Lately I’ve been doing a bit of reading and thinking about the early ‘apocalyptic’ texts, especially the book of Daniel. It’s a truly fascinating text for so many reasons, and has proven itself over and again to be an enigma to many who have tried to navigate these difficult waters but who’ve found themselves hermeneutically shipwrecked along the way.
As a (partial) tangent, I’ve had the joy of re-reading an excellent article written by my friend, the brilliant Dr George Athas (of Sydney’s Moore Theological College), entitled “In Search of the Seventy ‘Weeks’ of Daniel 9.” It is an historically, theologically, and exegetically astute article, and offers what is, I think, a very helpful way of thinking about this issue. You can find a post summarising the article (which also contains a link to the original article in JHS) on George’s blog: With Meagre Powers.
Anyway (and getting back to the real point of writing this post), something that has often bugged me about the way many have interacted with this text is the issue of the prophet being told to ‘seal up’ his prophetic words.
Continue reading Daniel the Prophet and His ‘Sealed Scroll’
