Literary Strategies and Authorship in the Book of Daniel

Abstract

"While seventeenth!century Englishman John Dryden was taking stock of his literary heritage, he was awed by the many vivid characters in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales: "There is such a variety of game springing upon before me that I am distracted in my choice and know not which to follow. 'Tis sufficient to say, according to the proverb, here is God's plenty."1 So too with the book of Daniel, displaying presumptuous mon! archs, crafty soothsayers, a worldly!wise queen, and zealous Hebrews—in addition to the supernaturally wise Daniel himself. Moreover, as with Chaucer studies, scholarship on the book of Daniel has developed with relatively little biographical data, necessitating a modified new!critical approach that focuses upon the book itself in relation to and generally in deference to genre studies, linguistic analysis, and redaction and canon criticism"