The Literary Structure Of The Book Of Daniel And Its Implications -- By: David W. Gooding

Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 32:1 (NA 1981)
Article: The Literary Structure Of The Book Of Daniel And Its Implications
Author: David W. Gooding


The Literary Structure Of The Book Of Daniel And Its Implications

David W. Gooding

The Tyndale Old Testament Lecture, 1980

Two major basic questions face the expositor of any narrative work: first, ‘What does this or that part of the book say?’, and second, ‘Why does it say it?’. For Daniel,1 answering question 1 has its special difficulties, particularly if the question ‘What does it say?’ is taken to include the question ‘What does it mean?”. By comparison, answering question 2 looks at first sight easy; in actual fact it is a complex question with at least two different meanings, each requiring a different kind of answer.

At one level the question ‘Why does this particular paragraph or chapter say what it says?’ means ‘What part does this paragraph or chapter play in the thought-flow of the book? Are the information it provides and the point it makes related in any way to the information provided, the points made, by other paragraphs and chapters? If so, how? By way of similarity? Or contrast? Or expansion? Or addition? Or does it make its own independent contribution to the information provided by the book as a whole without being particularly closely related to the information provided by other paragraphs or chapters?’. At this level, then, the question refers to matters internal to the book itself; to the author’s selection and disposition of his material, and to the consequent

inter-relationship of the constituent parts of the book - to the author’s ποίησις and to his σύνθεσις or σύστασις τῶν πραγμάτων Aristotle would phrase it.2 Let us call this level, Level 1.

At another level the same question ‘Why does this paragraph or chapter say what it says?’ means ‘What was the author’s motive in writing this?’, and/or ‘What effect was he thereby aiming to have on his readers?’. At this level the question concerns matters external to the book itself: what brought the book into being? What end was the book designed to serve? Let us call this level, Level 2.

Now I am not suggesting that the two different levels of this question should, or even can, be always considered in isolation from one another. In practice they will sometimes merge. But I am suggesting that we must always remember that there are two levels to this question, and that ev...

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