Review in: Interpretation
2009 63: 298
Review door: W.
Sibley TownerGevonden op: http://int.sagepub.com/content/63/3/298.full.pdf+html
Daniel
by Sharon Pace The Smyth 8c Helwys Bible Commentary Series, Smyth & Helwys, Macon, Ga., 2008.
383 pp. $55.00 (cloth). ISBN 978-1-57312-074-6.
MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY professor Sharon Pace has taken full
and admirable advantage of the wide scope that the format of the Smyth &
Helwys Bible Commentary series gives to each of its projected thirty-one
authors. Pace's volume is the fifteenth title in the series to have been
published so far, and judging from her book and those that have preceded it,
Smyth & Helwys and its editors and authors are seriously enriching the art
of biblical commentary in our time.
Here is Pace's procedure. After a
summary introduction, Pace treats each chapter unit by unit, incorporating into
her exegetical discussion philological, historical, and literary-critical
observations. She misses no details. For example, in the judgment scene of Dan
7:9-10, the text reads "thrones were set in place." Obviously the
Ancient of Days needs a throne to sit on, but why, Pace wonders, is there a
second one? The discussion of a pericope may be followed by an excursus on the
history of its interpretation and always by a theological summary. At the end
of each chapter, Pace links the text to other Scriptures and to the
contemporary situation of Jews and Christians in a section called
"Connections." (One of the most interesting of these connections is
the lengthy exploration of musical portrayals of Belshazzar's Feast in Dan 5,
with special emphasis on the English composer William Walton's oratorio by that
name [pp. 184-89].) Pace's interpretation, while enriched throughout the book
with fresh insights and even the occasional universally applicable principle
(e.g., "God judges not only this one king [Nebuchadnezzar], but all kings
[2:21]," p. 64), is generally cautious and mainstream. For example, on the
question of the angelic vs. human identity of the "one like a son of
man" (Dan 7:13), Pace declines to take sides. Characteristically, she
warns that "No argument has won consensus" (p. 246). By the end of
ch. 7, however, given the disclosure by the angelic interlocutor to the seer
that the "one like a son of man" is "the holy ones of the Most
High" (7:18,22), and "the people of the holy ones of the Most
High" (7:27), Pace tends to see an integration of angels and elect humans
in the regime of the age to come. On the question of the dating of the Book of
Daniel, based on the vagueness at 11:40 after the relatively accurate chronicle
of foreign rule over Judea from the Persian empire through the Seleucid tyrant
Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-164 B.C.E.), Pace says, "Many scholars
conclude that the date of the composition of the book of Daniel can be determined
by these remarks of Antiochus's last days" (p. 335). Clearly, she does,
too. In short, Pace offers no major new directions for the interpretation of
Daniel in this commentary, but what she gives us is a very readable,
user-friendly, and wide-ranging discussion of the book of Daniel. How often can
you honestly speak of a commentary as a page-turner?
The sidebars that appear on almost every page of the commentary
are intrinsic to the multidisciplinary approach of the Smyth & Helwys
series. In brief but intense bursts, they explore issues of language,
historical and cultural setting, and interpretation. For example, given that
Nebuchadnezzar's retainer Ashpenaz bears the title sans ("guard,
eunuch," Dan 1:3), is it possible—as the rabbis speculated—that Daniel and
his friends were castrated in order to serve in the royal court (sidebar:
'"Eunuch'—Tragic Connotations," p. 27)? Occasionally a sidebar will
function as a history of interpretation piece. An example: various
identifications of the ten horns on the fourth beast in Dan 7:7 have, over the
centuries, given interpreters latitude to bring the vision down to their own
times (sidebar: "Examples of Identifications of the Ten Horns," p.
236). It is in the sidebars that Pace often invokes rabbinic interpretation
(sidebar: "Nebuchadnezzar in Ancient Jewish Sources," p. 37).
As to the kerygma of Daniel, Pace
discerns two principal themes. The first is "the belief in a just God who
orders the universe according to a divine plan" (p. 13). The second is the
conviction that the oppressive kings and empires of Daniel's time and of all
time are "included in God's providential design and stand under divine
judgment. Nebuchadnezzar is presented more as a type of a ruler... than as an
individual" (p. 14). Understanding this king to be a prototype encourages
readers to believe that God will have done with tyrants and tyranny in every
generation. Pace adds, "the author shows that nothing in human experience
... remains outside of the divine plan" (p. 14).
No doubt the difficult doctrine of the
predetermination of history—inexorable destiny—is present in the book of
Daniel. But Pace offers little by way of bridging from this conviction to a
contemporary world that is skeptical of the notion that everything that happens
was already written in God's book of destiny. Today secular and faith
communities alike take seriously the realities of chance, randomness, and
accident. From time to time, however, Pace does restate the deterministic
theology of the book of Daniel in terms that are more attuned to our way of
thinking. In her summary discussion of Dan 10:1-12:13, for example,
predetermination is toned down in a statement like this: "The tireless
efforts of individuals who work for peace and justice give humanity pause so
that it neither despairs nor falls into a numb disregard for evil The book of
Daniel shows that it is possible for the human spirit to continue the search
for meaning in the midst of the unfathomable" (p. 347). Elsewhere, it
becomes clear that Pace's idea of the "interim ethic" implied in the
book of Daniel flows from trust that free choice to do well is possible. Such a
hope "can serve as a powerful encouragement never to abandon striving for
the betterment of the world" (p. 83).
One moral value to which Pace returns again and
again is justice. Even while acknowledging other theological themes such as
courage, faithfulness, and, in the end, resurrection, Pace takes it as a fixed
principle that God's rule is "passionately consumed with providing justice"
(p. 247). The restoration and advancement of justice are, for Pace, at the
heart of the representation of God and of human responsibility in the book of
Daniel.
On the vexing question of how a
failed apocalypse could retain the status of Scripture, Pace has relatively
little to say. In a sidebar on p. 336, she remarks that even though ancient
readers would have known that the details of the prediction of Antiochus's
death in Dan 11:45 were wrong (as well as, I might add, the expected concurrent
onset of the rule of the saints [7:27] and the resurrection of the dead
[12:1-3]), "they could nonetheless trust in the essential truth of the
vision." The book could therefore be preserved because it advances abiding
convictions, including the confidence that "God has set up the world so
that justice will prevail" (p. 336).
Against the prevailing scholarly
view, Pace appears to side with Leonard Greenspoon in adducing evidence that
belief in an afterlife existed in Judaism before the first unambiguous
reference to resurrection appeared in Dan 12:1-3 (sidebar: "Others
Restored to Life," p. 340.)
Large print, wide margins, numerous pictures,
charts, maps, and other elements of the graphic design of the commentary invite
the intended audience of scholars, pastors, and serious lay students of the
Bible to read the book with pleasure. The sidebars cast the net of welcome
inquiry even further. My only criticism of them is that the low intensity
reddish-brown color in which the sidebars are printed makes them difficult to
read. (I found myself twitching my glasses and adjusting my lamp many a time
while otherwise enjoying them.) In addition to a general bibliography, the book
concludes with four indices, including one for the sidebars. The entire text is
contained in an accompanying CD-ROM disc that is fully indexed and searchable.
This electronic version makes classroom use of text and illustrations instantly
accessible.
W. Sibley Towner, Professor
Emeritus
UNION-PSCE
RICHMOND,
VIRGINIA
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