Extra Credit/Make-up Essay - Daniel - 15 points possible
Requirements for Brief Essay:
1. Your essay should be word-processed, double-spaced, one-inch to one and one-half inch margins. It should be spell-checked. Pages Numbered. Font no smaller than 12 point.
2. You should have a cover page with title, date, topic/prompt, and your name. (You can simply cut and paste the topic/prompt from the list below onto your cover page.)
3. Number each paragraph. Bold your thesis. After the end of the essay, attach an OUTLINE of the essay with the thesis clearly stated and at minimum a line for each paragraph.
4. The essay should be approximately two to three pages long (not including the title page or Works Consulted page).
5. You must include a Works Consulted/Cited Page. You need not consult any other sources than what we have read for class except as mentioned in the prompts below.. Those sources and any other sources you consult (if you do so) must be included in your Works Consulted/Cited and cited in-text or in footnotes/endnotes. CAREFUL AND CORRECT CITATION IS REQUIRED. WHEN IN DOUBT, CITE. Remember that simply paraphrasing or changing every third word is not OK. Quote and cite or radically summarize and cite. Use quotation marks when quoting or indent if quote is five lines or longer. Guessing at where your information comes from is not OK. Use page numbers in your in-text citations, footnotes or endnotes. Book or journal titles are italicized or underlined. You may consult Citation for Biblical Studies for information related to citing biblical studies sources.
6. Click here for the Grading Rubric for the essay. This is a checklist I will use in grading the essay.
Choose ONE of the Following Prompts
1. How might Daniel 1 (Daniel and his friends as
court pages), Daniel 3 (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego), and Daniel 6 (Daniel in the Lion’s
Den) address problems for Jews living outside of Palestine from the Babylonian exile
onward as well as within Palestine during the Maccabean Period?
2. Discuss how two passages in Daniel 7-12 may address problems posed for Jews by the Seleucid conquest including the actions of Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
3. Discuss three features of Daniel 7-12 that lead scholars to label these visions as apocalyptic. Use examples from Daniel to illustrate. Be sure to define apocalyptic in your essay.
4. The apocalyptic visions of Daniel
7-12 and Daniel 7 in particular have become the subject of many reinterpretations from
shortly after they were written until today. What
literary features of apocalyptic make it likely that it will be reinterpreted and applied
to ever new situations? What accounts
for its ongoing appeal and force?
Note: There are a variety of ways readers approach the
symbolism. Some read the symbols as steno
symbols having a one to one correspondence to a particular meaning, often a particular
historical figure or event. Others read the
symbols as tensive symbols capable of more than one meaning.
In that case the one like a son of man, for example, could refer to the holy
ones in Israel persecuted in the Maccabean period and also to a future messiah. It could even represent those who are persecuated
but remain faithful in any generation. For an
excellent discussion of modes of interpreting Revelation, the major apocalyptic text in
the New Testament, see David Barr, The New
Testament Story: An Introduction. 4th edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2008,
378-382.