Thread by @JoinBibleProj

We have received multiple questions surrounding our latest video on "The Prophets" found here: bit.ly/2HubSsW

This following question, or a variation of it, arose most prominently across all of our social channels, "Is Daniel among the Prophets?"

Here's our response...

In our modern English translations of the Bible, the book of Daniel is located in between the prophetic books of Ezekiel and Hosea, which themselves are situated among the biblical books of the Prophets. So it seems simple: Daniel is among the Prophets.

However, the sequence of the books in our modern Bibles comes from Greek biblical manuscripts dating from the mid-300s A.D., well into the Christian period. The oldest form of the Hebrew Bible known to us dates to the centuries before Jesus (2nd-1st century B.C.),

an arrangement called by various titles: The Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings (from the prologue to the Wisdom of Ben Sirah); The Torah, the Prophets, and David (from the Dead Sea Scrolls); and The Torah, the Prophets, and the Psalms (Jesus in Luke 24:44).

This 3-part arrangement is very ancient, and it's woven into the editorial design of the biblical scrolls themselves (see our video on the TaNaK). In this original arrangement of the Hebrew Bible, Daniel is not among the Prophets; rather, the book is found in the 3rd section,

the Writings. There, it is bound closely to a small triad within the Writings, Ezra-Nehemiah, Daniel, and 1-2 Chronicles. This triad makes up the grand finale of the entire Hebrew Bible in a really cool way that we don’t have space to explore here.

But the bottom line is that in the oldest form of the Hebrew Bible, Daniel is not among the Prophets and for some very good reasons. Within the book of Daniel, Daniel is never called a prophet, and he never plays the role of a prophet.

He is not called by God in a vision or dream to announce warning or the Day of the Lord to Israel’s leaders, nor does he call the people of Israel to repentance or faithfulness to the covenant. This was the basic job description of a prophet, and Daniel does not fit the bill.

But that doesn’t mean Daniel isn’t important. His role was fundamentally different from the other biblical prophets. Daniel is consistently called a “wise man” (Dan 1:4, 17, 20; 2:20, 23) in whom God’s Spirit dwells (Dan 4:8, 9; 5:11, 14). But never does he prophesy.

Rather, he is given wisdom to interpret the king of Babylon’s dreams (Dan chs. 2 and 4). Then later in the book, Daniel is given wisdom to interpret the books of the biblical prophets (Dan ch.9), but he is not included among their number.

Instead, he is portrayed as the ideal Bible reader, who reads the scriptures and prays for God’s wisdom to understand what they mean and how they point to the coming Kingdom of God. This portrait of Daniel has all the hallmarks of what we could call “an apocalyptic visionary.”

So Daniel is among the apocalyptic figures in the Bible, and this is why he’s not included in our video, How to Read the Prophets. When we get to our video on How to Read Apocalyptic Literature in the Bible, we will include Daniel.

Hope this helps! For more info, check out our video on the TaNaK. thebibleproject.com/explore/tanak-…