Today we focus on Daniel 2, a vision. The story goes like this.
In King Nebuchadnezzar’s 2nd year, he has a dream. According to Daniel 1:1-2, Daniel and friends don’t get carried off until Neb’s third year, although they’re present here. Either Neb can’t remember what it was (like many of us with our dreams) or he’s being unreasonable. Either way, he demands all his wise men tell him both the dream itself, and the interpretation. When they can’t, he wants them all killed for incompetence. Daniel hears about this and offers to interpret (like Joseph in Egypt), which he does, thus saving everyone.
The content of the dream involves a statue representing various political/national entities, and a stone cut out of the mountain, which smashes them all.
Easy enough, right?
As it turns out, the books written just on Daniel 2 could fill an entire library, arguing over what exactly it’s referring to.
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LDS interpretation and non-LDS agrees that the stone represents “The Kingdom of God” per verse 44. However, there are some differences and background that make for interesting discussion. In the chart below, compare the interpretations given by the Jewish Study Bible and the (old) manual.
|
Verse |
Statue | Material | Jewish Study Bible (and lots of other scholarship) |
Manual |
|
32 |
Head | Gold | Babylon | Babylon |
|
32 |
Chest/arms | Silver | Media |
Media/Persia |
|
32 |
Belly/thighs | Bronze | Persia |
Greece (Alexander) |
|
33 |
Legs | Iron | Greece |
Romans |
| 33 | Feet | Iron/clay | Ptolemaic/Seleucid kings |
European nations |
The differences arise fairly quickly, with the result that the mixed kingdom/feet is either the empire left behind at Alexander the Great’s death in 323 BCE (which was divided up among the Ptolemies and Seleucids), or it’s the European nations in 1830. I know why the JSB makes the argument it does (and will get to it.) The manual explicitly cites President Kimball on this interpretation of European nations as Feet of iron/clay. I read his talk, and wondered why he interpreted as he did. He doesn’t cite anyone, doesn’t claim any revelation (not that he necessarily needs to), just throws it out there. Let’s look at the JSB reasoning, and then the LDS context.
As mentioned in my last post, the book of Daniel has multiple characteristics that have led most schools to conclude that it was written in its current form hundreds of years after its setting. If such is the case (and the arguments are medium to strong), then the context to the writing of this dream is not its beginning, in the Babylon period, but almost at the end, the Feet period of the Ptolemies/Seleucids, and thus anticipating the imminent arrival of God’s kingdom which will shatter Israel’s overlords… exactly as many Jews in the New Testament expect.
The expectation of the dream matches a near-contemporary New Testament context. As we know, Israel’s overlords are not destroyed and replaced by a divinely-led theocratic Kingdom of God, but simply replaced by the Romans. (Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.) Even worse, the Romans destroy the temple in 70AD, Jews are dispersed, and it’s just unpleasant, all over again.
This kind of thing has happened multiple times before, and it will happen again. We saw that many Latter-day Saints, including President Woodruff, anticipated Jesus returning any day in millennial glory in the late 1800s (see my lesson on Micah), so too the first Christians expected Christ to return and bring the Kingdom with him within their lifetimes (This is apparent in the Gospels, Thessalonians, and some other places). So it makes a lot of sense that, if the writing of Daniel really dates to the Feet period, instead of the Head period, that they would be expressing the same kind of immanent anticipation as Jews a few generations later in the NT. That’s behind the JSB reasoning.
For President Kimball and LDS, it turns out to be pretty interesting. In Joseph Smith’s day, as mentioned, there was strong millennial anticipation. They read their Bibles closely, looking for guidance and clues. As it turns out, early Latter-day Saints were drenched in the Book of Daniel. “I said drenched, and I meant drenched.” (There’s my Anne of Green Gables reference for the year.)
As I was trying to explore the background of Pres. Kimball’s understanding, I searched the LDS Scripture Citation Index, a useful tool. Here’s the number of General Conference citations to the book of Daniel. Look at the massive bump in Daniel 2 citations.
Most of those citations are very early in LDS history. Daniel was pervasive in LDS thought and language, as “The Book of Daniel in Early Mormon Thought” (David Whitaker, BYU) demonstrates. (See also the much much shorter and less useful Encyclopedia of Mormonism article.) D&C 65:2 uses the language of Daniel 2 explicitly.
The keys of the kingdom of God are committed unto man on the earth, and from thence shall the gospel roll forth unto the ends of the earth, as the stone which is cut out of the mountain without hands shall roll forth, until it has filled the whole earth.
Note, though, that it does not explicitly equate the Church with the Kingdom of God. And this, I think, is where the biggest difference is between scholarly interpretation and traditional LDS interpretation. Both agree that the stone rolling forth is the kingdom of God. The question is, is “the Kingdom of God” limited to formal Church membership and organization? That’s a question I can see different responses to, but I think answering “yes” takes a very narrow view of things. (Plus, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has not exactly “shattered” or replaced the European nations. At least, not yet.) Some citations, and then I’ll try to reconcile things a little.
Perhaps the Lord needs such men on the outside of His Church to help it along. They are among its auxiliaries, and can do more good for the cause where the Lord has placed them, than anywhere else. … Hence, some are drawn into the fold and receive a testimony of the truth; while others remain unconverted … the beauties and glories of the gospel being veiled temporarily from their view, for a wise purpose. The Lord will open their eyes in His own due time. God is using more than one people for the accomplishment of His great and marvelous work. The Latter-day Saints cannot do it all. It is too vast, too arduous for any one people. … We have no quarrel with the Gentiles. They are our partners in a certain sense.”
-Orson F. Whitney, Conference Report, April 1928, p. 59.
This was also cited by Ezra Taft Benson, Conference Report April 1972. He offered Colonel Thomas Kane and Alexander Doniphan as examples.
[These verses] tell one that Providence is over all, and that he holds the nations in the holly of his hand; that he is using not only his covenant people, but other peoples as well, to consummate a work…. [God] is using men as his instruments. Nor is he limited in the choice of instruments to his own people…. Outside the pale of their [prophetic, priesthood] activities other good and great men, not bearing the Priesthood but possessing profundity of thought, great wisdom, and a desire to uplift their fellows, have been sent by the Almighty into many nations, to give them, not the fulness of the gospel, but that portion of truth that they were able to receive and wisely use. Such men as Confucius… Zoroaster… Buddha… Socrates and Plato…. They were servants of the Lord in a lesser sense, and were sent to those pagan or heathen nations to give them the measure of truth that a wise Providence had allotted to them.
I’ve mentioned NT Wright and his books before. He’s been influential on my thought. I draw here generally from Wright. I think we should understand “kingdom of God” in broad terms. I think it came with Jesus and began to be established, and that the restoration and organization of the LDS Church are continuing that process, not beginning it. In other words, the formal LDS church represents part of the kingdom of God, an important part authorized to perform ordinances and one we shouldn’t minimize… but not all of God’s kingdom. God inspires much good towards building his kingdom, good outside the Church as well as inside.
Joseph Smith and the Stone?
Rough Stone Rolling
As it turns out, Joseph Smith may have been inspired by the language of Daniel 2:44 in speaking about himself.
“I am like a huge, rough stone rolling down from a high mountain; and the only polishing I get is when some corner gets rubbed off by coming in contact with something else.”
This quote inspired the title of Richard Bushman’s excellent biography of Joseph Smith, Rough Stone Rolling. It’s an interesting metaphor for both individuals and the Church, that we start rough and sharp, but change and grow for the better through encountering things. It inspired me to write an entire paper conference paper exploring that idea as it pertains to Church leadership and revelation, “Mormonism as Rough Stone Rolling: Towards a Theology of Encountering the World.” I hope to polish it someday for publication, but it remains rough1sorry!. Regardless, some people have told me it’s their favorite paper of mine.
Tidbits
Hebrew vs. Aramaic
In 2:4, the language changes into Aramaic. The text literally says (with no punctuation) “And the Chaldeans spoke to the king Aramaic O King live forever…” and it switches languages after the word “Aramaic.”
What is Aramaic and how does it differ from Hebrew? They belong to the same family of languages, much as Spanish, French, Italian, and others belong to the Latinate family, and share cognates. What most people think of as Hebrew script is actually Aramaic script. Under the Babylonians, Aramaic become the common language of the empire, the lingua franca. Aramaic, and not Hebrew, would be the dominant language of Jesus and his disciples. Aramaic in the Bible is limited to Daniel, Ezra, and smatterings elsewhere, but we actually have far more existing Aramaic texts than Biblical Hebrew texts. Sometimes the empire would do things bilingually in Akkadian AND Aramaic, like the important Tel Fekheriye Inscription, written on the front and back of a statute.
To give an example of differences between the two languages.
- In Hebrew, the definite article is a prefixed ha plus doubling the first letter, whereas in Aramaic, it’s a suffixed –a (plus some spelling changes).
- So in Hebrew, “king” = mélek and “the king” is hammélek. (Note Jer 36:26 where the KJV misunderstands hammelek as a proper name Hammelech instead of as “the king.” Modern translations get it right.)
- In Aramaic “king” is also mélek but “the king” is malka instead of hammélek
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December 12, 2014 at 8:52 pm
Your thinking about NT Wright is similar to my own. I’d like to see a space for pressing LDS interpretation of stuff like this to accept Joseph’s interpretation as an insprired (possibly midrashic) misreading of the passage while also accepting a more kingdom-focused, Messianic-oriented interpretation that’s yearning for/prophesying of the coming of the kingdom. We had this lesson last week and (sadly) there was no space for questioning the basic assumption that this had to be (narrowly) about the church.
December 16, 2014 at 12:18 pm
My humble idea is that if we start assigning nations to the statue, the dream fails, but if we conclude that it is the worldly kingdoms of the earth vs the Kingdom of God, we are on more secure ground. I also like the idea that Daniel 2 is a Chaimus. That means that the main thought is: God answers prayers. He speaks to us, as opposed to the king’s god who were not with men. this being said, when I taught it, I taught it like this: Trust God: he1. answers prayers, and 2. has a plan for the House of Israel.
December 17, 2014 at 11:45 pm
I could be wrong, but my understanding of the evolution of “Kingdom” = “Church” took place primarily with Brigham Young. It was during the early Utah period when the LDS church was at the height of it’s disagreements with the US. Brigham’s rhetoric increasingly became quite separatist, and he was convinced (or at least regularly preached), that the US was in downfall and would be punished for the way they treated the saints, and that soon that whole nation would come to the Utah territory and beg to join their “Kingdom”, which would then roll out to all the world.
Massive paraphrasing there, but when you go through his rhetoric during that time period, it is OFF THE CHARTS regarding how he worked people up to make them equate Kingdom of God and the Church, and how they would never bow down to the kingdoms of this world. That was, of course, until he finally submitted to be removed as governor and lost some of his theocratic rule. Eventually, his rhetoric softened (curbed by reality), but we never subsequently shifted away from his Kingdom = Church ideas.
Too bad, it serious limits us.
December 19, 2014 at 2:14 pm
It’s Jeremiah 36:26, but the link is right.
November 5, 2022 at 7:02 pm
I think the Kingdom can be viewed in both senses–narrow and broad. On the one hand, the Kingdom is present wherever the keys of the priesthood are operative. But on the other–any positive development in the world that prepares the way for the fulness of the gospel may be viewed as the outer boundaries of the Kingdom, IMO.
I like to think of it in terms of stratified sacred space. Ancient temples had outer courts–sometimes several–but it was all considered part of the temple complex. And so what we have (in like manner) are the “outer courts” of the Kingdom being pushed out by various religious, political, and social forces in order to make way for the fulness.
That said, in light of this theme I find it interesting that John, in the Book of Revelation, is given a reed by which he measures the temple–all except the outer court. This (to me) signifies that only those sacred spaces that we equate with the tabernacle–the greater–will pass into the Millennium while the outer spaces–the lesser–will fall away like so much scaffolding.