Daniel
Description
Daniel is the main character of the Book of Daniel. According to the Hebrew Bible, Daniel was a noble Jewish youth of Jerusalem taken into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon, serving the king and his successors with loyalty and ability until the time of the Persian conqueror Cyrus, all the while remaining true to the God of Israel. While some conservative scholars hold that Daniel existed and his book was written in the 6th century BCE, most scholars agree that Daniel, as depicted in the Book of Daniel, was not a historical figure, wherein the character was probably based on a similar legendary Daniel from earlier traditions. It follows that much of the book is a cryptic allusion to the reign of the 2nd century BCE Hellenistic king Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
Facts
| Venerated in | Judaism Christianity Islam Baháʼí Faith |
| Major shrine | Tomb of Daniel, Susa, Iran |
| Feast | July 21: Roman Catholicism, December 17: Greek Orthodoxy, Tuesday after fourth Sunday of Pentecost: Armenian Apostolic Church |
| Attributes | Often depicted in the den of the lions |
| Tradition or genre | 6th century BCE |
Life & work in brief
Summarised by section — one row per topic, for fast reading.
| Work / contribution | Significance |
|---|---|
| Background | Daniel's name means "God (El) is my judge". |
| Tales of Daniel | The Book of Daniel begins with an introduction telling how Daniel and his companions came to be in Babylon, followed by a set of tales set in the Babylonian and Persian courts in the late 7th and early 6th centuries BCE, followed in turn by a set of visions in which Daniel sees the remote future of the world and of Israel. |
| Additional tales (Greek text) | The Greek text of Daniel contains three additional tales, two of which feature Daniel (the third is an expansion of the tale of the fiery furnace). |
| Death and tomb of Daniel | The last mention of Daniel in the Book of Daniel is in the third year of Cyrus (Daniel 10:1). |
| Daniel in later tradition | Daniel is not a prophet in Judaism: prophecy is reckoned to have ended with Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. |