There is an old story about a hungry lion roaming through the jungle looking for food. He came across two men. One was sitting under a tree reading a book. The other was intently, incessantly writing in a journal. The lion quickly pounced on the man reading the book and devoured him. You see, even the king of the jungle knows that readers digest and writer’s cramp.
The
story of Daniel in the lions’ den is one of the mostly widely known biblical
stories. It is always included in
Children’s Bibles and there are countless pieces of art about it. In the art Daniel is usually depicted as a
strapping young man at the height of his manhood. You almost think he could take on the lions
in a fight and win.
But
what if Daniel isn’t a young man? The
timeframe of Daniel doesn’t work historically.
There are outright factual inaccuracies.
I’m not going to get into them, but for those scholars who do attempt to
wiggle some consistency out of it, Daniel would have to be about 80 years old
when he is thrown in the lions’ den. How
does seeing Daniel as an 80 year old affect your understanding of the story?
The
origins of the book of Daniel are puzzling.
One thing that I do find consistent among the diverse scholars who
attempt to make sense of it is that they all categorize Daniel as folklore and
not history. They then interpret it as
such.
Last
week we looked at Shadrach, Meshack, Abednego and the fiery furnace. It has a lot of parallels with Daniel in the
lions’ den. In both cases innocent Jews
are persecuted for their faith. In both
cases there is a king who is in charge.
In both cases the Jews survive but others are killed.
There
are two major distinctions though. Shadrach,
Meshack and Abednego simply refused to comply with the demands of the
king. In Daniel’s case other leaders are
plotting against him and come up with a trap.
The other distinction is that, again,
Shadrach, Meshack and Abednego simply refuse to comply. However, Daniel flagrantly disobeys. In 6:10 we learn that Daniel continues to go
to his house, “which had windows in its upper room open toward Jerusalem,” and
he gets down on his knees three times a day to pray. There are variations in the ancient texts
here. Some say, as our translation
chooses to follow, that the windows were simply always open. Others say that Daniel deliberately opened
the windows. There’s no way of knowing
which is the original. What is certain,
though, is that Daniel is deliberately performing an act of civil
disobedience. He knows it’s against the
law. He knows he will get in trouble for
it. But he does it anyway.
Civil
disobedience has been used by powerless people for many centuries. You’re surely familiar with it being used by
many in America today, especially to address issues of race and poverty. If Daniel is folklore then the entire Daniel
in the lions’ den story can be symbolic of what the Jews were facing as they
lived in perpetual oppression.
Notice
that Daniel is described as having “an excellent spirit.” Apparently he is trustworthy, hard-working,
and loyal. These are qualities the
ancient Jews felt they needed to maintain even as they were being
oppressed. And it forms the foundation
of a reform movement based on civil disobedience. If the people using civil disobedience to
bring about change are not upright and trustworthy then the whole thing doesn’t
work. The oppressor can just say, “Look
at those worthless, lazy, criminal rebels.”
Also notice that the other races –
or the dominant race – are jealous of the power the Jew, Daniel, has acquired
through his integrity. They conspire to
create a legal trap against him. Some
scholars suggest the den of lions is symbolic of the imperial oppression the
Jews had long lived under. If Daniel is
indeed written in the second century B.C.E. then the Jews have been almost
perpetually under foreign control for 300 years. 300 years!
Actually, we may be able to get a
handle on that. The United States is
almost 240 years old but its roots clearly go back a century or two more:
What
is the story of America if you are of European background?
What
is the story of America if your background is African and your ancestors were
part of the slave trade?
What
is the story of America if you are from one of the indigenous Indian
civilizations?
(I know there are Asian and Hispanic
dynamics in America too, but I mention European, African, and Native because
they all share the same centuries-long experience.)
I
don’t want to get into hot button issues like critical race theory, but I’m
sure you’d agree that the same factual history is going to be experienced
differently depending on where in that history you connect. It also affects how you experience other
people’s history. It can be very
difficult for those of European descent in America today to understand Daniel
in the lions’ den. We see it as a story about
the persistent faith of a young man.
Others however, may see it as a pathetic old man from the race of a
captured people who has been trapped in legal maneuvering and is being
pointlessly thrown to lions.
Perhaps
we ignore, or maybe we are offended by, the scene near the end when after
Daniel survives those who sought to kill him are thrown in to the lions; along
with their whole families!
How
can this be?!? How can the innocent
children suffer because of their father’s failings? How can that be a Bible story about faith?
How
indeed? But we have to remember the
story is from the point of view of people oppressed for centuries. I certainly do not condone their desire to
see their oppressors hurt, but I think we can understand their feelings. Texts like this should not be used to condone
violence. However they do give us
insight into the seething anger that develops when one people feels the ways of
society forever punishes them or keeps them oppressed.
At
an adult level the story of Daniel in the lions’ den is a story about
oppression and civil disobedience. The
Jews felt like their whole existence was like being in a den of lions. Deadly threats that were far more powerful
than they were all around. The ultimate
moral is for the Jews to stay the course.
They should not lose faith. They
should not lose hope. And they should
continue to be productive and supportive citizens so as to give their enemies
no reason to hurt them; or to shame their enemies when they do.
Some
Christians creatively see Daniel and the lions den as having parallels with
Jesus. Daniel is unjustly thrown to the
lions by a great imperial power. Jesus
is unjustly killed and put into a tomb by a great imperial power. Daniel survives the ordeal of the lions and
emerges unscathed. So much for the might
of the Persian Empire! And Jesus too is
resurrected, leaving the tomb unphased by death. So much for the might of the Roman
empire!
And
there is the threat. Resurrection is a
threat to imperial power. If the
imperial armies cannot keep their prisoners dead, where now is their power?
For
the most part we live as the people who call the shots in the world. Most of us are of the dominant race in the
dominant nation on earth. We need to
exercise our power with conscientiousness and kindness. We need to be careful not to exercise
imperial power, whether that is in the form of our nation’s policies and laws,
or our own interactions with those around us.
In other words, we have more power than most. That is both privilege and obligation.
Of
Daniel 6 John Calvin writes, “Earthly princes deprive themselves of all
authority when they rise up against God, yea, they are unworthy to be counted
amongst the company of men. We ought
rather to spit in their faces than to obey them when they… spoil God of his
right.” (John Calvin, Commentary on
Daniel, quoted in New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 7, Pg. 94)
So
yes, we need to humbly submit to God in our use of power. God sees and God knows. God’s power is greatest. When people are saved from lions and people
rise from the dead we know that earthly power is no real power at all. Real power only belongs to God.
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