I'm glad you dug the book, Joel, and entirely honoured to be one of those rare folk whose book recommendations succeed in capturing your attention. Is this odd historical inaccuracy, where it was the Median King Darius who Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great which conquered the Babylonian So the book, we know, was written quite late, perhaps the end of the third century, those first six chapters. There's no clear historical knowledge of the Babylonian and Persian period. He was defeated by Cyrus, not by Darius, so there are tremendous historical inaccuracies and this is a sign that this was written at a much later time, looking back when the history of a period 300 years ago was very confused. Belshazzar was actually never a king he was sort of a prince regent. The historical inaccuracy of the work, right? You have the chronology of more than a century being telescoped here! There're other inaccuracies. Two Babylonian kings, Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar a Median kingĭarius who happens to be unknown to history, a Persian king Cyrus. These chapters tell of Daniel's adventures under two Babylonian kings, Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar the text says Christine Hayes says in her lectures on the Old Testament: Historical inaccuracies in the book of Daniel. Hard as you can, harder harder: FOLLOW THROUGH!” (p. Up from your toes, up down, turn around, up high down hard, hard as you can, On the ball, eye on balls, eye on cunts, eye on the point of skull, up andĭown, put your whole body into it, bring everything you’ve got into your swing, Your head down, you remember to snap the wrist, complete the swing, raise highīring down, think of a groove in the air, groove into the groove, keep your eye And it swats and kicks, and kicks andĬlubs-you raise the club high and bring it down, you follow through, you keep Linkage, this many-helmeted beast of our nation, coming through our flesh withīoot and club and gun butt, through our sick stubbornness, through our blood itĬomes. Passive rank with linked arms as the boots approach, highly polished, and theĬlubs, highly polished, and the brass highly polished, wading through our Is there, locked arm in arm with the real people of now, sitting in close 9-10) […Here, the narrator transitions into anĪnalysis of the biblical book of Daniel, which I’ll come back to later in thisīreaking up a peaceful anti-war march, the narrator writes: “ And suddenly he Of the Kings in the post-Alexandrine Empires…. In this context it is instructive to pause forĪ moment over the career of Daniel, a definitely minor, if not totallyĪpocryphal figure (or figures) who worked with no particular delight for a few Testing of those who might be able to learn. Its recognition of Him-or to put it another way, every generation has to learnĭrama in the Bible is always in the conflict of those who have learned with Humans who become messengers or carriers of his miracles, or who deliver their He enlists the help of naturally righteous In the Bible seems almost always concerned with the idea of his recognition byĪuthority, with rewards for those who recognize it and punishment for those whoĭon’t.
It is interesting to note that God as a character The scatterings, the ruminations, the strikings dead, the renderings unto and Oh the curses, the admonitions the plagues, The Bible-like the little girl says, he gets people.
And that’s when Susan told me there was a That moment Susan, age eight, and I, thirteen, could not look at eachīag, pulled at the peak of his cap, and leaned forward for the sign. Spoke there was a short beep over his voice the way it happens on television to Mel Allen was saying how a base on balls is always trouble and as he Allie Reynolds was pitching for the Yanks and it was nothing-nothing in June 22 to be exact, at exactly ten P.M., Susan gave me the word about Here is a cheap effect: A long time ago, on an evening in June, 1954, Tantrums, and before tantrums, a faith in God. From politics back to drugs, and from drugs back to sex, and before sex, Loud and intelligent and repugnantly honest girlness. With her aggressive moral openness, with her Wants unashamed, not managed discreetly like most people’s. Her personal life carelessly displayed, her Right, that is wrong, this is good, that is bad. Family gift for having definite feelings.