Critical remarks against a
Canaanite influence include the following:
(1) the sea in Dan 7: (a) is not
divine and not animate; (b) is not a chaos symbol but interpreted as the earth;
cf. however, the objection by COLLINS [Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of
Daniel (Hermenia)]: “Ferch [The Son of Man in Daniel 7 (AUSDDS 6)] objects that
‘the sea and beasts are interpreted as the earth and four kings or kingdoms and
not as chaos symbols.’ This is to confuse the reference of the symbols (the
kings/kingdoms) with their expressive value (chaos symbols)”;
(2) Winged deities are almost non-existent
in Ugaritic mythology;
(3 The four beasts: (a) no
specific parallel for any beast; (b) the beasts are not chaos symbols but
interpreted as four kings or kingdoms; (c) all four beasts leave the water
since they are not aquatic animals, in contrast to the Ugaritic Leviathan whose
realm is the sea;
(4) The historical perspective is
associated with the beasts in Dan 7 is missing in the Ugaritic texts;
(5) The fourth beasts/ Leviathan: (a)
Lotan is only mentioned once in the Ugaritic texts; (b) Lotan or Leviathan is
not mentioned in Dan 7; (c) the parallel is not obvious;
(6) Ugaritic texts are
chronologically too far-removed from Daniel and without convincing
(extra-biblical) transmission history;
(7) Dan 7 is not a combat myth;
. . . “the fourth beasts in Daniel 7 meets its demise not in combat with the ‘son
of man’” (FERCH 1980: 80);
(8) No direct dependence on the
Ugaritic mythology is necessary since the Old Testament provides the source of
the images and motifs;
(9) A “conservative defender of
the faith” (CASEY 1979: 18) would use native Israelite imagery. . . ;
(10) “. . . religio-historical
parallels should be considered against the totality of the phenomenological
conceptions f the works in which such correspondences occur. Likewise . . .
single motifs [should not be] torn out of their living contexts” (FERCH 1980:
75); cf. the response by COLLINS: “These principles are quite valid if we wish
to compare the message of Daniel, or its pattern of religion, with that of the
Ugaritic myths. Such comparison has never, to my knowledge, been the issue in
the parallels between Daniel and Ugarit, and is rarely if ever involved in the
identification of any mythological allusions in apocalyptic literature. Equally,
scholars who identify mythological images do not claim that they have the same
meaning or reference in their new contexts . . . Pace Ferch, traditional
images are constantly ‘torn from their living contexts’ and transferred to new ones
. . . No scholar has ever denied that there is ‘discontinuity’ between Daniel 7
and Ugarit, or indeed that the discontinuity is more significant than the
continuity in determining the present image of the text. All that is claimed is
that the imagery of Daniel has traditional associations and that these
associations are one significant factor in the communicative power of the text”
(1981: 91) . . . ;
(11) Parallels are inadequate and
not specific enough (CASEY 1979: 35; KVANVIG [Roots of Apocalyptic. The
Mesopotamian Background of the Enoch Figure and the Son of Man (WMANT 61)]
1988: 509) therefore “in the light of the complexities just noted [in the
Ugaritic texts] it becomes apparent that religio-historical parallels must not
be established too readily. It is a methodological necessity to examine single
parallel terms and motifs in the total context in which they occur. To study
parallels in isolation is to open oneself to the danger of misreading elements
of one culture in terms of another and of suppression of adverse evidence in
the interests of a theory” (FERCH 1980: 79); cf. the response by COLLINS: “. .
. we cannot demand exact reproduction of the myth, and the symbols do not
necessarily carry the same reference as in the original . . . What carries over
are the allusions and associations . . . The pattern of the relationship here
is more important than the variation in detail” (1981: 9f); “It should be no
surprise that his composition is a new entity, discontinuous in some respects with
all its sources. What is significant is whether there are also aspects of the
text that are rendered more intelligible when considered in the context of the
proposed background” (ibid. 199b: 282 . . . ) (Jürg Eggler, Influences and
Traditions Underlying the Vision of Daniel 7:2-14: The Research from the End of
the 19th Century to the Present [Orbis Biblicus et Orentalis 177; Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000], 13-15 n. 49, slightly edited for better readability)
