Lesson 2 by Prof Thio on the book of Daniel

Today's lesson by Professor Thio Li Ann was on Chapter 2 of the Book of Daniel. She began by talking about how the book of Daniel encompasses these areas of studies - Teleology, Eschatology, Hermeneutics, Historicity, and Prophecy. The book of Daniel, along with the book of Ezekiel and the book of Revelation, are the books of the bible that predict the end-times of the world. There are also prophecies in the book of Daniel which are fulfilled through world historical events. Professor Thio mentioned the concept of Harmonious Construction in biblical interpretation. Interpretation of passages cannot be yanked out of their context, but have to be coherently interpreted with other passages of scripture.

I have read about interpretations of Daniel 2 and the interpretation of King Nebuchadnezzar's dream during my army days as a clerk where I had much free time to do suchstudy. My discipleship group mentor at church also went through this portion on a discipleship group session once. Nevertheless, Professor Thio's input into the interpretation is very insightful. She knows quite a lot.

Professor Thio presented on an interesting aspect of the bible, whereby the different languages in which the text was written is indicative of the different target audience. For example, Daniel 1 to Daniel 2:4 was written in Hebrew. From Daniel 2:4 to Daniel 7, the language changes to Aramaic, before reverting back to Hebrew in Daniel 8. Aramaic was the contemporary common tongue of the region, and the fact that the eschatological segment of the book of Daniel was written in Aramaic implies that its message was to the world, whilst the other portions which were written in Hebrew implies that their relevance relate more specifically to the Israelites. This aspect of language type as a device of audience targeting in the bible is implicit in the New Testament books as well, which was written in Greek and Latin. These were the language of the contemporary world powers. They were moreover predecessor languages of the English Language which became an internationally significant language from the 19^th century onwards. As such, for the New Testament to be written in these languages implies its target audience to the gentile nations.

Daniel 2 features the account of the dream of Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. The story start off with King Nebuchadnezzar having this troubling dream and calling upon his committee of astrologers. Instead of simply asking them to interpret his dream though, he demanded them to first tell him what the dream is, to which the failure to do so would subject them to execution. Professor Thio gave the analogy of how this demand is akin to a law school professor asking his or her students to guess the exam question in addition to answering it, which is by itself difficult enough. The reason for King Nebuchadnezzar's demand was his distrust of his astrologers that they would concoct an interpretation for the dream (Daniel 2:9).  The astrologers conceded their inability to figure out the dream, positing that only a god would be able to do such a thing (Daniel 2:11). This sets a precedence for which Daniel was able to showcase his God as truly having such divine powers when Daniel was able to figure out the dream for King Nebuchadnezzar.

Professor Thio said that this account of Daniel being called to interpret the dream is an example of a showdown between God and the contemporary adherents of other gods. Through these episodes of a showdown, God is able to proclaim his superiority over the other gods and thus influence the rulers of the reigning power. Professor Thio points out that the theme of a showdown is one way that is repeated in the bible in which God establishes his glory. Other examples include Moses pitting against the Egyptian magicians where he used his staff as a snake to eat up the snakes casted by the Egyptian magicians, and Elijah's showdown against the prophets of Baal to light up the fire of the altar at Mount Carmel. In all cases, God's power prevailed over the power of the foreign gods, and his glory was proclaimed to the rulers of the nations. Another theme that is commonly depicted in the bible is the notion of God using the weak to overcome the strong. In these episodes of showdown, the person appointed God was numerically outmatched by the adherents of the other gods, and yet comes up victorious. Another example Professor Thio highlighted is the Israelite warrior Gideon who defeated the numerically superior Midianites with only 300 men. I think Professor Thio talks from experience here. Professor Thio is certainly no stranger to the theme of a showdown herself, and in her time as a Nominated Member of Parliament, she was a vociferous proponent of Christian values who was subject to many detractors and critics when she took a stand against the abolition of 377a of the penal code.  

One of the parallels that Professor Thio drew from this account of Daniel's invitation to interpret the dream was with Joseph's interpretation of the dream of Pharoah of Egypt. In both accounts, the two men were subjected to exile, Joseph to Egypt, whilst Daniel to Babylon. Both were called to the interpretation of the dreams of the rulers of the nation in which they were exiled. They both rose to position of prominence when they were able to interpret the dreams of the ruler. Joseph was able to help his family, including the brothers who had exiled him, in the famine that proceeded. Likewise, Daniel's ability to interpret the king's dream fast-tracked him to a position of authority in the Babylonian empire where he was placed second in power in relation to King Nebuchadnezzar. He too was then able to rule in such a manner as to protect the interest of his people who had been placed in exile.

Daniel’s interpretation of the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar had eschatological significance as well. The different body parts of the statue, from its head to its toes, were representations of the kingdoms that succeeded one after the other. The different metals used to compose the individual parts of the statue have symbolic meanings that corresponded to the attributes and culture of the reigning power. The head of gold was King Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonian Empire. Succeeding that was the chest and arms of silver which was the Medo-Persian Empire ruled by King Darius of the Mede, and King Cyrus of Persian. The suggested relation between silvered chest and arms to the golden head is one of inferiority. Professor Thio suggested one aspect in which the Medo-Persian Empire was inferior to the Babylonian Empire was in its form of government. King Nebuchadnezzar was an autocrat, and his rule was above that of law, whilst King Darius’ kingdom had a rule of law to which even the king was subject to. This was why King Darius could not rescind his edict to prevent Daniel from being thrown into the Lion’s Den. Professor Thio points out another interesting fact of the symbolistic significance of silver. A trait of silver was its use as a currency, and the characterization of the Medo-Persian Empire as silver in King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream corresponded with its commercial nature. The Medo-Persian Empire was a far-flung cosmopolitan empire spanning western Asia that had extensive trade in the commodities of the subject states.

The belly and thigh of bronze represents the Grecian Empire that was ruled by the inimitable Alexander the Great. The symbolistic significance of the thigh in the dream is the reproductive properties that are associated with such a region of the body parts. Greek culture was highly sexualized and depraved, its society was rampant with drunkenness, debauchery, adultery, promiscuity, temple prostitution, rape, beastiality, incest, homosexuality and the like. Greek mythology featured gods exhibiting the most flagrant of vices, the accounts of each god replete with exploits of forceful sexual encounters with other gods and with mortals. This too was an endemic feature of Grecian society. Professor Thio said that one aspect of Greek society was that young boys were attached to adult men, which includes the likes of some of the highly-acclaimed founding figures of western philosophy like Socrates and Aristotle, to be ‘buggered’ off by them. The ideal relationship espoused was the male to male relationship, while the females were perceived in a subsidiary functional manner such as being mere chattels to take care of the children. I have never thought of Socrates or Aristotle in the manner portrayed by Professor Thio. The accounts that I read of Socrates portrays him to be a respectable man in pursuit of truth and virtues, a counter-revolutionary to the polytheistic nature of Greek society, and an opponent against the unprincipled and unscrupulous teachings of the mercenary Sophist who pervaded Greek intellectual culture. The reason for the trial and execution of Socrates by his sentencing to death by drinking a hemlock-based liquid was due to the accusation that he had failed to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges and had introduced new deities. The Christian apologist Peter Kreeft in his book Socrates and Jesus posits that it could be inferred from the philosophy literature written by Aristotle that Socrates was essentially a deist who believed in a creator.

Another characteristic of Ancient Greek that alludes to the symbolistic concept of reproductivity is the highly propagative nature of certain products of Greek culture. Ancient Greece was the birthplace of the ideology of humanism which as Professor Thio purports, spreads quickly and remains highly virulent in today’s times. From my reading of what the ideology of humanism is, it is an intellectual movement that espouses human abilities and interest as the basis for morality. There is a rejection of religion that is associated with this intellectual movement. From the way Professor Thio presents about the ideology of humanism, it seems like some nefarious ploy concocted by Satan to insidiously wreck out his diabolical plans upon humanity. I am not sure why an intellectual movement that espouses human abilities and reason would need to repudiate religion. It seems acceptable to me that supernatural ideas be dissociated from certain epistemological methodologies such as the sciences, but I would intuitively concur with Professor Thio that it would be dangerous to do away with religious precepts on certain matters such as ethics and morality. I have an apprehension that there is an inadequacy on human reason alone to construct a comprehensive foundation for morality. There’s also something suspicious about a belief system that purports to centre its focus on human needs, interests, and abilities. Taken to an extreme, it is highly liberalistic such as to be repulsive of all common sense concepts of the proper bounds of morality.

Returning back to the interpretation of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, the portion of the statue that is the legs of iron and clay is interpreted to be the Roman Empire. Like Iron which is the strongest of all the materials that composed the statue, the Roman Empire was a mighty nation that crushed all the other nations. It was the longest-lasting of empire, prevailing for a at least a thousand years, much longer than the mighty world empires that preceded it. The Babylonian empire only lasted for about 160 years. When Hitler had an ambition to conquer Europe and unite it under his Third Reich, he too wanted to imitate the past glory of the Roman Empire and have a lasting European Empire that would last for a thousand years.

The roman empire was presented further down in the eschatological sections of the book of Daniel as being a different kingdom from all the other kingdoms which will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it (Daniel 7:23). The Romans were brutal in their treatment of the conquered nations and rebellions. Foreign kings were taken before the Roman Emperor Caesar to be flogged. The Gaullian kings were made to go under a yoke in order to humiliate them.

The representation of the Roman Empire as a composite of Iron and Clay suggests that it never quite managed to acquire complete unity. The Roman Empire was a multicultural empire with many different people and culture. The subjugation of these people to roman rule was never quite successful. Outbreaks of rebellions were frequent and had to be extinguished heavy-handedly by roman forces. I remembered watching a documentary of one example of such uprising on the history channel once. It featured an uprising by the British when it was still a tribe by the Queen Boudica. Subsequently, the Roman Empire fell. It began with the secession of the Roman Empire into the Western and Eastern empires. Julius Caesar was assassinated by his cabinet, this scene most vividly portrayed by the novel of Shakespeare where the character of Caesar verbalized his iconic passing words “Et Tu Brutus?” at his astonishment of being betrayed by his close compatriot Brutus, who was an accomplice of the conspiracy against him.  The west part of Rome fell to the Franks. The eastern part of rome was longer-lasting, but fell to the Ottoman Empire later.

As for the rock, this is the part which his most difficult to interpret according to Professor Thio. The jews have their interpretation that this is the establishment of a dominion of Israel in the end days, whilst the Christians think it a kingdom under the rule of Jesus for a thousand years. Professor Thio gave quite some interpretation about the signs that would accompany the 2^nd coming of Jesus. It would be in the middle east, at a gate that is sealed, situated above the plane where the Garden of Gethsemane is.