In this four-part series, we will explore the under-studied text of Sefer Daniel. Our first session with discuss the structure, dating, and composition of Daniel, including the scholarly and religious debates about the text’s origins. Our second session will explore the first half of the book of Daniel and discuss narrative patterns in the text and intertextual allusions with other biblical texts. Our third class will consider the second half of the book of Daniel and the question of prophecy’s cessation in the Second Temple period. Our final session will consider Daniel among Second Temple texts that were not included in Tanakh, and will address the question of Daniel’s canonization in Tanakh.
Rachel Slutsky, Ph.D., is the Monsignor John Oesterreicher Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies and Jewish-Christian Relations in Antiquity at Seton Hall University. She completed her doctorate in ancient Judaism at Harvard University in May 2022. She is currently working on her first monograph, tentatively titled The Gentile Enigma: Divine Law and Identity in Early Judaism, based on her dissertation.
