Daniel (Aramaic and Hebrew: דָּנִיֵּאל, romanized: Dānīyyēʾl, lit. 'God is my Judge'; Greek: Δανιήλ, romanized: Daniḗl; Arabic: دانيال, romanized: Dāniyāl) is the main character of the Book of Daniel. According to the Hebrew Bible, Daniel was a noble Jewish youth of Jerusalem taken into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon, serving the king and his successors with loyalty and ability until the time of the Persian conqueror Cyrus, all the while remaining true to the God of Israel. While some conservative scholars hold that Daniel existed and his book was written in the 6th century BCE, most scholars agree that Daniel, as depicted in the Book of Daniel, was not a historical figure, wherein the character was probably based on a similar legendary Daniel from earlier traditions. It follows that much of the book is a cryptic allusion to the reign of the 2nd century BCE Hellenistic king Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
Six cities claim the Tomb of Daniel, the most famous being that in Susa, in southern Iran, at a site known as Shush-e Daniyal. He is not a prophet in Judaism, but the rabbis reckoned him to be the most distinguished member of the Babylonian diaspora, unsurpassed in piety and good deeds, firm in his adherence to the Law despite being surrounded by enemies who sought his ruin, and in the first few centuries CE they wrote down the many legends that had grown up around his name. He is considered a prophet in Christianity, and although he is not mentioned in the Quran, Muslim sources describe him as a prophet.
Daniel's name means "God (El) is my judge". While the best known Daniel is the hero of the Book of Daniel who interprets dreams and receives apocalyptic visions, the Bible also briefly mentions three other individuals of this name:
The Book of Ezekiel (14:14, 14:20 and 28:3) refers to a legendary Daniel famed for wisdom and righteousness. In verse 14:14, Ezekiel says of the sinful land of Israel that "even if these three, Noah, Daniel and Job, were in it, they would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness." In chapter 28, Ezekiel taunts the king of Tyre, asking rhetorically, "art thou wiser than Daniel?" The author of the Book of Daniel appears to have taken this legendary figure, renowned for his wisdom, to serve as his central human character.
The Book of Ezra (8:2) mentions a priest named Daniel who went from Babylon to Jerusalem with Ezra.
The First Book of Chronicles (3:1) mentions a son of David called Daniel.
Daniel (Dn'il, or Danel) is also the name of a figure in the Aqhat legend from Ugarit. (Ugarit was a Canaanite city destroyed around 1200 BCE – the tablet containing the story is dated c. 1360 BCE.) This legendary Daniel is known for his righteousness and wisdom and a follower of the god El (hence his name), who made the god’s will known through dreams and visions. It is unlikely that Ezekiel knew the far older Canaanite legend, but it seems reasonable to suppose that some connection exists between the two. The authors of the tales in the first half of the Book of Daniel were likely also unaware of the Ugaritic Daniel and probably took the name of their hero from Ezekiel; the author of the visions in the second half in turn took his hero's name from the tales. Some scholars have suggested identifying the Daniel character in Ezekiel 28 with King David's son Daniel.
The Book of Daniel begins with an introduction telling how Daniel and his companions came to be in Babylon, followed by a set of tales set in the Babylonian and Persian courts in the late 7th and early 6th centuries BCE, followed in turn by a set of visions in which Daniel sees the remote future of the world and of Israel. The tales in chapters 1–6 can be dated to the 3rd or early 2nd centuries BCE; it is generally accepted that these were expanded by the addition of the visions in chapters 8–12 between 167 and 164 BCE.
In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, Daniel and his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah are taken to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. The four are chosen for their intellect and beauty to be trained in the Babylonian court, and are given new names. Daniel is given the Babylonian name Belteshazzar (Akkadian: 𒊩𒆪𒈗𒋀, romanized: Beltu-šar-uṣur, written as NIN9.LUGAL.ŠEŠ), while his companions are given the Babylonian names Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Daniel and his friends refuse the food and wine provided by the king of Babylon to avoid becoming defiled. They receive wisdom from God and surpass "all the magicians and enchanters of the kingdom." Nebuchadnezzar dreams of a giant statue made of four metals with feet of mingled iron and clay, smashed by a stone from heaven. Only Daniel is able to interpret it: the dream signifies four kingdoms, of which Babylon is the first, but God will destroy them and replace them with his own kingdom.
Nebuchadnezzar dreams of a great tree that shelters all the world and of a heavenly figure who decrees that the tree will be destroyed; again, only Daniel can interpret the dream, which concerns the sovereignty of God over the kings of the earth. When Nebuchadnezzar's son Belshazzar uses consecrated vessels from the Jewish temple as serving vessels for his extravagant feast, a hand appears and writes a mysterious message on a wall, which only Daniel can interpret; it tells the king that his kingdom will be given to the Medes and Persians, because Belshazzar, unlike Nebuchadnezzar, has not acknowledged the sovereignty of the God of Daniel. The Medes and Persians overthrow Nebuchadnezzar and the new king, Darius the Mede, appoints Daniel to high authority. Jealous rivals attempt to destroy Daniel with an accusation that he worships God instead of the king, and Daniel is thrown into a den of lions, but an angel saves him, his accusers are destroyed, and Daniel is restored to his position.
In the third year of Darius, Daniel has a series of visions. In the first, four beasts come out of the sea, the last with ten horns, and an eleventh horn grows and achieves dominion over the Earth and the "Ancient of Days" (God) gives dominion to "one like a son of man". An angel interprets the vision. In the second, a ram with two horns is attacked by a goat with one horn; the one horn breaks and is replaced by four. A little horn arises and attacks the people of God and the temple, and Daniel is informed how long the little horn's dominion will endure. In the third, Daniel is troubled to read in holy scripture (the book is not named but appears to be Jeremiah) that Jerusalem would be desolate for 70 years. Daniel repents on behalf of the Jews and requests that Jerusalem and its people be restored. An angel refers to a period of 70 sevens (or weeks) of years. In the final vision, Daniel sees a period of history culminating in a struggle between the "king of the north" and the "king of the south" in which God's people suffer terribly; an angel explains that in the end the righteous will be vindicated and God's kingdom will be established on Earth.
The Greek text of Daniel contains three additional tales, two of which feature Daniel (the third is an expansion of the tale of the fiery furnace).
The tale of Susanna tells how Daniel saves the reputation of a young Jewish married woman when two lecherous Jewish elders condemn her to death, supposedly for unchastity, but actually because she resisted their advances. Daniel's clever cross-examination unmasks their evil and leads to their deaths. The story is unique in that the villains are Jews instead of heathens; it may have been written as a polemic by the Pharisees against the Sadducees, who, according to their opponents, were abusing their control of the courts.
Bel and the Dragon consists of two episodes. In the first Daniel exposes the deceptions of the heathen priests, who have been pretending that their idols eat and drink (in fact it is the priests who have been consuming the food set out for the false gods). In the second Daniel destroys a giant serpent that Cyrus believes to be a god; the Babylonians revolt, Cyrus imprisons Daniel without food, the prophet Habakkuk miraculously feeds him, and Cyrus repents.