Daniel in Its Persian Context

Abstract

Whereas the Book of Daniel was completed in the Maccabean period, it is widely agreed that several of its court tales were composed much earlier, in the Persian era. This was the period in which the so-called “court tale" or "wise courtier tale" genre began to flourish across the Ancient Mediterranean and the Near East. In my previous work on the Biblical Book of Daniel (especially my book Of Courtiers and Kings, 2013), I explored this matter in the context of the story-collection genre, and compared its court narratives with those in non-Jewish literature, some of which had been previously overlooked. The court tales in Daniel need to be understood within a particularly Achaemenid-era literary endeavor that permeated the Ancient Near East, including Egypt. For this, one must examine the Persian influence on the author's unique perspective of life in the Judean Diaspora.