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Understanding the Book of Daniel is a thought-provoking podcast that explores one of the Bible’s most mysterious and powerful books. Each episode dives deep into the historical context, prophetic visions, and spiritual lessons found in Daniel—revealing how its timeless truths speak directly to the challenges we face in the modern world.
Whether you're navigating uncertainty, seeking courage in the face of adversity, or looking for spiritual insight in a chaotic age, this podcast connects ancient wisdom to contemporary life. Join us as we uncover how Daniel’s faith, resilience, and revelations offer guidance, hope, and clarity for today’s journey.
Hi, this is Peter, the Adult Ministries
Director from Browncroft Community Church.
This fall, we have started a brand new
series on the Book of Daniel. It's a
wonderful, complex, and really applicable
book to us today. So what we want to do is
we want to help you understand this book
to apply it to your life. So not only are
we going to be recommending resources, but
we are going to be interviewing pastors,
scholars, and commentators of this book.
Even though Daniel was written a long time
ago, we believe that it still applies to
us today. So we're looking through
journeying through this book together as a
church community. Welcome to the
Understanding Daniel podcast brought to
you by Browncroft Community Church. This
is our first episode. We are gonna do a
series of conversations on the book of
Daniel, which is an extraordinary,
wonderful, but also not the easiest book
to understand. And today I am honored to
be with commentator and scholar and
someone who has influenced the way that I
study the Bible and especially the Old
Testament, Dr. Tremper Longman. Tremper,
how are you doing today? Great, Peter.
Thanks for inviting me to talk with you
about the book of Daniel. That's awesome.
Well, before we get started, I do have to
hold up the NIV application commentary,
which Tremper not only is an author of the
commentary of Daniel, but he is one of the
editors. And what I love about this
commentary, when anybody asks me, how do I
go deeper? This is usually the commentary
set that I start them with. So, you know,
Tremper, after we talked about the
commentary, we'll come back to that. Let
me start here with you. What is so
intriguing to you personally about the
Book of Daniel that would cause you to
want to be a scholar about it? Well, I
mean, it's a fascinating book in The way
it combines six stories about Daniel and
the three friends living in a foreign
court and then four apocalyptic visions in
the last six chapters, the combination is
intriguing. The message is difficult for
modern 21st century Westerners to grab a
hold of. But if you put yourself back in
the ancient context, and my doctoral work
was in the area of ancient Mesopotamian
literature and history. And of course,
Daniel is situated initially in the
Babylonian court and then at the end in
the Persian court. All these things just
really intrigued me. And once you get
into, once you understand that the Bible
wasn't written to us, but to ancient
people, and then we start to put ourselves
in the place of those ancient people, then
the book actually becomes pretty clear and
pretty, pretty easy to understand, if I
might put it so boldly. Well, if it's
okay, I'm going to just change a little
bit of our structure just because you've
opened the door. If I'm a 21st century
American, what do I need to understand
about Daniel, the Mesopotamia, since you
did a whole thesis on it? What are the
things that I need to understand for it to
become more clear? Well, my thesis wasn't
actually specifically on Daniel, but my
doctoral studies were on studying ancient
Near Eastern, particularly Babylonian,
literature. My thesis was actually more
relevant to the book of Ecclesiastes. But
I think the first thing, I want to affirm,
first of all, whenever I talk about this,
that you could get the basic message of
any biblical book without any training in
ancient Near Eastern studies. The Bible's
main message is really clear, but we have
to... acknowledge that the books of the
Bible, every book of the Bible, the Old
and New Testament, wasn't written to us,
but it was written to an ancient audience.
I mean, think about the Book of Romans in
the New Testament. It's called the Book of
Romans because it's written to the Roman
church. It's not written to us. And we see
this most pointedly right at the beginning
when we realized that the book of Daniel
is written half in Hebrew and half in
Aramaic, two languages that no one grew up
learning. Even modern Hebrew is different
than ancient Hebrew. So we have to make
effort to translate and to understand,
say, the imagery of the visions in the
second half of the book. So just to take
one example that we might develop more
later, this idea of four beasts arising
out of a chaotic sea sounds kind of
science fiction-y or fantasy literature to
us, but really is well-used and
well-recognized imagery in the ancient
Near East. The sea was a symbol in the
elsewhere in the Bible, but also in the
ancient Near East of chaos and evil. The
beasts associated with the sea often
symbolize evil. The first beast is a
mixture of human, eagle, You know, and so
you have this mixed essences, which in the
ancient Near East and in Israel would be
considered repulsive. So, I mean, there's
a lot in, you know, in Daniel chapter one,
even understanding how the Babylonian
court functioned, what, say what, what in
the world is, Daniel and the three friends
being brought as basically hostages.
They're of the noble class. They're being
brought to the Babylonian court. They're
being trained in Babylonian ways. That's a
very common thing that happened when a
nation defeated another nation. So
understanding customs, symbols, metaphors.
really help us dig deeper into the text.
Those were super helpful. I'm really glad
you brought up those examples because I
think that the Bible is accessible even
without a near Easter PhD. But these
little intricacies help it so much. So
let's kind of back up to where we were
going to start. Just kind of this is an
intro. When you think of Daniel in the
whole Bible, you know, in its place in the
Old Testament, how it, you know, points to
the New Testament and Jesus, why is it so
important to the whole story of the Bible?
That's a great question we could spend a
long time on. I'll try to be concise here.
And we can approach that really good
question in different ways. First of all,
let's talk about where Daniel is situated
in terms of the kind of chronological
narrative arc of the Bible. As I said,
Daniel is in the Babylonian exile, and the
Babylonian exile is toward the end of the
Old Testament time period. Nebuchadnezzar
has subjugated Well, he hadn't completely
subjugated it when the book actually opens
in what we can discern as 605 BC during
the third year of King Jehoiakim. And it's
really the first time that Nebuchadnezzar
and the Babylonian empire is on the
upswing. They've just defeated the
Assyrians. And now what? in Daniel chapter
one, Nebuchadnezzar is doing is reducing
Judah to the status of a vassal. And as
part of that process, taking some of the
young noble class and training them in
Babylonian ways. So you're getting toward
the end of the Old Testament time period.
And of course, the Old Testament starts
with the story of the creation, and the
flood, and then Abraham, and now they're
living in exile. And the message of the
book of Daniel is addressed to the exilic
and post-exilic community because by the
end of the book of Daniel, by the end of
Daniel's life, the Persians have defeated
the Babylonians and We don't learn this
from Daniel, we learn this from Ezra and
Chronicles. Cyrus, the Persian king,
allows the Jews to return if they wish to.
But there's still, at the end of the book
and into the future, God's people are
still under the oppressive hand of a
powerful nation. Babylon's replaced by
Persia. Persia will be replaced by the
Greek kingdoms post Alexander the Great,
and then the Romans in 63 BC. So the
message of the book of Daniel is in all
six stories and all four apocalyptic
visions have the same message, which is
you are living in difficult evil times.
And it looks like evil has the upper hand
against you. But let me tell you six
stories and give you four visions that'll
show you that God is the one who's really
in control, and he's going to have the
definite victory at the end. So the
message of the book of Daniel, which is
very similar to the message of the book of
Revelation and the New Testament, is to
give hope to people who are living under
oppression, persecution, marginalization.
And yeah, so it serves a very important
point. It also, if I could just maybe tag
on one more little, so if you look, From
the Old Testament into the New Testament,
we get these pictures of God as a warrior.
In the Old Testament, God comes as a
warrior and defeats Israel's Canaanite
enemies. Sometimes we see God as a warrior
coming to judge Israel itself. But the
book of Daniel and other post-exilic
prophets like Zechariah and Malachi have a
message, which is God the warrior is going
to come again. And he is going to rescue
you from these oppressive enemies. And so
Daniel, Zechariah, Malachi, and others,
their message kind of reverberates through
the intertestamental period. and then is
picked up in the New Testament by John the
Baptist, who says, one is coming after me,
whose sandals you're not able, you know,
sandals I'm not able to tie or whatever.
And he's going to come and he's going to
gather all the chaff and burn it with
unquenchable fire and chop out the rotten
wood. And then Jesus comes and he goes out
and preaches the message of you know,
salvation, peace. And John the Baptist
sends two disciples up to him in Matthew
11 and says. with the question, are you
the one or should we expect another? And I
think what John the Baptist is saying,
hey, Jesus, where's the ax chopping?
Where's the fire burning? And Jesus goes
out and does more of the same. And what we
see is that Jesus is the divine warrior,
but he's heightened and intensified the
war so that it's directed toward the
spiritual powers and authority. And that
enemy is not defeated by killing, but by
dying on the cross. And then, of course,
the book of Revelation shows that John the
Baptist is not wrong, except about timing.
And so the book of Revelation gives us a
picture in a place like Revelation 19.11
and following of Jesus coming and bringing
final judgment against all evil, both
human and spiritual. So my point back to
Daniel is Daniel plays a very pivotal role
in that what we might call biblical
theology of God's warfare against evil.
That was super helpful. Before we go any
further, let me just kind of recap what I
think I heard. So like in the Old
Testament, the golden era is when King
David's on the throne, and Jerusalem
falls, and the Israelites fall, and Daniel
really opens up when Judah, which is the
southern kingdom of Jerusalem, goes into
exile, and it kind of ends towards Ezra
when people are being sent back. And what
you're saying is when we get to the New
Testament, Jerusalem isn't overtaken by
the Babylonians. It's overtaken by the
Romans. But this whole book is has really
two major themes, which is you can trust
God in really hard times, but then also it
points to Jesus as this, this warrior. And
of course, when we read the gospels in the
new Testament, we're sitting there and
we're thinking, well, Jesus is going to
overthrow the Roman government, but really
Daniel's pointing towards revelation that
says, Hey, this is when the end of the
world comes. This is what it is. Is that a
good summary or did I miss anything there?
A great summary, I would just maybe
underline the idea that even in his work
on the cross, that's considered a victory
over the spiritual powers and authority,
and already not yet one. So you have a
passage like Colossians 2, 13 to 15, that
uses military language to describe how God
has defeated the spiritual powers and
authority And Ephesians 4 verse 8, which
talks about the ascension as a kind of
military parade with all the prisoners in
tow. So yeah, that's a great summary of
what I was trying to get at. Thanks. Well,
and I love the context with that. So, so
let me, um, you know, you and I, before
the camera started, we were talking about,
you know, when you're a Daniel scholar,
you all of a sudden get pulled into all
these Bible studies. Um, so I'm thinking
about the individual, but also the small
group. So there's individuals, this is
their first time really engaging the book
of Daniel. There's small groups that
they're going to read these. I guess as
someone that's probably led more Daniel
small groups than I've probably ever met
before What would you want to do to help
prepare? Individuals and small groups to
talk about the book of Daniel so that I
yeah to not get stuck. What are some key
insights? I Yeah, so that's a great
question. And I don't want this to sound
like elitist scholarly stuff, but because
it's not. I mean, God has raised up
different people in the church to help in
different ways. And and I'm of the guild
of biblical scholars who write
commentaries and stuff. So I to be honest,
I think it is. on a practical level, and
then I'll get to some actually
interpretive points, but I think it's
really helpful to find good resources.
Bibles, it could be the NIV Study Bible,
NLT Study Bible, ESV Study Bible,
commentaries like the one I've written,
but others as well. Because, again, I
think the first thing a small group leader
needs to acknowledge, as we did earlier,
is that this is an ancient book. This is a
book that's going to be filled with a lot
of things that are strange to me. Talk to
your pastor and others about what are the
good resources, because there is some
popular teaching on Daniel and Revelation,
which takes advantage of the fact that
it's hard for us to understand, and they
read all kinds of fanciful interpretations
into it. And just as one assertion here,
Connected to that is neither Daniel nor
Revelation is giving you any information
that will help you determine when Jesus is
coming again. That's not what these books
are for. There are not signs of the time
that when you see them, it means that
Jesus is coming within the next two or
three years. It's all the signs of the
time are around wars and rumors of wars
and things like that. There's signs of the
time that we're not at the end yet. So
that's the first thing to do the study
beforehand. Get your small group to do
some preliminary work too. What's really
important, whenever you're reading
anything, is to understand what type of
literature you're reading. Technically,
that's called genre. Know the genre. of
the book that you're reading. And the
Bible has many different types of books.
And different types of books trigger
different reading strategies. It makes a
big difference to use another book as an
example. When you read the Song of Songs,
which begins, let him kiss me with the
kisses of his mouth, for your love is
better than wine. It makes a big
difference if you think it's some kind of
allegory. which it's not, of the
relationship between Jesus and the church,
or that it's a love poem. Now, I think
it's a love poem that has theological
significance, but it's really important to
understand what type of literature you're
reading. And Daniel has two different
genres. It has these stories, which I
think are based on real events, but
they're told in such a way as to impart
that message we talked about earlier. In
spite of difficulties, you know, God's in
control and he'll have the final victory.
So be faithful. As we see the three
friends doing when they won't bow down to
Nebuchadnezzar's golden statue. And so I
think being, and then the apocalyptic
visions at the end, to know that they're
highly, highly symbolic, and then to dig
into the meaning of the symbolism. Yeah,
so those are some things I think it's
really important to keep in mind. So
something I want to key in on because I
think you said this so brilliantly that
it's super helpful. We read Daniel and it
just feels like this vast chasm
contextually. But. I think even just
listening to you, the original readers
read Daniel. It seems to be, I mean, and
correct me if I'm wrong, it was
encouraging. It was inspiring. So I think
even walking in from what you're saying
is, hey, if the original readers are
reading this as encouraging, as inspiring,
how does that affect the way I look at it?
Absolutely. And here, you know, notice a
difference between a prophet like Jeremiah
and an apocalyptic figure like Daniel. A
prophet receives a message from God which
he is to relate to the people and it's a
message of you need to repent. Prophets
are, I often call them covenant lawyers of
God. You've broken the covenant, here are
the penalties of the covenant, repent or
else. Whereas Daniel is addressed to the
people of God, but the faithful people of
God who are suffering and scared. Maybe
wavering in their faith about God and his
goodness or whatever. And Daniel's
message, even though if you're on the
wrong side of the divide, and maybe I'll
say a word about that in a moment, it is
scary, but, um, But to the people of God,
it's a message of hope and reassurance and
saying God's in control. And by the way,
that's the same with the book of
Revelation. I more recently wrote a
commentary on Revelation in a series
called The New Testament Through Old
Testament Eyes, published by Kriegel. And
Revelation functions the same way. And
that's why, by the way, I think that the
message of Daniel and Revelation are
incredibly important today. Not because
we're near the end times. Who knows? We
won't know until the end times happen.
Could be tomorrow, could be thousands of
years from now. But because we live in a
time when Christians are tempted to be
fearful and angry. and the book of Daniel
and Revelation because they feel
marginalized they feel persecuted, and
unfortunately, some think that the proper
response to that is to try to grab power
and to shape things. I won't go political,
but I will say that the message of the
Daniel and Revelation speak against that
by giving us hope and confidence that God
is in control. We're not in control. But
God is in control. I want to come back to
you because maybe you looped it and I
missed it, but you're going to talk about
the divide. So I think what I heard you're
about to say is, you know, if if you're on
God's side, this is really encouraging.
But if you're not on God's side, then.
Well, I'll give you an anecdote. So I'm
17, 16, 17 years old. I have a girlfriend.
I'm not a Christian. She hands me a book
recently published called The Late Great
Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey. So I read
this book. And of course, today, I totally
disagree with his interpretive approach.
But he got one thing right, which is that
Daniel in Revelation says that God is a
God who judges sin. And I was on the sin
side at that time. And so a proper
reaction was fear. Which drove me to, you
know, to turn to Jesus at that time. And,
uh, and so, so I, I actually think Daniel
and Revelation have an important place in
gospel proclamation. So. No, that's really
good. So a couple more things, and then
we'll close. Because this has been,
Tremper, I just appreciate hearing you.
And even in some of the books, the one
book you have, The Confronting Old
Testaments, I can hear you talk as I've
read that. Usually sometimes podcast
guests come back and say, I want you to
ask this question. And you did. And the
question that you wanted to respond to,
which I think is a pretty powerful one,
which is how does the message of Daniel
speak to the church today? Um, I'd love to
just hear your response to the question
you threw out there. Yeah, but I think,
Peter, we've already pretty much gotten
the gist of it. And that is that the
church needs to hear the message that the
original audience heard, which is, Don't
be afraid, even though it seems like the
world's falling apart out there, that the
forces of secularism are taking over or
whatever. You know, God's the one who's
really in control, and our task is to be
faithful to be faithful, to reach out to
others, and live in community together. I
think it's an important message for today,
to be sure. And it's really interesting to
read those stories about Daniel and his
three friends and the kind of faith they
display in the midst of the most dangerous
circumstances. I love that. Um, we'll do
just two more questions. I want to come
back to, I love how we're introing cause I
think in some ways this is kind of like a,
a kind syllabus where it's like, Hey, the
first six chapters are really great. Seven
through 12 you might be a little confused,
but just a couple of things that you said
that I think is important. I grew up in,
in a faith tradition that really valued
the rapture. That was a motivation for
missionary work and I'm so thankful for
that. But one of the things I love that
you said was about the different times
when people thought Jesus was coming back.
I was just thinking at the end of World
War II when Israel became a nation, tons
of people thought Jesus was coming back. I
remember 87 reasons Jesus is coming in
1987, 88 reasons why Jesus is coming back
in 88. I'm not sure if 1989 was written.
Why don't you kind of as a, not just a
scholar, but a follower of Jesus, how do
you reconcile this? You called it the
already, but not yet, which is a very
biblical tension. How do you manage this
tension of, hey, Jesus could come back
before we end recording this podcast, but
also Jesus might not come back for a
hundred years. How do you reconcile all of
that together? Yeah. Let me just mention
that in 1994, I debated a guy named Harold
Camping in front of a thousand people. And
Harold Camping is the man who wrote the
book, 1994 question mark. And I think I
began that debate by saying, because at
that time in 94, he'd go, Mr. Camping, I
have three teenage sons. No one wants
Jesus to come back more than I do.
everybody applauded. And then I said,
well, let me tell you why he's not coming
back in September 94, or why he might not
come back. Well, the way I manage it is to
do my best But in my failing way to live
as if Jesus is coming back tomorrow on the
one hand, but also live as if he's coming
back in a hundred years. In other words,
I'm not doing what some of those people
did back then. Some of my friends, even
when they thought Jesus was coming back in
September 94, they had conflicts with
their wives that they didn't reconcile.
They ran up their credit card to the max.
and weren't worried about paying it back
because they were thinking Jesus is coming
back in a couple of months. Don't live
like that, but also don't live like he
might not come back tomorrow. So we're
always to be ready. And but on the other
hand, I think it's apocryphal, but I think
it was Luther said, I think I got it mixed
up with George Washington once when I
said, Luther said, if Christ is coming
tomorrow, I'm planting a cherry tree
today. It wasn't a cherry tree, but he
said something about planting a tree
today. One kind of last question, I think
of it, it could sum up what we've already
said, but if Daniel showed up in, you live
on the West Coast, I live on the East
Coast, but if Daniel showed up in America
today, and just kind of closing our time
together, what do you think he would tell
Americans, followers of Jesus in the
American church? What do you think he
would say to us? Well, first of all, I'll
mention I moved from Santa Barbara,
California to Alexandria, Virginia, a few
years ago. So I get out to Santa Barbara
all the time. But what he would say,
again, his main message, don't be afraid.
Be faithful. Don't be afraid because it
looks like the forces of evil or whatever
are in charge, because they're not. God is
in charge, and he will have the final
victory. And so act like it. Don't act
angry and fearful, but act as one who
knows that God is going to win the final
victory. I love that. Well, if you're
looking at Tremper's screen, his
commentary is in the top. I think it's
left. It's the yellow one. But this is the
NIV application for Tremper. And so small
groups we're going to be going through and
other individuals in this podcast, we're
going to be interviewing other
commentators about this book. But Tremper,
I just thank you for opening this up. I
really loved the way that you like really
simplified and applied it. So thank you so
much for the generosity of your time. Oh,
thank you, Peter. It is my privilege and
enjoy studying Daniel.