Daniel: A Young Man of Vision Trivia Quiz

Answer: Babylon

This chapter sets the scene, suggesting that the events took place during the period known as the Babylonian Captivity (around 600 BCE), but its historical accuracy is more than a bit dubious. References to rulers and events produce contradictory time frames. The book seems to have been compiled around 200 BCE, a time when the Israelites were experiencing persecution at the hands of the Greek Seleucid Empire.

The first part of the Book of Daniel was originally written in Aramaic, bringing together a number of stories set in the Babylonian and Persian courts. The second part is a series of apocalyptic visions, prophecies ostensibly inspired by visions from God. These were mostly written in Hebrew, and designed to underscore the relevance of the earlier stories to the then-contemporary situation.

The Greek version of the text is significantly longer than the Hebrew one, and includes several stories which are included in Catholic and Orthodox versions of the Old Testament, but not in most Protestant ones - they are considered non-canonical because they were not in the original Hebrew text.

That's the setting. One of the events described in Chapter 1 (and illustrated in the painting by Otto Adolph Stemler) is Daniel refusing the offer of food and drink from Nebuchadnezzar, for reason which are not made clear, but which seem to have a religious basis - God supports him and his companions through a test of their fussiness, from which they emerge as strong and handsome as when they began. In addition, Daniel has gained the ability to receive and interpret visions.

Answer: gold head

Starting from the top down, the four kingdoms are represented by increasingly less valuable materials, suggesting that the future is going to see a reduction in power. The fourth kingdom, which includes the feet made of a mixture of iron and clay, will be a divided kingdom, and it will be destroyed by the kingdom of God, represented by the rock that destroys the statue and turns into a mountain that covers the earth.

Somewhat surprisingly, despite the fairly negative nature of the interpretation, Nebuchadnezzar was vastly impressed with Daniel's ability to divine and interpret his dream, and gave him a position of honor over all others.

The painting that illustrates the dream comes from an unknown French painter of the 15th century.

Answer: Belteshazzar

Belteshazzar was the Babylonian name given to Daniel. Shadrach, Mesach and Abednego are the Babylonian names for his three companions, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. When they refused to bow to the statue, they were bound and thrown into a blazing furnace. Shortly thereafter four people could be seen walking around in the flames, with the fourth described as looking "like a son of the gods" (Daniel 3:25). This figure is often understood to be an angel, as depicted here by Toros Roslin.

When the three emerged completely unscathed, Nebuchadnezzar acknowledged the power of their god to save those who believed, and raised them to positions of authority, decreeing that nobody was to harm them, or to say anything against their god.

Answer: seven years

When he dreamed that a great tree was to be cut down and madness would follow, he was not happy to be told by Daniel that he was that all-encompassing tree, and that he could expect to find himself turned into a mindless beast that roamed with the wild animals, eating grass like an ox. And so it came to pass. After seven years, he was restored to his right mind, and once again acknowledged the Hebrew God: "Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble." (Daniel 4:37)

The illustration for this question is a painting by William Blake, titled 'Nebuchadnezzar', which depicts him in his madness.

Answer: amen

Daniel first upbraided the king for failing to learn from his father's experience, and sacrilegiously using sacred Jewish temple vessels from which to drink wine during their feast. Then he explained the meaning of the words (Daniel 5:26-28):
"Mene: God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end.
Tekel: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.
Peres: Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians."
(The NIV gives the full phrase as mene, mene, tekel, parsin in verse 25, but in the explanation uses the singular form peres.)

According to the Book of Daniel, that very night saw the death of Belshazzar, and the start of the rule of Darius the Mede (of whom there is no external historical evidence).

Rembrandt illustrated 'Belshazzar's Feast' around 1625. The writing on the wall is in Hebrew script, therefore written in vertical, rather than horizontal, lines.

Answer: praying to God

Daniel's position of authority made him a lot of enemies, who conspired to have him eliminated by getting Darius to decree that anyone who worshipped any person or god other than the Persian king during a period of thirty days would be put to death. Daniel, of course, continued to worship his God, and the king found himself reluctantly bound to enforce the decree. The next morning, he was overjoyed to discover that Daniel had indeed been saved by his God, who sent an angel to shut the mouths of the lions. (Daniel 6:22) Darius accordingly issued a decree that "in every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel." (6:26) The explanation that follows has been used in a number of hymns over the years:
"For he is the living God
and he endures forever;
his kingdom will not be destroyed,
his dominion will never end.
He rescues and he saves;
he performs signs and wonders
in the heavens and on the earth.
He has rescued Daniel
from the power of the lions." (6:27-28)

The illustration of this story is 'Daniel's Answer to the King' by Briton Rivière, showing Daniel answering the king's inquiry as to whether he had survived the night.

Answer: a lion with eagle wings that stood on two legs

This chapter finishes the chiasmic structure of the first part of Daniel. A chiasmic structure is one that is symmetrical about a central point. The centre is between the stories of Nebuchadnezzar's madness and Belshazzar's feast. One step out are the stories of salvation (the fiery furnace and the lions' den), and the outer layer is a pair of stories about four kingdoms, Nebuchadnezzar's and Daniel's.

Hans Holbein's woodcut shows the four beasts in order from left to right. The explanation is that these beasts each represent a different kingdom, whose worldly authority will be supplanted by the kingdom of God. They are, in order: Babylon (with the beast becoming a human echoing Nebuchadnezzar's madness); the Medes; the Persians (four heads for four kings described later on); and the Greeks, specifically the Seleucids. Since that is the group who were persecuting the Israelites at the time the Book of Daniel is thought to have been written, the assurance that God will bring their kingdom to an end and institute His kingdom offers hope in a time of trouble.

Answer: True

Of course, these are again symbolic of various powers. The ram, shown in the woodcut from an unknown artist as cowering under the attack of the one-horned goat, is first described as rampant, running wild over the entire world until the goat arrives and destroys the ram.

At the height of the goat's power, its horn breaks off and is replaced by four smaller horns, one of which outgrew the others. As his vision is explained to him by the angel Gabriel (Daniel 8:19-26), the ram represents the Medes and Persians (one horn each), the goat the Greeks, with various stages of their empire evolving. Things will be very bad for a while (of unspecified duration), but God will triumph.

Answer: Gabriel

Gabriel (as depicted here in a 14th century fresco by Cyrus Emanuel Eugenicus) seems to have had a special connection to Daniel, as he had previously explained his vision of the ram and the goat. Daniel's problem this time was that Jeremiah had predicted seventy years of exile in Babylon, yet that amount of time had well and truly elapsed, and things were not yet back in order. The explanation was suitably convoluted for a book of prophecy, with 70 years changed to 70 weeks of years (70 times 7, or 490). This sorted out the chronological issue, and Gabriel then went on to provide more details (obscurely) of what was yet to come.

Christians have sometimes interpreted this chapter and its references to an Anointed One who would be put to death (Daniel 9:26) as a messianic prophecy referring to Jesus Christ. The traditional Jewish interpretation is as a reference to the death of a High Priest shortly before Daniel was written.

Answer: Yes

Some Christians consider the last three chapters of Daniel to be referring to the same events as those described in Revelation, but the prophecy stands on its own in a Jewish historical context. Daniel sees a figure, described as a man clothed in white linen (Daniel 10:5) who outlines a lengthy series of wars between a northern and a southern kingdom, at the end of which "Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise." (Daniel 12:1) Hans Memling's painting shows the Archangel Michael weighing the soul of those who have been resurrected. According to the man in linen, "Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt." (Daniel 12:2)

Understandably, Daniel wanted to know when this would happen. The answer was "It will be for a time, times and half a time" (Daniel 12:7) - which other versions translate more precisely as a year, two years and half a year - a suitably vague prediction. When pressed further, the information is elicited that "From the time that the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination that causes desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days. Blessed is the one who waits for and reaches the end of the 1,335 days." (Daniel 12:11-12) Of course, who knows what a day means, since earlier we found out that a year was not necessarily a year, and those two precise, but different numbers, are counting from an ambiguous starting point. Prophecies about the end of the world and the establishment of God's kingdom frequently display this trait.