Daniel 11 Decoded

Nowhere is the enigmatic nature of the book of Daniel more evident than in its 11th chapter. This puzzling section, part of a unit that begins with ch. 10 and continues through ch. 12, is replete with descriptions that baffle and frustrate the best of exegetes and interpreters. Not only are specific details in the chapter difficult to interpret but exegetes also disagree on a viable hermeneutical approach to the chapter. Does Daniel 11 mainly describe past events, perhaps under the guise of vaticinium ex eventu (requiring a preterist approach to interpretation)? Or is the chapter partly focused on distant events of an eschatological future (necessitating a futurist approach)? Or does the chapter mainly deal with selected essentials of religious and secular history of the past 2,000 or more years (dictating a historicist approach)? Or does the chapter anticipate events pertaining to Islam from the time of the Crusades to the present (leading to an Islamist approach)? Exegetical, interpretational, hermeneutical, and methodological questions abound for this chapter, and persuasive solutions are hard to come by.The present volume, authored by Jacques Doukhan, will be embraced by some readers and disputed by others. Doukhan is professor emeritus of Hebrew and Old Testament exegesis at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary and director emeritus of the Institute of Jewish-Christian Studies at Andrews University. He holds a doctorate in Hebrew language and literature from the University of Strasbourg in France and a doctorate in biblical studies and systematic theology from Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan. He has devoted much of his academic career to study of the book of Daniel. Helpful features of this volume include its focus on the Hebrew text of Dan 11, its attention to meanings of key Hebrew words, its occasional analysis of Hebrew syntax, and its attention to selected text-critical matters (although I would have appreciated more detailed coverage in these latter two areas).Doukhan understands Dan 11 to contain coded language referring to conflicts between the king of the North (representing religious and ecclesiastical power, especially the Roman Catholic Church) and the king of the South (representing secular philosophical and political power). As Doukhan explains, “In coded fashion, the prophetic vision evokes the confrontations of the Church with Neoplatonism, the pagan emperors (Nero, Diocletian, Julian), the humanistic and rationalist currents rooted in the Renaissance movements, the French Revolution, Napoleon, and the secular regimes that followed” (p. 254). The exegetical task for interpreters of Dan 11 amounts to “decoding” its language—hence the title of the book.The volume is clearly organized, and the exposition is easy to follow. In addition to an introduction and a conclusion, there are eight chapters. Chapter 1 deals with problems and methods confronting the student of Dan 11. Doukhan discusses three major schools of interpretation for this chapter: preterist, futurist, and historicist. In addition to these three major approaches, he incorporates a fourth approach of only “marginal character” (p. 4), which he calls the “Islamist” approach. Doukhan rejects the Maccabean thesis that underlies many studies of Dan 11, concluding that this approach contains contradictions, inconsistencies, incoherence, and circular reasoning. Instead, he advocates a historicist approach, seeing much of this chapter as anticipating the growth of the Roman Catholic Church and the papacy. Chapter 2 consists of only seven pages. It briefly calls attention to literary and structural parallels between Dan 11 and Dan 8, 10, and 12. These parallels are thought to be key to decoding the meaning of ch. 11. In ch. 3, Doukhan finds support for concluding that, since the papacy is in view in connection with the little horn of Dan 7 and 8, the papacy is also in view in Dan 11. In his view, Dan 11:5–45 “has nothing to do with Antiochus Epiphanes and the wars between the Ptolemies and the Seleucids” (p. 51). Chapter 4 consists of only six pages devoted to the symbolism of north and south in Dan 11. Doukhan understands north and south in this chapter to constitute a merism, with north representing God-usurping religious power and south representing self-reliant human power. Chapter 5 consists of nine pages devoted to the literary structure of Dan 11. Doukhan discusses two literary structures here. The first is a “linear-chronological structure” that develops the conflicts between the kings of the north and the kings of the south; the second is a “chiastic-covenant structure” that chronicles the conflict perpetrated against God’s covenant people. According to Doukhan, “The main lesson of these literary structures is that Daniel 11 refers to historical events that have spiritual significance” (p. 71). Chapter 6 is by far the longest chapter of the book, consisting of 177 pages of verse-by-verse commentary on Dan 11. The commentary is organized in six sections: “the wars of Michael” (10:21b–11:4); “the price of marriage” (11:5–13a); “the drama of persecution” (11:13b–27); “theological radioscopy” (11:28–39); “the time of the end” (11:40–43); “the victory of Michael” (11:44–12:1a). Chapter 7 is an 11-page discussion of the theology of Dan 11. It focuses on four theological themes: the theology of history, with stress on God’s foreknowledge of future events; the so-called Great Controversy, involving frequent conflicts between the king of the North and the king of the South; the denunciation of evil as allegedly represented by the Roman Catholic Church and the papacy; and the cross and the eschatological judgment, which underscore the Christocentric nature of Dan 11. Chapter 8 is an excursus on Dan 11 and Islam, which seeks to determine whether Dan 11 refers to a conflict involving Muslims, as certain Jewish and Christian interpreters have alleged. To this question, Doukhan gives a negative answer: “Put quite simply, from the scriptural and historic points of view, the prophecy of Dan 11 should not be interpreted as referring to Islam” (p. 264).Most commentary sections of this volume follow a similar plan. Doukhan begins with observations on the verse(s) under consideration. Interwoven in this discussion are his own interpretive conclusions. In most cases, a section entitled “Supporting Readings” follows. Here Doukhan collects quotations, sometimes of considerable length, from secondary literature that describe events or persons from secular or religious history thought to be relevant for interpretation of Dan 11. These quotations take up a total of about 45 pages, or approximately 24 percent of the commentary section. The implication is that these extrabiblical sources describe the same events or persons depicted in Dan 11. The next section is a brief discussion of various interpretations. Here, Doukhan summarizes and evaluates critical, futurist, classic Adventist, and Islamist interpretations of the passage under consideration. He often expresses disagreement with these views, including classic Adventist interpretation of Dan 11. This discussion cycle guides the commentary sections throughout.The most serious question that I have with this commentary has to do with the interpretive grid that Doukhan imposes on the biblical text. He has (a priori?) decided on a historical scheme of interpretation—one that reflects a strong bias against the Roman Catholic Church and the papacy. He repeatedly finds these entities encoded in the book of Daniel, often with great specificity with regard to events, people, and actions. For example, according to Doukhan, the defiling of the sanctuary mentioned in Dan 11:31, which is thought to last 1,290 days (cf. Daniel 12:11), refers to the 1,290 years from the baptism of Clovis ruler of Gaul in AD 508 to AD 1798, when the church lost support of secular authority due to the policies of Napoleon (p. 173). Many similar assertions are scattered throughout the commentary. Such conclusions are hardly the result of exegetical unpacking of the biblical text itself. Rather, they are the result of importing into the text a historical scheme that lies beyond the intention of the Danielic text. This approach seems to be inconsistent with a methodological priority that Doukhan himself elsewhere stresses: “The biblical interpreter should move from the biblical text to the historical event (exegesis) and not from the historical event to the biblical text (eisegesis)” (p. 73).The problem of adopting an interpretive grid and then looking for correspondences in the biblical text to justify a priori conclusions under the guise of exegesis is a besetting sin of many Daniel studies of all stripes. Examples are not hard to find, whether one considers a preterist approach, a futurist approach, a historicist approach, or an Islamist approach. The complexities of the book of Daniel call for an approach that resists going beyond the text itself unless there is sufficient and compelling exegetical evidence for doing so. While I welcome the publication of this thorough and well-written example of a historicist interpretation of Dan 11, I cannot agree with its exegetical method

Sociology · Theology · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Historical and Linguistic Studies · Philosophy

• Identidade Do Homem Vil Em Daniel 11

  Open Access•Naftali Guerra•PRÁXIS TEOLÓGICA•2023

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