2.13 Grappling with the Greeks IV: Daniel and the Book of Parables

The book of Daniel is one-half comfy folktales, and one-half crazy. It was the only one of the many Jewish apocalyptic books to make it into the Old testament because it was the only book to talk of the resurection of the dead. It gets every historical detail wrong. Nonetheless, it can claim to be the founding document of the USA. Daniel's use of a common Hebrew idiom, "son of man", has created huge theological problems. That part of 1 Enoch called the Book of Parables re-creates the idiom for Christians.