The Book of Truth

40 “At the time of the end, the king of the south shall attack him, but the king of the north shall rush upon him like a whirlwind, with chariots and horsemen, and with many ships. And he shall come into countries and shall overflow and pass through. 41 He shall come into the glorious land. And tens of thousands shall fall, but these shall be delivered out of his hand: Edom and Moab and the main part of the Ammonites. 42 He shall stretch out his hand against the countries, and the land of Egypt shall not escape. 43 He shall become ruler of the treasures of gold and of silver, and all the precious things of Egypt, and the Libyans and the Cushites shall follow in his train. 44 But news from the east and the north shall alarm him, and he shall go out with great fury to destroy and devote many to destruction. 45 And he shall pitch his palatial tents between the sea and the glorious holy mountain. Yet he shall come to his end, with none to help him (Dan 11:40-45). 

i) Liberals think Daniel was written in the mid-2C BC. They think most of Dan 11 is prophecy after the fact. The anonymous author was writing history under the guise of prophecy.

They think there's a shift at v40. They view that as a genuine, but mistaken prediction. The author was writing history up to that point, but then made the precarious move of extrapolating the future from the recent post–and got it wrong. 

He supposedly got it wrong, because Antiochus didn't die in Palestine (pace vv40-45), but Persia. 

ii) I've critiqued that interpretation from various angles. Now I'd like to broach the issue from another angle.

iii) Keep in mind that Daniel doesn't name the ill-fated individual. He doesn't say this was Antiochus. That identification is supplied by commentators rather than the author. 

That doesn't mean there's anything necessarily wrong with commentators attempting to identify unnamed referents. But we need to guard against a circular argument whereby we first impute to Daniel something he didn't say, then accuse him of contradicting known facts. 

iv) Not to mention that even if Daniel was alluding to Antiochus throughout, it comes down to a question of which historical source you trust. 

v) Commentators who defend the Maccabean date don't believe that God, if there is a God, reveals the future. They view the world as a closed system.

However, even if you take that position, it's important, for the sake of argument, to consider what would follow if, in fact, the opposing position is true. 

Let's take a comparison. Suppose God showed Thomas Aquinas an image of Lee and Grant at Appomattox. No caption. Just the image–like Civil War photos we've seen.

That's future in relation to Aquinas. But could he tell if that's past or future? Sure, people in his own time and place didn't dress that way, but his personal experience is pretty provincial.

In addition, could he tell, by looking at the image, who he was looking at? No. They'd be unrecognizable to him.

Suppose God told him: "That's Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox."

Would that mean anything to Aquinas? Not at all. God might as well tell Aquinas that's Frodo and Legolas at Rivendell–for all the difference it would make.

Suppose God told him: "That's Gen. Lee surrendering to Gen. Grant."

Would that mean anything to Aquinas? Not in the slightest. Aquinas has no frame of reference. God would have to give him a crash course in American history for that explanation to be meaningful.

When we interpret ancient prophecies, it's important not to equate our knowledge of the past (or what we think we know about the past) with the prophet's knowledge of the future–then fault him for allegedly thinking things which, in fact, he couldn't possibly had have in mind at the time. 

vi) The book of Daniel is full of revelatory dreams and visions. Dan 10-12 is, itself, an extended vision. That raises several interpretive questions. 

Revelation can take place by showing, telling, or both. In Daniel we have examples of each–sometimes back-to-back. 

vii) The images are frequently symbolic. Allegorical dreams and visions. Indeed, that's why they require inspired interpretation. Daniel interprets a dream, or Gabriel interprets a vision for Daniel. What they represent is not self-explanatory. 

viii) One interpretive question is how Daniel recorded his visions. Most commentators (e.g. Archer, Baldwin, Collins, Keil, Steinmann, Young) take 7:1 to mean that when Daniel committed his visions to writing, he summarized what he saw. (Goldingay is a notable exception.)

Assuming that's correct, and this represents Daniel's modus operandi, then we'd expect Dan 10-12 to be a summary as well. On the face of it, Dan 10-12 is revelation by telling rather than showing. But if Daniel was in the habit of summarizing his visions, then the original vision may have included illustrative imagery. 

Indeed, given the length of this vision, it wouldn't be surprising if Daniel abbreviated the vision by omitting picturesque descriptions of what he saw, for that would make the record far longer. This may just be a precis. 

We don't know that for a fact. But we need to make allowance for that possibility. 

ix) Dan 10 opens with an angelophany. In 10:21, the angel refers to "the book of truth." What are we to make of that? At one level, the "book of truth" is a metaphor for predestination. God's master plan for world history. Everything happens according to script. 

But as readers, what are we intended to visualize in that scene? Does the angel read aloud from the Book of Truth? Is Daniel listening the whole time while the angel recites that section? Does the angel quote from memory–or paraphrase?

x) On a related note, what does "the book" refer to in Dan 12:4? In context, this evidently takes place within the vision. Of course, that will have a counterpart after Daniel comes out of his trance, when Daniel transcribes the discourse.

Does Daniel assume the role of a scribe in the vision? Is the angel giving dictation, while Daniel writes it down? Or does the angel hand Daniel the scroll after reciting the contents? 

xi) Does Daniel simply listen the whole time, or does he see images which accompany the angelic discourse? The passage doesn't say he sees anything. But at this stage, that might be something the reader should take for granted–given ample precedent in all the dreams and visions which come before this culminating vision. If Daniel is merely summarizing a very long vision, he may strip it down to a prosaic record of what was said. 

xii) Suppose 11:40-45 is a verbal description of an image which Daniel saw in his vision? If so, is that representational or allegorical? If, say, Daniel sees the adversary perish in the desert, between the Mediterranean sea and the temple mount, is that a prediction regarding where, in fact, the adversary will meet his fate? Of is that one of those dreamy images that stands for something analogous to it depicts?