Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

January 30, 2026

Daniel’s Apocalyptic Message

The prophet who balanced achievement and fate.

Even if some of its stories are well-known—the lions’ den, the writing on the wall—the book of Daniel is not very often studied by Jews. It doesn’t have a place in the liturgical cycle (except for a few excerpted prayers), it is filled with confusing and obscure imagery, and much of it isn’t even in Hebrew. But, as Mira Balberg notes, it was extraordinarily influential, creating the genre of apocalyptic literature that was popular in the Second Temple era and which shaped Christian scripture. 

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