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The Four Beasts of Daniel's Vision in the Night in the Light of Rev. 13.2*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

K. Hanhart
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Extract

Daniel's vision of the Son of man (Dan. 7. 2 ff.) is undoubtedly a most important passage for the interpretation of the Gospels and of the ‘Son of man’ sayings of Jesus in particular. In this article however, I will try to answer a number of preliminary questions concerning the identity of the four beasts in this vision that should perhaps be answered before we attempt to solve the problem concerning the enigmatic figure ‘like a son of man’. Why, for instance, does the fourth beast remain anonymous although the other three, weird as they are in appearance, show at least a likeness to known animals: like a lion (v. 4), like a bear (v. 5), like a leopard (v. 6)?

Type
Short Studies
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , July 1981 , pp. 576 - 583
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

NOTES

[1] Staub, U., ‘Das Tier mit den Hörnern, Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie, 25 351–97.Google Scholar H. Gunkel's famous application to the chaos monster in the Enuma Elish has long been proved wrong: there are four monsters in Dan. 7. Gunkel, H., Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit (Göttingen, 1895), pp. 331–5.Google ScholarColpe, C., Th.W.N.T. 8 (1972), 418–29Google Scholar emulating O. Eisfeldt, has shown the striking resemblance between the Canaanite Baal and El (‘rider on the clouds’ and ‘father of years’) in the Ras Shamra texts and the Son of Man and Ancient of Days in Dan. 7, but Ferch, A. J., ‘Daniel 7 and Ugarit; a reconsideration’, J.B.L. (1980), 75–86, has shown convincingly that the principal actors in the Baal and Anath cycle have little in common with those in Dan. 7.Google Scholar

[2] My hypothesis is, that the Aramaic section (Dan. 2.4b-7) was written in the time of persecution under the Seleucid regime as a kind of religious resistance literature. The Hebrew section and introduction were added some time after the Maccabean victory. Hence such puzzling features as the strange ‘setting’ of the visions and dreams in times past at the beginning of each chapter, obvious historical mistakes, e.g. Belshazzar was not the son of Nebuchadnezzar and Darius was not Nabonid's predecessor, and the surprising use of terms resembling those in Canaanite, pagan (!) mythology known to Syrians, were intended to lead Aramaic speaking Syrian authorities astray. Antiochus IV was recklessly attacked especially in chpt. 7, at the climax of this ‘pamphlet’, but because of the cryptic, apocalyptic Cf., D. S. Russell, The method and message of Jewish apocalyptic (S.C.M. 1964), p. 17:Google Scholar ‘inflammatory material rsquo; – ‘to set alight the smouldering passions of their fellow countrymen’. This thesis that the Hebrew section of Daniel was written relatively shortly after the Aramaic section does not come in serious conflict with Rowley's arguments for the unity of the book. Rowley, H. H., ‘The Unity of the Book of Daniel’, H.U.C.A. 23 (1950/1951), 233–73.Google Scholar See Rowley, H. H., Darius the Mede and the four world empires in the book of Daniel (Cardiff, 1935), p. 147 ‘a grave error of Daniel … his completely unhistorical account of Darius the Mede … his ignorance of the facts’.Google Scholar

[3] Hanhart, R., ‘Kriterien geschichtlicher Wahrheit in der Makkabäerzeit’, in Theologische Existenz Heute, neue Folge 140 (München, 1967), 13.Google Scholar

[4] Cf., Th. Zahn, Die Offenbarung des Johannes, (Komment. z. N.T., Leipzig, 1958), p. 203,Google Scholar who remarks that the beast in Rev. 13 also dem dritten Danielischen Tier entspricht. Most scholars believe the beast in Rev. 13. 2 to be Rome. An important exception is, of course, Lohmeyer, E., Die Offenbarung des Johannes, H.N.T. (1953), pp. 110–11Google Scholar ‘die Gleichsetzung des Danielischen vierten Tieres mit dem römischen Reich begegnet ausdrücklich erst in rabbinischer Literatur (Aboda Sara 2b, Scheb. 6b), frühere Andeutungen etwa in Ps. Sal. 2. 29 (höchstens Sib. 3. 175) in Betracht kommen’. But Lohmeyer's objection loses its force if indeed John referred to the third beast in Dan. 7 and not to the fourth as L. thinks, and if indeed in Daniel's view this third beast, the leopard, represented the then emerging Roman power as I propose below. In the rabbinic tradition and that of the fathers the fourth beast became, of course, the prototype of the Roman empire, because the fall of the Greek empire did not bring the awaited messianic kingdom along with it. Cf., H. H. Rowley, Darius, p. 75, n. 12.Google Scholar

[5] John also mentions the feet ‘like a bear's’ and the mouth ‘like a lion's’ (Rev. 13. 2). This means I think that the Roman empire in his days had conquered nearly all the kingdoms of Dan. 7, the ‘feet’ reaching as far as Persia; it does not simply mean that John united four beasts into one monster, for he explicitly names the animal itself a leopard. Contra Rist, M., ‘Revelation’, Interpr. Bible 12, p. 460 a.o.Google Scholar

[6] The author of IV Ezra 13. 11–13, facing the same hermeneutical problem, named his beast from the sea an eagle, probably because of the eagle on the standard of a Roman legion. He solved the problem, therefore, by giving the fourth anonymous beast the name of an eagle with the striking notation that it was ‘interpreted differently to Daniel’, if indeed this remark belongs to the original version of IV Ezra 13.

[7] The leopard in Dan. 7. 6 has four heads. Like the ten horns in Dan. 7. 7 they stand perhaps for heads of government i.e. two consuls and two praetors of the young Roman republic. Since 242 B.C. two praetores were appointed, the praetor urbanus and the praetor peregrinus. In 228 B.C. a third praetor for the province of Sicily was added, however. The four wings refer most likely to the speed with which the legions conquered nations in all parts of the world.

[8] Gressmann, H., Der Messias, F.R.L.A.N.T. (1929), p. 367;Google ScholarEerdmans, B. D., ‘Origin and Meaning of the Aramaic Part of Daniel’, Actes du XVIII congrès international des orientalistes (1932), 196–202;Google ScholarBeek, M. A., Das Danielbuch, Sein historischer Hintergrund und seine literarische Entwicklung (Leiden, 1935), p. 49.Google Scholar

[9] The word ‘sea’ in such texts as Isai. 5. 30, 51.10, Jerem. 51. 42 is often interpreted in terms of the cosmic sea. In Josh. 1. 4, 15. 12, 17. 10 means the Mediterranean Sea. Of course, the one interpretation does not necessarily exclude the other, the one being an extension of the other.

[10] Dan. 11. 5–14,15–21, 40 ff. Cf. Dan. 8. 4. 8 f. In chpt. 8 the same geographical world map is drawn as in chpt. 7. In this case, Alexander the Great is the power attacking from the West; the Hebrew-writing author seems to explain the historical development up to the time of Antiochus IV, i.e. the rise of the Macedonian empire and its partition after Alexander's death (8. 8).

[11] This would indeed be in accord with Rev. 13. 2 as we observed above.

[12] Already in the Enuma Elish the map of the world was subdivided according to the points of the compass. Cf., A. Caquot, ‘Sur les quatre bêtes de Daniel VII’, Semitica 5 (1955), 9 n. 1,Google Scholar ‘Les quatre vents …, nommés par l'Enuma Eliš, IV, 43 dans l'ordre suivant: sutu (Sud), iltānu (Nord), šadū (Est) et amarru (Ouest).’ The author of Dan. 7 follows this order in part: S, -, E, W, N. Naming North last was necessary, of course, in view of the composition of the vision. The Seleucid kingdom should come at the climax, so that 7. 9, the judgment scene, could follow at once. A number of factors determined the choice of animals. The author of Dan. 8–12 used the symbolism of the zodiac, the ram for Persia and the ibex for Greece and Syria. Cf., F. Cumont, ‘La plus ancienne geographie astrologique’, Klio (1909), 263–73. But this is not the case in Dan. 7. Caquot, op. cit. pp. 5–13 tried to prove in vain that astrology defined the choice of animals by means of a complicated and obscure theory. Each interpretation should be viewed on its own merits.Google Scholar

[13] The great of the earth may at times force a totalitarian regime upon a conquered people to a degree that their subordinates behave more like beasts than like human beings. The slightest hint of disobedience or the lightest form of resistance is met with persecution, torture or even death. The oppression and the forced submission to paganism under Antiochus IV remained indelibly impressed on the memory of Israel (cf. ‘the abomination that makes desolate’, Dan. 12. 11, Mark 13. 14). Compared to its ruthlessness the Egyptians in their weakness appeared to be more humane, offering asylum, moreover, to the ‘saints’ who fled Palestine.

[14] Charles, R. H., The Book of Daniel, The Century Bible (London, 1929), pp. 176–7.Google Scholar

[15] Quoted by Montgomery, J. A., The Book of Daniel, I.C.C. (1927), p. 287.Google Scholar

[16] In the ‘riddle’ of Ezek. 17, Babylon is ‘a great eagle with great wings and long pinions’ (v. 3) and Egypt is ‘another great eagle with great wings and much plumage’ (v. 7). The author of Daniel may have been inspired by Ezekiel 17 in view of his emphasis on ‘eagle’ symbolizing Egypt in Dan. 7. 4, contra ‘wings of a bird’ in Dan. 7. 6.

[17] Charles (supra), offers another possible translation, ‘it is made to stand erect upon its two feet’, but this leaves the phrase ‘lifted up from the ground’ somewhat up in the air. The lion is not an active subject, for it appears to be handled like dead weight or like a huge model of clay being shaped, as I see it, in the form of a sphinx by unseen hands.

[18] The author may have chosen a lion for another reason. Jews who had fled from Israel, had settled in Leontopolis in Egypt. Leontopolis means ‘city of the lion’. A second temple was built there and these Jews could well have been in touch with the Oniad party in Jerusalem. Cf., E. Schürer, Geschichte des Jüdischen Volkes III4 (Leipzig 1909), p. 145.Google Scholar

[19] b Qidd. 72a, Abod Zar. 2b, Meg. 11a.

[20] P.L. XXV, 664.

[21] P.L. XXV, 529.

[22] Interestingly enough, the name πάνθηρ attributed by the pagan author Celsus to the Roman soldier who supposedly fathered Jesus out of wedlock might well have originated from Daniel's third animal representing Rome. Cf., Origen, Against Celsus 1, 32.Google Scholar The same holds true for one of the names of Jesus in the Talmud ‘’. Cf., Jacob Z. Lauterbach, ‘Jesus in the Talmud’ in Jewish expressions on Jesus (reprinted from Rabinnic Essays (1973), pp. 473–570; N.Y.: Ktav Publishing House, 1977), pp. 1–98.Google Scholar The word panther (lat. panthera) designates, of course, the same animal as the word leopard (gr. παρδάλις πάνθηrgr;, aram./hebr. ). For a different solution of the origin of the name, see Deissmann, A., ‘Der Name Panthera’, in Orientalische Studien T. Nöldecke gewidmet (Giessen, 1906), pp. 871–5,Google Scholar or Patterson, L., ‘Origin of the name Pantera’, J.T.S. 19 (1917–18), 79–80.Google Scholar