I hope to show how some of the Bible's "breaks, tangents and oddly angled continuities" can profitably be read theologically. Rather than provide a program for a biblical theology, I only intend to give an example of the kind of exegesis and historical and theological reflection that make a mature biblical theology possible (i.e., one that doesn't operate with exegetical expectations about what the Bible can and cannot say/do).
The book of Daniel is an ideal subject. Even within its own structure Daniel confronts us with a stark discontinuity: that between the purported author and circumstances, on the one hand, and what the text implicitly reveals--and what (I suspect) nearly all modern scholars recognize--as the actual author(s)/sources and circumstances, on the other. In spite of what a surface reading of the text would imply about its setting, the book of Daniel cannot be dated to the 6th century BCE. This conclusion can be argued on many fronts; one of them comes from the account of the course and consequences of Antiochus IV's career in chapters 11-12.
Daniel 10-12 are set in the time of the Persian king Cyrus (10.1). They recount a vision of heavenly beings and an increasingly detailed (but not totally unproblematic; e.g., cf. 11.2) "prophecy" of the course of Persian and Hellenestic history, culminating in the rise of "a despised man," the Seleucid king, Antiochus IV. The events narrated of his career can be traced historically up to 11.39, which brings us to the enforcement of his infamous decrees against the practice of the Jewish law; v. 40 begins a genuine prophecy of interconnected events (cf. "at that time," 12.1), the end of Antiochus, the End of time, and the resurrection of the martyrs.
In a surprising piece of prosopopeia (speaking in the person of one who is absent), Goldingay imagines how "Daniel" (the historical author) would react to the course which history took, seemingly, in spite of the climax of his vision (another "break" or "oddly angled continuity"). Goldingay allows himself to import Christian presuppositions into this reflection, but I suspect it would be of interest to anyone trying to understand the mindset which operates in the writing and reception of apocalyptic literature.
I will play the role of interlocutor; the replies are those of "Daniel"/Goldingay.
Daniel, you say your message came by divine revelation, but why should we believe you given all that we know about its composition?
I do not necessarily imply that either I or my audience took this [the revelation of the heavenly beings] to be a conclusive argument. First, even if I believed my message to have come by divine gift, I of course knew, and at least some of my contemporaries knew, that it was not received by the exilic Daniel in the way I described it. Second . . . a claim to revelatory experience is not to be accepted purely on the basis of the claim (cf. Jer 23:15-32).
But my account implicitly offers several other reasons for accepting the message as a God-given revelation. First, I could present it as an experience of a man of proved discernment and faithfulness. In chaps. 1-6 these qualities appear in Daniel; in chaps. 10-12 they also appear when we see the actual recipients of these visions become fleetingly visible (11:32-35; 12:10). Second, my message was presented not as a quite new revelation but in large part as a piece of scriptural exposition . . . Biblical prophecy and not merely personal insight provided the categories for my understanding of the events of Hellenistic history. . . . I was reapplying Scripture to Antiochus and the promised destiny of conservative Jews. p. 311
But what about the apparent non-fulfillment of your prophecies about Antiochus' end, the arrival of the "time of the End," and the resurrection of the martyrs, Daniel?
Another obvious criterion for deciding whether a prophecy comes from God is whether it comes true (Deut 18:22). I might seem to fail that test. . . . The words of the OT prophets, who sometimes fail the test of fulfillment, commonly receive what people could see as a partial fulfillment, and perhaps it is this that encourages the community to hold onto words that were not fulfilled--these must also have come from God and must offer illumination for the future. My community, too, might not have preserved my words if they had experienced no spectacular deliverance in 164-163 B.C. p. 311-312
Daniel, what's the point of writing "prophetically" after the fact?
My vision pictured a heavenly being revealing in the exile events to take place over the coming four centuries up to the End, from the contents of "a reliable book" (10:21) . . . The significance of describing what is actually past as pre-written is to declare that God is somehow in control even of the inexplicabilities of history--the success of the godless and the sufferings of the faithful--and even at moments when evil is asserting itself in a particularly oppressive way. Given the difficulty of viewing history as it actually unfolds as the direct will of God, the books declare that it was foreknown by God and in some sense willed by him. It is part of some pattern and purpose, rather than being random and meaningless. . . . There is a fixed inevitability about history; human beings cannot frustrate God's ultimate purpose [the defeat of evil and triumph of God's rule], and in that sense cannot alter what has been determined by God's will. But the detailed portrayal of how the End will come is an imaginative scenario drawn in the light of Scripture, rather than a forecast of how things actually must be. p. 315
Is this why, Daniel, your depiction of the resurrection of the martyrs never materialized? And is this why, even though writing of the End, you mention neither Messiah nor Antichrist? How is all this to be understood?
Admittedly there is [here] no such figure who embodies the fulfillment of God's positive purpose-no messiah. Nor is there any indication in my vision that at some point it moves from talking about Antiochus to talking about Antichrist or Satan, or begins to speak in words that refer both to Antiochus and to Antichrist. But in the way I spoke of Antiochus I was suggesting that he--like the King of Babylon in Isa 14 or Gog in Ezek 38--was the very embodiment of godless wickedness, so that the language used of him could be used of Antichrist or Satan. The passage could be treated typologically in this way: this is a way of using the passage to throw light on Antichrist or Satan, but not a way of approaching the passage exegetically. . . . My vision of the awakening and vindication of the holy and discerning martyr shaped the perceptions of Jesus, for Jesus himself and for his followers. It thus proved it had an anticipatory relationship with the event that more than any other brought a realization within history of realities that belong to the End; and by a feedback process this Christ event turned out to be the vindication of my own vision. Setting my vision in the context of the NT suggests that one martyr indeed awoke to such vindication. pp. 317-318
So, your having written in the person of the exilic Daniel was meant to affirm, retrospectively, that despite the chaotic events of history, there is a God whose will will finally triumph. You also suggest that at least some of your contemporaries knew that you were not the exilic Daniel. I don't see how it could be otherwise; yet many of them, and certainly most who followed you, did not know this. I wonder how or if that obstructs your aims in writing? Then you suggest that when your vision turns to genuine prophecy (11.40 on), it must be understood, like all biblical prophecy, which it creatively reapplies, as forecasting the kind of future that must eventually transpire given God's providence and his word in Scripture. This means that they are "more promise than prediction." (p. 312) Again, it seems that something like this must also have been in the minds of those who first accepted your vision even after these things did not materialize in the way described.
Thanks, Daniel. Your words in their generic and historical setting are a powerful stimulus to our thinking about history and the form that the divine (Word) takes in the human (word).
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