A Divided Tongue: The Moral Taste Buds of the Book of Daniel *

Abstract

Carol Newsom employs Moral Foundations Theory to illuminate the symbolic worlds of various biblical texts. This article summarizes the ‘moral taste buds’ proposed by Jonathan Haidt and then analyzes the moral ‘flavors’ of the book of Daniel. Whereas Daniel 1–6 focuses on moral aspects of authority and loyalty, Daniel 7–12 emphasizes the moral dimension of authority as framed by concerns with sanctity and liberation. Both parts of the book of Daniel concern themselves with the sovereignty of Yhwh, but their distinct moral frameworks reveal different understandings of the pressing problems facing Yhwh's sovereignty and the appropriate response of the faithful.

Keywords

Daniel sovereignty Moral Foundations Theory

1. Introduction

The book of Daniel is a study in contrasts. It is written in two different languages: Aramaic and Hebrew. It can be divided neatly into two different genres, court stories (Dan. 1–6. and apocalyptic visions (Dan. 7–12. These divisions reflect at least two social contexts: the diasporic Jewish community in the Persian period and the years of Antiochene persecution in Jerusalem. The book of Daniel also exists in divergent ancient versions that presuppose a now-lost ancestor different from any canonical version of the book.¹

To this list of internal contrasts, one can add Daniel's two distinct visions of the moral self and the moral structure of the cosmos. As Carol Newsom argues, one may trace different constructions of subjectivity in ancient Israel by examining the various moral imaginations presented through Israelite literature.² This article analyzes the moral imaginations found in the two halves of the Masoretic Text of the book of Daniel by means of Jonathan Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory. The moral visions of the court stories and the apocalyptic visions are discrete, but nevertheless related. Both rely on the moral framework of the opposition AUTHORITY/SUBVERSION, but while the court stories understand authority with reference to the ‘taste’ of LOYALTY/BETRAYAL, the apocalyptic visions view authority through the lenses of SANCTITY/DEGRADATION and LIBERTY/OPPRESSION.

2. Moral Foundations Theory

In her 2013 Smyth Lectures at Columbia Theological Seminary, Carol Newsom introduces the work of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who developed Moral Foundations Theory.³ This theory, based on ethnographic data, proposes that humans share six categories of moral concern that act like taste buds. Particular social groups use these categories to configure their moral imaginations in strikingly different ways, similar to how each culture constructs its unique cuisine even though it uses the same general sense of taste. Some groups avoid some moral clusters altogether, just as some cultures avoid certain flavors in their cooking. And one moral flavor may carry many different subtle nuances, or, in the language of flavors, many different ‘notes’.

According to Moral Foundations Theory, the six clusters of moral concern are as follows:

CARE/HARM

FAIRNESS/CHEATING

LIBERTY/OPPRESSION

LOYALTY/BETRAYAL

AUTHORITY/SUBVERSION

SANCTITY/DEGRADATION.⁴

Each cluster derives from a particular adaptive challenge in human evolution. Certain situational triggers for each moral taste bud provoke predictable emotions in individuals culturally attuned to notice them.⁵ Thus, the CARE/HARM moral foundation derives from the evolutionary need to protect and care for human offspring to ensure the propagation of the species, and is experienced as the emotion ‘compassion’ when triggered by images of suffering or distress. Individuals and groups who base their moral imagination on the CARE/HARM cluster will emphasize the need to seek out those who are suffering and attempt to alleviate their pain.⁶ The modern progressive moral imagination, Haidt argues, consists largely of a CARE/HARM ethic.⁷

By contrast, the SANCTITY/DEGRADATION moral cluster likely emerged in response to the presence of contaminants. It is expressed in the emotion of disgust, triggered by cultural taboos.⁸ A moral imagination founded on the SANCTITY/DEGRADATION cluster will look different than one founded on the CARE/HARM ethic: it will seek to avoid contaminants. If those who are suffering are also considered contaminated, then they will be avoided. As for the other clusters: FAIRNESS/CHEATING developed to benefit group partnerships, LOYALTY/BETRAYAL to bind cohesive groups, AUTHORITY/SUBVERSION to allow for smoothly functioning hierarchical relationships, and LIBERTY/OPPRESSION to guard against the misuse of those same hierarchical structures. In general, each moral imagination incorporates various clusters in varying degrees.

Newsom discerns several moral imaginations found in biblical literature, including Ezekiel's (who focuses on SANCTITY/DEGRADATION), Deuteronomy's (which encourages loyalty to Yhwh's authority), and Proverbs’ (which emphasizes fairness).⁹ Each text construes human agency and moral formation, and attempts to shape the reader, differently. As Newsom points out, these categories need to be adjusted at times to work within the cultural contexts of the ancient Near East, but overall they provide a helpful tool for categorization.

3. Daniel 1–6. Authority and Loyalty

In the wake of Jerusalem's destruction, at least several diasporic Jewish authors crafted responses to the loss of territorial sovereignty and the tensions of living as a minority group in a foreign empire through the genre of court stories.¹⁰ A series of theological and practical problems presented themselves: How does one worship Yhwh without the Jerusalem temple? How does one mark and preserve Jewish identity without raising suspicion from the ruling powers? How can one claim that Yhwh is sovereign when Yhwh's people are subjugated? Solutions to these problems, some of which are preserved in biblical texts, addressed people's moral imaginations as well as their theological and practical concerns.

The genre of court tales, originally developed in Mesopotamia as a way to ‘narratively resolve tensions between the king and his courtiers…and between rival courtiers’, were adapted by ethnic minorities to feature their own wise counselors who succeed in the context of a multiethnic court.¹¹ Along with Daniel 1–6, the stories of Joseph (Gen. 37–50., Esther, the ‘Nehemiah Memoir’, Tobit, and 1 Esdras 3 function as court stories, as well as some Qumran texts, such as 4Q550 (Proto-Esther) and 4Q242 (Prayer of Nabonidus).¹² Court stories were popular presumably because they provided storytellers with apposite narrative materials for resolving pressing social and political problems.¹³ For diasporic Jews, these problems involved the tension between their belief in a sovereign God and their experiences of Gentile kings announcing and enacting their own sovereignty, often in direct conflict with the presumed will of the Jewish God. As Newsom explains, the court stories in Daniel ‘make the issue of the king's power a matter of narrative concern’, and some of these narratives ‘conclude with the king's confession of the power of the Most High God’.¹⁴ Thus the imagined resolution for the court stories in Daniel comprises the Gentile king's recognition of both the limitations on his own sovereignty and the ultimate sovereignty of Yhwh.

a. Authority and Sovereignty

While the concept of authority seems naturally exploitative to many in the modern West, Haidt argues that most societies presume networks of hierarchical relationships and appreciate them—provided there are clear expectations for the rulers to protect those lower in the hierarchy as well as clear responsibilities for the ruled.¹⁵ Thus, authority is often conceived in relational, even moral, terms. According to Haidt, humans developed these hierarchical relationships and the moral taste buds that guard them as a means of organizing and succeeding as a group.¹⁶

It is unsurprising that the Danielic court stories focus attention on the sovereignty of the king as it relates to the divine world and the relative positions of those lower in the hierarchy.¹⁷ Diasporic Jews had reason to worry about their place—and Yhwh's place—in the hierarchy of foreign empire. The disaster of Jerusalem's destruction provides the theological and sociological tensions that undergird the Jewish adaptation of the court tale genre. Disasters have no clear meaning; instead, they assault accepted meanings.¹⁸ Out of the shattered remains, different voices offer different responses. Jeremiah and Deuteronomy focus on the people's moral sin as the cause of Yhwh's rejection (Deut. 29.17–28; Jer. 5.15–19), whereas Ezekiel concentrates on ritual impurity (Ezek. 8.5–18).¹⁹ In Daniel 1–6, however, no sin of the people is mentioned, and neither is impurity; instead, Yhwh simply gave (‭ןתיז‬) Jehoiakim and the temple to Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 1.2).²⁰ It was Yhwh's sovereign decision.

Thus Daniel attempts to resolve diasporic theological tension by repeatedly claiming that Yhwh, the cosmic sovereign, rules over temporal sovereigns (Dan. 2.27–28, 46–47; 3.17–18, 29, 32–33; 4.33–34 [et 36–37.). Yhwh has chosen to give limited temporal sovereignty to foreign empires—so long as the foreign kings are open to learning about Yhwh's sovereignty.²¹ Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom is restored when he recognizes Yhwh's rule in Dan. 4.31–34 (et 34–37.

The sociological resolution flows from the theological: the youths chosen to work in Nebuchadnezzar's court do not protest or rebel. They accept new names and accede to a Chaldean education (1.4–7).²² The foreign king's divinely ordained power must be respected—even when the king gives questionable orders. When Daniel decides not to eat the food provided by the king, he politely ‘seeks permission”’ (‭שקביז‬, 1.8) from the chief eunuch. After the chief eunuch gives an open-ended response, noting only his fear of the king's authority (1.10), Daniel approaches the subordinate guard with a low-risk trial that allows all parties to benefit (1.11–13).²³ Daniel negotiates the space of royal bureaucracy without challenging God-given authority of the king or his bureaucrats.

Court tales often feature challenges to the king's power in order to conceptualize authority, including its boundaries and practical limitations. In Daniel 2, the king withholds his dream from his mantic experts because he fears a conspiracy (2.9).²⁴ The king forces the sages to give him the dream and its interpretation because they are attempting to ‘control the moment’ (‭ןינבז ןותנא אנדץ‬, 2.8). While the phrase is usually translated ‘buying time’, Newsom notes, ‘to “buy the time”, that is, to possess or own it, seems to be an idiom designating a strategy to gain control of the situation’.²⁵ Thus, the king withholds the dream to protect his authority. In accordance with Haidt's theory, the king often uses fear (2.5) and respect (2.6) to compel recognition of his authority.²⁶ In ch. 3 the universal reach of the king is emphasized through the repetition of seemingly exhaustive lists that suggest totality (3.2–7, 10, 15, 29).²⁷ Likewise, in ch. 4, Nebuchadnezzar emphasizes his ability to address all the peoples, nations, and languages of the earth (3.31 [et 4.1]) and revels in his ability to build an imperial capital (4.27 [et 30]).

And yet, in ch. 1 Daniel must negotiate with the king's representatives because of the very problem that gave rise to these court stories: foreign kings overstepping their limited sovereignty. When the foreign king threatens Jewish identity and exclusive worship of Yhwh, Daniel and the three Jewish youths respond with resistance, and Yhwh responds with chastening designed to give the king a moral education in proper respect for authority. Yhwh has ultimate authority, and thus the book of Daniel repeatedly notes precisely points where the king unwittingly threatens the moral hierarchy of the cosmos.

For example, the book highlights a seeming violation of food practices that threatens Daniel's identity (ch. 1), the forced worship of a statue that threatens the youths’ proper worship of Yhwh (ch. 3), the forced cessation of prayer that threatens Daniel's piety (ch. 6), and the symbolic rejection of Yhwh's power by both Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar (chs. 4–5. In all of these narratives, Yhwh gets involved not to destroy the king's power or to liberate the Jewish people, but rather to restore proper order and hierarchy, which requires the foreign king to acknowledge the ultimate sovereignty of Yhwh. Chapters 1–4 thus depict the ‘education of King Nebuchadnezzar’.²⁸ As Danna Nolan Fewell has argued, ‘Nebuchadnezzar thinks that he is the sovereign of the world, but he is not even the sovereign of his own story’.²⁹ The court stories thus end with the elevation of the protagonist by the monarch, which suggests an elevation of Yhwh in the foreign pantheon (cf. 1.19–20; 2.48–49; 3.30; 5.29; 6.28).³⁰ This elevation is likely tied to the struggle between imperial colonizers and colonized Jews, figured through the trope of divine sovereignty. As Philip Chia writes, ‘By appealing to divine power, the colonized is able to transcend, for the moment, the mere historical fact of being defeated and colonized’.³¹

Repeatedly, Yhwh uses the same trick to educate the kings: Yhwh reveals the ultimate inability of any sovereign power, no matter how powerful, to be truly sovereign. As Thomas Hobbes famously argued in Leviathan, the sovereign, in order to be actually sovereign, must be indivisible and absolute.³² The sovereign must not depend on anything other than itself, and must not be responsible to anything else (even God, Hobbes claimed).³³ And yet, any observer sees that temporal sovereigns are not actually sovereign. They are not omniscient, they cannot completely control the peoples they rule, and they are not always in control of their own bureaucracies. Every sovereign shortcoming is a reminder that sovereignty is a fictional supplement to contingent assemblages of raw power. The limitations of the sovereign are constantly on display, and these gaps between rhetoric and reality are where Yhwh operates in the education of kings.³⁴

The king's blind spots are places where Yhwh works on behalf of Yhwh's people (1.9), whose subversive activities can be hidden in plain sight, beyond the visibility of monarchic power. Thus, the king's lack of knowledge allows Daniel to avoid eating the appointed food (1.10).³⁵ In ch. 2, the king demands the impossible, revealing the limitations of sovereign will (2.10–11). In response, the Chaldeans emphasize that the only possible source of knowledge that could satisfy the king's desire is the divine realm, which does not bow to human will (2.11). This allows Daniel to prove that Yhwh is the ultimate authority, which he repeatedly emphasizes in his blessing (2.20–23) and in his discourse to the king (2.28, 37–38., and which Nebuchadnezzar partially admits (2.47). As Alan Lenzi has argued, Daniel 2 emphasizes Yhwh's control of secret knowledge precisely as a way of revealing the deficiencies of the empire.³⁶

Likewise, in ch. 3 the inability of the king to make all peoples appear and bow down to the statue comically repeats this structural limitation of human sovereignty (3.18).³⁷ In ch. 6, Darius the Mede finds his own sovereignty limited by a law which supersedes his own authority, suggesting a limitation at the heart of sovereignty—namely, that sovereigns must operate within certain cultural and political norms or risk revolt (6.9, 13, 16 [et 8, 12, 15]).³⁸ And in ch. 5, Belshazzar attempts to demonstrate his authority over the ritual implements of the Jerusalem temple, but is unable to interpret his own resulting doom (5.3–5).³⁹

In all of these cases, Yhwh demonstrates sole possession of universal sovereignty by performing impossible acts. The temporal sovereign's limitations provide spaces to demonstrate Yhwh's excessive power which undergirds the moral structure of the cosmos.⁴⁰ In chapter 3, for example, Nebuchadnezzar fails to force the Jewish youths to conform their bodies to his decrees (3.18), but Yhwh demonstrates total authority over those same bodies by rescuing them from the fire (3.27–28). Likewise, the super-sovereign law that forced the king to throw Daniel's body to the lions (6.9 [8]) has no authority over Yhwh, who suspends the natural operations of hungry lions (6.23 [22]).⁴¹ Yhwh negates the sovereign's capacity to execute those who reveal that sovereign power is not absolute by refusing to obey, a doubled strike at the core of temporal sovereignty. As Michel Foucault argued, ‘the public execution has a juridical-political function. It is a ceremonial by which a momentarily injured sovereignty is reconstituted. It restores that sovereignty by manifesting it at its most spectacular.'⁴² By thwarting the public executions of Daniel and his friends, Yhwh removes from the king his own ability to restore his diminished sovereignty.⁴³

The process of establishing guilt and performing public discipline produces a certain type of knowledge often understood as ‘truth’. As Foucault argues, ‘in criminal matters the establishment of truth was the absolute right and the exclusive power of the sovereign’.⁴⁴ Nebuchadnezzar demands a confession from the youths (3.14), and then commands they bow, construing the trial as an ordeal: ‘who is the god that will deliver you from my power?’ (3.15). The three youths, however, refuse Nebuchadnezzar's framing of the punishment as an ordeal and decline to defend themselves. Their conditional response in 3.17–18 affirms the rightness of their criminal activity whether or not their god is able to save them. By refusing to make any claim on Yhwh's behalf, their response reinforces the picture of Yhwh's absolute power. Even if they burn, it says nothing about the truth.

The bodies and wills of the Jews are featured prominently in the narratives, since they constitute the battleground for the conflicts between the sovereign king and the sovereign deity. For example, Daniel has a name ‘set’ (‭אשיו‬) upon him (1.7), and immediately in return he ‘sets’ (‭אשיו‬) himself the boundary of food restrictions to preserve control over his identity (1.8).⁴⁵ This literature affirms the moral agency of subjugated peoples, giving confidence that they can walk the tightrope of submission to a foreign empire while retaining group identity and proper respect for Yhwh's universal sovereignty.⁴⁶

The sovereign rulers, however, cannot control their own bodies. Belshazzar, following an ancient Near Eastern literary convention, expresses his fear upon receiving troubling news by losing composure in both his outward self—his face (‭ויז‬)—and his innards (‭דטק‬, ‘knot’, also referring to knotty riddles Daniel unties with divine help in 5.12, 16).⁴⁷ Likewise, Darius loses his composure and his ability to eat and sleep (6.15, 19, 21).⁴⁸ The crucial moment of Nebuchadnezzar's education involves the loss of his body and mind as he is transformed into a beast (4.13 [et 16]). Political theorists have often used animal metaphors to think about sovereignty. As Jacques Derrida argues, the true sovereign is the source of the law, and thus occupies a marginal position within the structure of law. True sovereigns must exist as outlaws—uncontrolled by any law, standing outside the law, making unconditional decisions for themselves.⁴⁹ In ancient Near Eastern thought and early modern European political theory, the animal symbolizes the one who exists outside of the system of law and even human society, inhabiting an irrational, inhuman level of existence.⁵⁰ The animal is, in a certain sense, sovereign because it does not conform to the rules of human society. Yet according to both ancient Near Easterners and European theorists, the animal does not possess the necessary rationality to make choices for itself. It lacks a necessary component of sovereignty. Yhwh places Nebuchadnezzar in this liminal state of quasi-sovereignty in order to teach him that true sovereignty escapes him. Yhwh exposes holes in Nebuchadnezzar's power—including control over his own mind, which of course humans never fully have.⁵¹ The unusual endings of the court stories, in which several Gentile monarchs ultimately confess Yhwh's sovereignty—a feature unique in the genre of ancient court stories—mark the final collapse of royal pretensions to sovereignty.⁵²

b. Loyalty to Yhwh

The moral cluster of AUTHORITY/SUBVERSION depicted in Daniel 1–6 is tightly intertwined with the moral cluster of LOYALTY/BETRAYAL. Judging by post-exilic literature, social differentiation and boundary-marking were important issues (cf. Neh. 9; Ezra 10).⁵³ As Newsom shows, Proverbs uses LOYALTY/BETRAYAL to express concern for the integrity of the social body.⁵⁴ At root in Proverbs is a desire for social trust: thus, it often speaks in terms of FAIRNESS/CHEATING.⁵⁵ In Daniel 1–6, however, there is not much concern for the health of the diegetic social body, because the disaporic Jewish characters are isolated, surrounded by the dominant ethnicity. Daniel and his Jewish companions hardly interact in chs. 1–2, and are isolated from each other in chs. 3–6. Thus, concerns for moral reciprocity and the smooth functioning of the marketplace do not appear in Daniel 1–6 as they do in Proverbs. Instead, the central issue is loyalty to Yhwh's sovereignty, through which one participates in the distended community.

In ch. 3 the three Jewish youths demonstrate their loyalty by refusing to worship Nebuchadnezzar's statue, as Nebuchadnezzar himself notes (3.28). The word ‭חלפ‬ (‘worship’) appears five times (3.12, 14, 17, 18, 28), ‭דגס‬ (‘bow down’) eleven times (3.5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15 [×2], 18, 28), and ‭לפנ‬ (‘fall’) six times (3.5, 6, 7, 10, 15, 23); these ancient Near Eastern tropes commonly signify loyalty.⁵⁶ Uncompromising loyalty to Yhwh is precisely what marks the youths as Jewish: as the Chaldeans note, ‘there are certain Jews (‭ןיאדוהי‬ ‭ןירבג‬ ‭יתיא‬)…they do not prostrate themselves (‭ןידגס‬) to the image’ (3.12).⁵⁷ Daniel demonstrates his loyalty to Yhwh by refusing to alter his prayer practices, proving his unique loyalty to ‘the law of his God’ (6.5). Characters enact loyalty through respecting proper authority—and knowing when lesser authorities overstep theirs.

The court stories of Daniel 1–6 rarely touch upon other moral taste buds. A CARE/HARM ethic appears in Darius's lament for Daniel (6.15) and in Daniel's concern for Chaldean colleagues (2.18), but no such care is extended for the children of the evil counselors (6.25). Perhaps this lack of care should be expected. Recent research suggests that the perception of threat encourages social groups to construct morality in terms of LOYALTY/BETRAYAL, AUTHORITY/SUBVERSION and SANCTITY/DEGRADATION, but not FAIRNESS/CHEATING or CARE/HARM.⁵⁸ This is most noticeable among socially dominant groups who feel threatened: they often develop attitudes of authoritarianism, reinforced by an ideological tendency to justify the system in which the group thrives.⁵⁹ While the diasporic Jewish scribes were not a socially dominant group, and were by no means wealthy elites, they possessed cultural power that derived from their function within the imperial bureaucracy.⁶⁰ And yet they were part of a subordinated people for whom they desperately hoped there would be a future.⁶¹ One might, then, sense the hybrid social location of Jewish scribes working for a foreign empire in the tension of affirming loyalty to and authority of the king, while noting a higher authority that supersedes royal authority when it conflicts with the preservation of Jewish identity. Thus, the combination of a slight existential threat and limited, but real, social elevation may explain the somewhat muted critique of the foreign king and the lack of a CARE/HARM ethic in the scribal worldview represented in Daniel 1–6. This balance would shift with the persecution of Antiochus IV, of course, and the increased threat is reflected in a new configuration of moral tastes.

As for the moral node SANCTITY/DEGRADATION, it may be detected in Daniel's decision not to ‘defile himself (‭לאגתיו‬, cf. Ezra 2.62; Neh. 7.64; Mal. 1.7) with the king's food and wine. Yet, as Newsom points out, foreign wine is not a source of impurity in the Torah: ‘No commonly and clearly accepted rules existed for the situation in which Daniel and his friends found themselves’.⁶² Daniel self-imposes a taboo, demarcating a boundary that creates a sense of identity—and a means for discerning loyalty. Newsom explains: ‘the fact that a decision had to be made is part of the internal negotiation of cultural identity (“What does being a Jew in a foreign land require of me?”) that precedes the negotiation with the Gentile authorities’.⁶³

Finally, wisdom allows one to negotiate (or create) such boundaries and discern the proper reaction to foreign attempts to overstep them (cf. 1.8–17). Daniel's wisdom is often remarked upon in the court stories, but one also sees this wisdom in action—and its salvific effects (cf. 2.13; note the divine supplement of a ‘spirit’ (‭חור‬) in 5.11, 12, 14).⁶⁴ Following Daniel, the survivors of the Jewish diaspora can negotiate the minefields of loyalty and authority in the court of a foreign king through insight that undergirds the successful employment of moral agency.

4. Daniel 7–12. Oppression, Sanctity, Authority

Like Daniel 1–6, Daniel 7–12 frames morality in terms of authority. For example, the theme of Yhwh's universal sovereignty, temporarily assigned to Gentile kingdoms and then abruptly recalled, pervades the vision of the four beasts in ch. 7 (note the passive voice in 7.4–6; cf. Jer. 27.5–7; Isa. 45.1–9; 2 Chron. 36.22–23; Ezra 1.1–4).⁶⁵ The digression about the little horn emphasizes its subversion of Yhwh's authority (cf. arrogance in vv. 8, 11, 20; fighting divine emissaries in vv. 21, 25; changing liturgy in v. 25). In turn, Yhwh takes sovereignty from this subversive force and restores divine dominion (vv. 11–12, 14, 18, 22, 26–27. In spite of Gentile dominance, Yhwh reigns from beginning to end.

One might imagine that the shared emphasis on proper authority makes the moral visions of the two halves of Daniel similar. Yet the overwhelming use of language dealing with SANCTITY/DEGRADATION and LIBERTY/OPPRESSION in Daniel 7–12 creates a sharply different vision of the moral cosmos. Setting aside the Deuteronomistic prayer in 9.3–19, one finds a fairly consistent interest in purity. In Daniel 7–12 the context shifts from the court of the foreign king to the city of Jerusalem, and repeated references to the temple (‭שדקמ‬, 8.11; 9.17; 11.31; ‭שדק‬, 8.14; 9.16, 20, 24) and its sacrifices (‭חנז‬, 9.27; ‭החנמ‬, 9.27; ‭דימת‬, 8.11, 12, 13; 11.31; 12.11) focus on the ritual world, which privileges the moral opposition SANCTITY/DEGRADATION. The word ‭םמש‬, signifying both desolation and disgust, describes Antiochus's desecration of the temple (8.13; 9.26, 27; 11.31; 12.11) and the moral disgust of witnesses (8.27; 9.17), as well as the moral status of the responsible party, Antiochus (9.27). This disgust is so consuming that two of the four images of restoration in Daniel 7–12 emphasize the restoration of the temple's purity as the culmination of Yhwh's activity, leaving unmentioned the topic of national sovereignty (8.14; 9.24).

In the court stories, the temple appears only in the introduction (1.2) and in reference to its misused vessels (5.2–3). Daniel's prayer orients toward Jerusalem in ch. 6, alluding to the temple (6.11 [et 10]). Yet none of these references use language of purity or disgust. Belshazzar's misuse of the temple vessels seems to be a question of respect, not a liturgical infraction. Daniel's decision not to ‘defile’ himself with the king's wine (1.8) does not invoke ritual purity, but rather group loyalty. Clearly, the events of 167–164 bce raised issues of sanctity that did not occupy the minds of Persian-period diasporic Jews.

Likewise, no sustained polemic against oppression appears in Daniel 1–6.⁶⁶ When commanded to bow, the three youths do not argue that Nebuchadnezzar has invalidated his sovereignty. They accept that the subjects exist ‘in the hand (‭די‬)’ of even an immoral king (3.17), and that any escape depends upon Yhwh. At the end of the story, the Jewish youths accept promotions and continue to work in the king's service (3.30), suggesting Nebuchadnezzar is not unfit to rule.⁶⁷

In her work on Proverbs, Newsom finesses Haidt's categories, noting that fairness in Israelite literature figures less as ‘groupishness’ than as a concern for the health of the community's social body.⁶⁸ Perhaps Daniel 7–12 also requires reworking of Haidt's categories. Daniel 7–12 is intensely interested in the problem of tyranny, which is depicted as immoral (cf. 11.36–39) and as deserving of deposition and even torment (12.2). Belshazzar is not disgusting—simply unteachable (5.22), and Nebuchadnezzar is celebrated as one who revered Yhwh (4.34 [et 37]), but Antiochus IV is a cosmic bully, pushing around the heavenly host (8.9–12).⁶⁹ Yet the moral response in Daniel 7–12 contrasts with contemporary notions of ‘liberty’, especially in the political discourse of the United States. Autonomy and self-direction are not in view. Instead, Daniel 7–12 figures a restoration of proper authority through God's destruction of the cosmic bully (8.25). Moderns might see this as more about ‘liberation’ than ‘liberty’. As Newsom points out, after Antiochus IV's campaign of terror—meant to demonstrate his own authority and Yhwh's impotence—there is no room for Gentile sovereignty in Daniel 7–12.⁷⁰ What is left is either a gesture towards a divine kingdom (7.18, 22, 27) or an abstract image of a transfigured world without kings (12.2–3, 13).⁷¹

As in the court stories, wisdom allows the individual to discern the proper course of moral action (12.10). The reader is encouraged to secure a positive role in the world to come by ‘leading many to righteousness’ (12.3), gained by knowledge of what will happen: divine intervention in the political state of affairs (8.25; 11.45). This is precisely the wisdom—moral wisdom, it can be said—contained in Daniel 7–12 (esp. 9.22). Both chs. 1–6 and 7–12 highlight the divinely exposed failures of the temporal sovereign, but he two halves of the book differ in their responses to those moments. In chs. 1–6, the Jews spread the knowledge of Yhwh's sovereignty to the king (cf. 6.21–22); in chs. 7–12 they encourage the faithful to persevere in spite of oppression (cf. 11.32–35).⁷² Yet throughout the book of Daniel, knowledge is a moral category. And as Foucault demonstrates, particular formulations of morality and knowledge are configured in relation to local regimes of power.⁷³

5. Conclusion

A great variety of moral imaginations existed within Second Temple Judaism. One can compare Daniel to Esther, in which the moral dimension of authority is markedly less important, or the Joseph narrative in Genesis 37–50, which emphasizes fairness.⁷⁴ A grasp of the moral imaginations of these texts may also help scholars discern the variety of ways in which such texts have functioned throughout history. Have these moral imaginations imprinted themselves on readers? Or have they proven malleable, or even easily ignored? As for Daniel, one can certainly see that the apocalyptic focus on liberty from oppression has shaped the trajectory of the reception of Daniel 7–12, from Jewish resistance against Christianity (cf. Exod. Rab. 35.5; Lev. Rab. 13.5; b. Yoma 77a; PRE 28) to Monophysite Syrian Christian resistance against Byzantine Orthodoxy, radical early modern European peasant resistance against the aristocracy, and Latin American resistance against policies of the United States.⁷⁵ A stronger emphasis on loyalty to Yhwh can be found in the reception of Daniel 3, however, through the trajectory of martyr stories that interpret or model themselves upon the fiery furnace (b. Sanh. 110b; Gen. Rab. 34.9; Lam. Rab. 1.16; Song Rab. 7.13; Pesiq. Rab. 35; 1 Clem. 45.6–7; Martyrdom of Polycarp). The radical revolutionaries of early modern Europe did not use the trope of the fiery furnace to communicate their aims, as the acceptance of the monarchy was unacceptable. Yet the fact that the quietist resistance advocated by Daniel 7–12 could be used so regularly by revolutionary groups also suggests an ideological flexibility, albeit within certain boundaries, within particular moral imaginations.

Footnotes

1.

See Eugene Ulrich, ‘The Text of Daniel from Qumran’, in J. Collins and P. Flint (eds.), The Book of Daniel: Composition and Reception (VTSup, 83; 2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 2001), II, pp. 573–85; for an argument that OG/lxx precedes mt, see Rainer Albertz, Der Gott des Daniel: Untersuchungen zu Daniel 4—6 in der Septuagintafassung sowie zu Komposition und Theologie des aramäischen Danielbuches (SBS, 131; Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988). Ulrich and Collins argue that mt, Theodotion and OG/lxx traditions develop an earlier version; see John J. Collins, A Commentary on the Book of Daniel (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), pp. 219–21. A complete picture of the moral imagination of the book of Daniel must incorporate OG and Theodotion, but this preliminary study follows mt, the basis of Carol Newsom's commentary. See Carol Newsom and Brennan Breed, Daniel (OTL; Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2014), pp. 2–12.

2.

See Carol A. Newsom, ‘Models of the Moral Self: Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism’, JBL 131 (2012), pp. 5–25.

3.

Carol A. Newsom, ‘Choose You This Day! But Why So Many Bad Choices?’, Smyth Lecture, Columbia Theological Seminary, 10 October 2013, as well as her ‘The Righteous Mind and Judean Moral Culture: A Conversation between Biblical Studies and Moral Psychology’, in J. Collins, T. M. Lemos, and S. Olyan (eds.), Women, Worship, and War: Essays in Honor of Susan Niditch (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, forthcoming) (note: the latter essay was not available to me at the time of the current work's composition). See the following works by Jonathan Haidt: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (New York: Vintage Books, 2012); ‘Moral Psychology for the Twenty-First Century’, Journal of Moral Education 42 (2013), pp. 281–97; and ‘How Moral Foundations Theory Succeeded in Building on Sand: A Response to Suhler and Churchland’, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 23 (2011), pp. 2117–22.

4.

Haidt, The Righteous Mind, pp. 150–79.

5.

See also Jaana-Pila Mäkiniemi, ‘The Endorsement of the Moral Foundations in Food-Related Moral Thinking in Three European Countries’, Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 26 (2013), pp. 771–86.

6.

See Haidt's example of the repulsion at the idea of clubbing baby seals, The Righteous Mind, p. 156.

7.

Haidt, The Righteous Mind, pp. 211–14.

8.

Haidt, The Righteous Mind, p. 173. For sanctity and purity from the Hebrew Bible through rabbinic Judaism, see Hyam Maccoby, Ritual and Morality: The Ritual Purity System and its Place in Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

9.

Newsom, ‘Choose You This Day!'

10.

See Sean Burt, The Courtier and the Governor: Transformations of Genre in the Nehemiah Memoir (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), pp. 113–24.

11.

Lawrence M. Wills, The Jew in the Court of the Foreign King: Ancient Jewish Court Legends (HDR, 26; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), p. 21, Stephanie Dalley, ‘Assyrian Court Narratives in Aramaic and Egyptian: Historical Fiction’, in T. Abusch et al. (eds.), Historiography in the Cuneiform World: Part 1 of Proceedings of the XLVe Rencontre Assyriologique International (Bethesda, MD: CDL Press), pp. 153–55.

12.

On Nehemiah as a court tale, see Burt, The Courtier and the Governor.

13.

On the ideological operations of narrative, see Frederic Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981), p. 94.

14.

Newsom, Daniel, p. 14. See also Collins, Daniel, p. 51.

15.

Haidt, The Righteous Mind, pp. 165–69.

16.

Haidt, The Righteous Mind, p. 168.

17.

See John Goldingay, ‘The Stories in Daniel: A Narrative Politics’, JSOT 37 (1987), pp. 99–116.

18.

See Kathleen O'Connor's work on disaster and trauma, Jeremiah: Pain and Promise (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011), pp. 125–38. Also see Brennan Breed, Nomadic Text: A Theory of Biblical Reception History (ISBL; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014), pp. 93–115.

19.

See Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, A Biblical Theology of Exile (OBT; Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2002), pp. 75–124.

20.

See Choon-Leong Seow, Daniel (Westminster Biblical Commentary; Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2003), pp. 14, 27.

21.

Seow, Daniel, pp. 14–18.

22.

See Anathea Portier-Young, ‘Languages of Identity and Obligation: Daniel as a Bilingual Book’, VT 60 (2010), pp. 98–115.

23.

Note the subtle reading in Newsom, Daniel, pp. 47–51.

24.

Newsom, Daniel, p. 59.

25.

Newsom, Daniel, p. 69.

26.

Haidt, The Righteous Mind, p. 146.

27.

See Michael Chan, ‘Ira Regis: Comedic Inflections of Royal Rage in Jewish Court Tales’, JQR 103 (2013), pp. 1–25.

28.

Newsom, Daniel, pp. 33–35; see also Goldingay, ‘The Stories in Daniel’, pp. 103–106.

29.

Danna Nolan Fewell, Circle of Sovereignty: Plotting Politics in the Book of Daniel (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1991), pp. 72–73.

30.

See Fewell, Circle of Sovereignty, who argues that the growing power of the exiles in Dan. 1–6 correlates to the broader recognition of Yhwh's ultimate sovereignty. Also see Harald M. Wahl, ‘Das Motiv des “Aufstiegs” in der Hofgeschichte: Am Bespiel von Joseph, Esther und Daniel’, ZAW 112 (2000), pp. 59–74 (73).

31.

Philip Chia, ‘On Naming the Subject: Postcolonial Reading of Daniel 1’, in R.S. Sugirtharajah (ed.), The Post-Colonial Biblical Reader (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 171–85 (174).

32.

See Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (ed. Richard Tuck; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 121–27. Note Jacques Derrida's discussion of Hobbes in The Beast and the Sovereign (trans. G. Bennington; 2 vols.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), I, pp. 49–50.

33.

On the history of indivisible sovereignty, and its relationship to geometry, see Jens Bartleson, ‘On the Indivisibility of Sovereignty’, Republics of Letters 2.2 (2011), pp. 85–94. Also see Walter Brueggemann and Davis Hankins, ‘The Affirmation of Prophetic Power and Deconstruction of Royal Authority in the Elisha Narratives’, CBQ 76 (2014), pp. 58–76 (65 nn. 17–18.

34.

See Jacques Derrida, Rogues: Two Essays on Reason (trans. P.-A. Brault and M. Naas; Meridian; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005); and Clayton Crockett, Radical Political Theology: Religion and Politics after Liberalism (Insurrections; New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), pp. 43–69. See Chia, ‘On Naming the Subject’, p. 180.

35.

See Newsom, Daniel, pp. 48–49.

36.

See Alan Lenzi, ‘Secrecy, Textual Legitimation, and Intercultural Polemics in the Book of Daniel’, CBQ 71 (2009), pp. 330–48.

37.

See Chan, ‘Ira Regis’; Hector Avalos, ‘The Comedic Function of the Enumeration of Officials and Instruments in Daniel 3’, CBQ 53 (1991), pp. 580–88.

38.

Goldingay, ‘The Stories in Daniel’, pp. 103–106.

39.

See Michael Segal, ‘Rereading the Writing on the Wall’, ZAW 125 (2013), pp. 161–76.

40.

See Chan, ‘Ira Regis', p. 16. Note similar themes in the Elisha narratives, discerned by Brueggemann and Hankins, ‘The Affirmation of Prophetic Power’.

41.

See W. Sibley Towner, Daniel (Interpretation; Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1984), pp. 85–90.

42.

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (trans. Alan Sheridan; New York: Vintage Books, 1977), p. 48.

43.

See Seow, Daniel, p. 60; Newsom, Daniel, p. 110.

44.

Foucault, Discipline and Punish, p. 35. On overturning royal knowledge, see Segal, ‘Rereading the Writing on the Wall’.

45.

See Bill T. Arnold, ‘Word Play and Characterization in Daniel 1’, in S. Noegel (ed.), Puns and Pundits: Word Play in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Literature (Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 2000), pp. 241–42.

46.

See Newsom's discussion of hybridity in Daniel, pp. 15–18.

47.

See Chan, ‘Ira Regis', p. 17, and on wordplay of ‭רטק‬, see Al Wolters, ‘Untying the King's Knots: Physiology and Wordplay in Daniel 5’, JBL 110 (1991), pp. 117–22, and Shalom Paul, ‘Decoding a “Joint” Expression’, JANES 22 (1993), pp. 121–27.

48.

Newsom, Daniel, p. 170.

49.

Derrida, The Beast and the Sovereign, I, pp. 143–44.

50.

Newsom, Daniel, p. 141.

51.

See the provocative analysis of Thomas Scott Cason, ‘Confessions of an Impotent Potentate: Reading Daniel 4 through the Lens of Ritual Punishment Theory’, JSOT 39 (2014), pp. 79–100.

52.

See Matthias Henze, ‘The Narrative Frame of Daniel: A Literary Assessment’, JSJ 32 (2001), pp. 22–24.

53.

Also see Hyun Chul Paul Kim, ‘Reading the Joseph Story (Genesis 37–50. as a Diaspora Narrative’, CBQ 75 (2013), pp. 219–38.

54.

Newsom, ‘Choose You This Day!'

55.

Newsom, ‘Choose You This Day!'

56.

See Ellen F. Morris, ‘Bowing and Scraping in the Ancient Near East: An Investigation into Obsequiousness in the Amarna Letters’, JNES 65 (2006), pp. 179–95. Note the intriguing connection to a loyalty oath forced on officials after revolt in W.H. Shea, ‘Daniel 3: Extra-Biblical Texts and the Convocation on the Plain of Dura’, AUSS 20 (1982), pp. 29–52.

57.

On the motif of loyalty in the reception history of Dan. 3, see W. Dennis Tucker, Jr, ‘The Early Wirkungsgeschichte of Daniel 3: Representative Examples’, JTI 6 (2012), pp. 295–306.

58.

Matthew Kugler, John T. Jost, and Sharareh Noorbaloochi, ‘Another Look at Moral Foundations Theory: Do Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation Explain Liberal-Conservative Differences in “Moral” Intuitions?’, Social Justice Research 27 (2014), pp. 413–31.

59.

See C. Federico, C. Weber, D. Ergun, and C. Hunt, ‘Mapping the Connections between Politics and Morality: The Multiple Sociopolitical Orientations involved in Moral Intuition’, Political Psychology 34 (2013), pp. 589–610, and P. Milojev et al., ‘Rightwing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation Predict Different Moral Signatures’, Social Justice Research 27 (2014), pp. 149–74.

60.

See Newsom, Daniel, pp. 21–23. For scribal location in Dan. 7–12, see Amy C. Merrill Willis, Dissonance and the Drama of Divine Sovereignty in the Book of Daniel (LHBOTS, 520; London: T&T Clark International, 2010), pp. 20–35; Christine Schams, Jewish Scribes in the Second Temple Period (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 309–21.

61.

See Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (trans. R. Philcox; New York: Grove Press, 2004), pp. 8–11.

62.

Newsom, Daniel, p. 48.

63.

Newsom, Daniel, 48. See also Wills, The Jew in the Court of a Foreign King, p. 150, and W. Lee Humphreys, ‘A Life-style for Diaspora: A Study of the Tales of Esther and Daniel’, JBL 92 (1973), pp. 211–23. See Newsom's comments on hybridity in Daniel, pp. 15–18.

64.

Newsom, ‘Models’, pp. 10–11.

65.

Newsom, Daniel, p. 219.

66.

Collins, Daniel, p. 51. See also Goldingay, ‘The Stories in Daniel’, p. 102.

67.

Note Haidt's definition of liberty/oppression and its thematic absence in Dan. 3, The Righteous Mind, pp. 200–201.

68.

Newsom, ‘Choose You This Day!'

69.

Note the conspicuous effort by some Jewish interpreters throughout history to understand Nebuchadnezzar in a positive light, despite his responsibility for the destruction of the Jerusalem temple. This is due to the narrative arc of Dan. 1–4, which ends with Nebuchadnezzar's confession of Yhwh's superiority. See Hersh Goldwurn, Daniel (ArtScroll; Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, 2nd edn, 1980), pp. 148–50.

70.

Newsom, Daniel, p. 258.

71.

On the shifting conceptions of the monarchy in Daniel, see Merrill Willis, Dissonance and the Drama of Divine Sovereignty, pp. 90–122.

72.

See Anathea Portier-Young, Apocalypse against Empire: Theologies of Resistance in Early Judaism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011), pp. 234–36.

73.

Michel Foucault, ‘Truth and Power’, in Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972 (ed. C. Gordon; London: Harvester, 1980), pp. 130–33.

74.

On varieties of resistance, see Portier-Young, Apocalypse against Empire, pp. 3–30. For a political-ethical typology of texts concerning Jews living under a foreign empire, see Matthew Rindge, ‘Jewish Identity under Foreign Rule: Daniel 2 as a Reconfiguration of Genesis 41’, JBL 129 (2010), pp. 99–104.

75.

See Wido van Peursen, ‘Daniel's Four Kingdoms in the Syriac Tradition’, in W. van Perusen and J. Dyk (eds.), Tradition and Innovation in Biblical Interpretation (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2011), pp. 189–207 (202); Thomas Müntzer, The Collected Works of Thomas Müntzer (ed. and trans. P. Matheson; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988), p. 69; and Pablo Richard, ‘El pueblo de Dios contra el imperio: Daniel 7 en su contexto litterario e histórico’, RIBLA 7 (1990), pp. 25–46.