Eschatology: Daniel Passage-by-Passage
I’ll be looking at chapters 6 & 7 tonight, though 7 will doubtless stay in focus as we go through 8 & 9.
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It occurred to me when listening to the repeated “according to the law of the Medes and Persians no decree or edict that the king issues can be changed” firstly that the law of the Medes and Persians is therefore hugely stupid (any student of law will quickly find that past precedents are a millstone round your neck when trying to find a just result) and secondly that the author may have expected his audience to pick up on that. It rather depends whether the authorship is before or after the advent of a tradition of picking away at the Mosaic Law and its interpreters among Jewish scholars (later they’d be universally called Rabbis, but maybe not at this date…)
It’s an interesting point, especially since I’m trying to look at the book from the perspective of two proposed times of writing and many possible redactional processes. I do believe that the king (Darius the Mede, unknown to history) is being portrayed negatively, but you may be right that the legal system is also receiving a similar portrayal. It would seem likely that such a commentary would be more likely with later dating, though it would fit with the Aramaic portions of the book coming from anywhere from the 5th to the 2nd century as the rabbinic laws are discussed and codified, though probably later in that period than earlier.