Daniel
The Book of Daniel: An Introduction
The short answer
The book of Daniel is often remembered for its stories — the lions' den, the fiery furnace, the writing on the wall — or mined for predictions about the end of the world. But at its heart sits a single vision, in chapter 7, that holds the whole book together. Daniel dreams of monstrous beasts rising from the sea, each one an empire trampling the earth. Then the scene shifts to a courtroom in heaven. The "ancient of days" takes his throne, the beasts are judged, and "one like a son of man" — a human figure, in contrast to the beasts — is brought before God and given lasting authority and a kingdom.
The point is not hard to feel, even at first reading. Daniel was written for people living under the boot of empire, wondering whether their faithfulness meant anything. The vision answers: the monsters do not get the last word. God sees his suffering people, overturns the verdict the empires have passed on them, and hands rule to a figure who stands for them — human, vulnerable, and finally vindicated.
That is why Daniel casts such a long shadow over the rest of the Bible. As N. T. Wright notes, Daniel was one of the favorite books of John, the writer of Revelation, whose vision of Jesus draws the Ancient of Days and the son of man together into one picture. And in Mark's Gospel, Jesus takes up the son-of-man language for himself — with a twist Wright calls fascinating: the authority that in Daniel dispenses God's judgment becomes, in Jesus' hands, authority to dispense God's forgiveness.
Read this way, Daniel is not a puzzle book of coded predictions. It is a book about how God vindicates a persecuted people — and about the surprising shape that vindication eventually takes.
What scholars say
In these excerpts, N. T. Wright walks through what actually happens in Daniel 7 — the Ancient of Days enthroned, a human figure representing God's people vindicated and given authority — and traces how that scene shapes both Revelation's vision of Jesus and Mark's account of a son of man with authority to forgive.
“In particular, this vision of Jesus draws together the vision of two characters in one of the most famous biblical visions, that of Daniel 7. (Along with the books of Exodus, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Zechariah, Daniel is one of John’s favourites.) There, as the suffering of God’s people reaches its height, ‘the Ancient of Days’ takes his seat in heaven , and ‘one like a son of man’ (in other words, a human figure, representing God’s people and, in a measure, all the human race) is presented before him, and enthroned alongside him. Now, in John’s vision, these two pictures seem to have merged. When we are looking at Jesus, he is saying, we are looking straight through him at the father himself.”
“The key sentence, then, is the one in verse 10: ‘The son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins.’ ‘The son of man’, in Jesus’ language, could simply mean ‘I’, or ‘someone like me’. But taking ‘the son of man’ in Mark as a whole, Daniel 7 provides the clue to deeper meaning. There, ‘one like a son of man’ is the representative of God’s true people. He is opposed by the forces of evil; but God vindicates him, rescues him, proves him to be in the right, and gives him authority . In Daniel, this authority enables him to dispense God’s judgment. Here, in a fascinating twist, he has authority to dispense God’s forgiveness. The saying points forward to Jesus’ answer to Caiaphas (14.62).”
What it means for you
If you have ever felt that the powerful always win — that faithfulness is quiet, costly, and easily overlooked — Daniel is written for you. Its stories model integrity under pressure: ordinary obedience in a culture that demands compromise. Its visions promise that the verdict pronounced by the strong is not final; God's courtroom outranks every empire's.
And the story's afterlife adds a gentler note. When Jesus claims the son of man's authority, he uses it first to forgive. The God who reverses verdicts on the oppressed also reverses the verdict on sinners — which means Daniel's hope is not only for the persecuted, but for anyone who needs a fresh start.
In context
Daniel falls into two halves. Chapters 1–6 tell stories of Daniel and his friends serving in the courts of Babylon and Persia — refusing the king's food, surviving the furnace and the lions' den — showing what faithfulness under empire looks like. Chapters 7–12 shift to visions of beasts, kingdoms, and heavenly judgment, showing where history under empire is headed. Chapter 7 is the hinge: its courtroom scene, where the Ancient of Days judges the beasts and enthrones the son of man, gathers up the stories and sets the agenda for everything that follows — and for much of the New Testament.