Why the Rabbis Exiled Daniel
(...to the Ketuvim)
by Paul Sumner
In Jewish Bibles, the book of Daniel is found in the Ketuvim or "Writings" portion. This is the last, least-authoritative portion.
By the time of Yeshua, the Hebrew Scriptures had been divided into three sections: Torah, Prophets, and Writings. Yeshua alluded to this order when he spoke of "all things written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms" (Luke 24:44).
These three sections make up what is now called the Tanakh—an acronym created by Medieval rabbis from the three Hebrew letters T (Torah), N (Nevi'im, Prophets), K (Ketuvim, Writings).
In contrast to Jewish Bibles, Christian Bibles place the book of Daniel among the "Prophets," after the book of Ezekiel. This location and Bible organization follows the four book groupings in the Septuagint (or LXX), the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible done by Jewish scholars in Egypt in the 3rd century BC(E): Law, History, Prophets, Poetry.
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Why isn't Daniel among the Prophets of Israel in Jewish Bibles?The major explanation given by Jewish tradition is that Daniel is never called a "prophet" (Hebrew, navi), nor are his visions called "prophecy" [per the Babylonian Talmud: Megillah 3a; Bava Batra 14b; Sanhedrin 94a].
Paradoxically, Sanhedrin 93b, 94a says Daniel was "greater than" King David and "was superior to" the Hebrew prophets Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, because he "saw the vision" of a heavenly priest [Dan 10:5-9], which they did not. However, the Talmudic text then explicitly says those prophets were "superior to" Daniel because "was not" a prophet (94a).
In contrast, Daniel 9:24 reads:
Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to close up the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to atone for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy thing [or most holy place; qodesh qadashim]. (Isaac Leeser translation)The words "vision and prophecy" are hazon ve-navi, literally "vision and prophet." In this biblical text, the navi is Daniel himself.
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Are all prophets "prophets"?
The rabbis rejected Daniel as a prophet because he is not (according to them) explicitly called a prophet. But this criterion for his exclusion was not universally applied, since many of the prophets in the "Prophets" portion of the Tanakh are never called navi either by themselves or by God himself.The prophets who are named navi:
Isaiah (37:2; 38:1; 39:3)
Jeremiah (1:5; another 24x; Daniel 9:2 refers to "Jeremiah the prophet")
Ezekiel (2:5; 33:33 only implied)
Habakkuk (1:1; 3:1)
Haggai (1:1,3,12; 2:1,10)
Zechariah (1:1,7)There are nine prophets in the Prophets portion who are not named a navi in the Bible:
Hosea
Joel
Obadiah
Jonah
Micah
Nahum
Zephaniah
Malachi
AmosAmos emphatically says: "No prophet am I, nor a prophet's son am I" [lo navi anokhi velo ben navi anokhi]. Rather, he says, he is a "herdsman and a gatherer of figs [or, grower of sycamore figs]" (Amos 7:14).
Yet the works of these nine not-named prophets are found in the Prophets section called "The Twelve (or Minor) Prophets" in Jewish Bibles. Why not Daniel?
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Prior to the publication of the Palestinian Talmud (400 CE) and Babylonian Talmud (500 CE), Daniel is called a prophet by these Jewish sources:Dead Sea Scrolls
"This is the time of which it is written in the book of Daniel, the prophet." (4Q174 II.4; "Midrash on the Last Days" or "Florilegium")New Testament (Yeshua)
"Therefore when you see the Abomination of Desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet [Dan 9:27; 11:31; 12:11], standing in the holy place…then let those who are in Judah flee to the mountains..." (Matthew 24:15-16)Josephus
"Darius…took Daniel the prophet, and carried him with him into Media, and honored him very greatly, and kept him with him." (Antiquities 10.11.4 [249])"Daniel…was so happy as to have strange revelations made to him, and those as to one of the greatest of the prophets… Daniel was to them a prophet of good things." (Antiquities 10:11.7 [266, 268])
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If these Jewish authorities—before and during the first century—proclaimed Daniel to be a prophet, why did later rabbis remove him from that category?I believe there are two reasons:
(1) — Daniel's vision in Chapter 7 depicts a human being (Aramaic, bar enash) who is brought into the throneroom of God ("the Ancient of Days"). He is then given authority to co-rule with God (vv. 9-14). The imagery of inauguration of this Second Ruler is used by Yeshua and his Jewish disciples to depict his own enthronement at God's right hand as Messiah, Lord, and King.
Matt 19:28; 24:27,30; 25:31; 26:64; 28:18; Mark 2:10; 8:38; John 5:22;
Acts 7:55-56; Rev 1:14; 7:10; 11:15; 12:10Rabbinic literature, as early as the Mishnah (ca 200 AD/CE), contains several condemnations of the doctrine of "Two Powers," a teaching ascribed to the "Minim" or "believers" — a term often used for Yeshua's Jewish disciples. To several rabbis this doctrine seemed to undermine the emerging Jewish unitarian monotheism of that era.
Official opposition to the heresy of Two Powers eventually led Jewish spiritual leaders to deny the very Scriptural, prophetic revelation that was to truly set them apart as channels of Messianic, world redemption.
Mishnah: Sanhedrin 4:5; Babylonian Talmud: Sanhedrin 38a;
b. Megillah 25a;
Others: Sifre on Deut. 379; Midrash Rabbah Genesis. 1:7; Midr. Rabbah Deuteronomy 2:33; Pesiqta Rabbati 20, 4; 3 Enoch 16:1-5.See Alan Segal, Two Powers in Heaven (Early Rabbinic Reports About Christianity and Gnosticism) (Leiden: Brill, 1977); R. Travers Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash (orig. 1903; reprint: Philadelphia: Ktav Publishing House, 1975).
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(2) — Daniel predicts that "an anointed one, a prince" [mashiach nagid] would come to Jerusalem in "sixty two weeks." According to some Qumran scholars, Jewish priests using the book of Daniel and the Book of Jubilees (in the Pseudepigrapha collection), calculated that the time window of Mashiach's arrival would be between 10 BCE and 2 CE. [See the study Messianic Texts at Qumran in the Dead Sea Scrolls portal.]In later centuries, inquiring Jews, having a modicum of scriptural knowledge and historical awareness, would naturally ask their elders why they "missed" the coming of Mashiach during that time window and why they refused to accept Yeshua the Nazarene, who was declared to be Mashiach by his Jewish disciples.
Generation after generation of later rabbis had two choices: either confess the great sin of their first century elders (and their own) or engage in a history-changing coverup of the biblical and historical evidence.
One way to quell interest in prophetic matters was to refocus and redefine what it meant to be Jewish. Maimonides (1135-1204) warned Jews of his generation not to obsess on prophecy and the times of the Messiah.
"A person should not occupy himself with...these and similar matters, nor should he consider them as essentials, for [study of] them will neither bring fear nor love [of God]. Similary, one should not try to determine the appointed time [for the Messiah's coming].... Rather, one should await and believe in the general conception of the matter."
[Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Melachim Umilchamotheihem 12, 2; emphasis added ]To add authority to his admonition, Maimonides quoted the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 97b: "All the predestined dates [for redemption] have passed, and the matter [now] depends only on repentance and good deeds."
For these two reasons, I believe the spiritual leaders of Israel had to move Daniel out of the limelight to protect themselves from the charge of collusion against divine revelation and to protect the people of Israel from "the Minim," the Jewish followers of Yeshua.
So the rabbis exiled Daniel back into the third, last, and least authoritative portion of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Ketuvim.
[See the Three Divisions of the Tanakh.]
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Notes
The order of books in the "Writings" or "Ketuvim" portion of modern Jewish Bible is: Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, 1 & 2 Chronicles.Discussion by the rabbis of the Son of Man in Daniel 7 can still be found in portions of the Talmud and later literature:
• b. Sanhedrin 96b-97a, 98a
• Targum on 1 Chronicles 3:24
• 4 Ezra 13:1-9, 25-26, 35-36 [found in the Pseudepigrapha collection]
Some Sources
• Roger Beckwith:
— "The Significance of the Calendar for Interpreting Essene Chronology and Eschatology, in the journal Revue de Qumran, vol. 10 (no. 38, 1980): 179-180.— "Daniel 9 and the Date of Messiah's Coming in Essene, Hellenistic, Pharisaic, Zealot and Early Christian Computation," Revue de Qumran 10 (1981): 523-525
•Maimonides:
— Mishneh Torah, tractate "Hilchot Melachim Umilchamotheihem" (trans. Eliyahu Touger; New York/Jerusalem: Maznaim Publishing, 1987), 242-246
• Raphael Patai:
— The Messiah Texts (New York: Avon Books, 1979), 81-83. This is based on a study by Moritz Zobel, Gottes Gesalbter, Der Messiahs und die Messianische Zeit in Talmud und Midrash (1938)[Top]
"The Shema is Not All"