crisis of forced Hellenism was all the harder as there were Jewish collaborators in the upper class and the priesthood. The triumph of Judaism does not lie in the foiling or destruction of Israel’s enemies, as in the book of Esther, but their conversion and willing acceptance and practice of its teachings. Antiochus put an image of himself or Zeus in the Temple and required the Jews to worship it. In Daniel, similarly, Nebuchadnezzar sets up a golden image and makes it a capital offense to refuse to bow down to it. Daniel’s companions refuse to worship the idol and are put in the fiery furnace, in which they miraculously survive.
