UPBRINGING IN THE BOOK OF DANIEL – THE IDEAL OF A YOUNG JEWISH MAN ACCORDING TO DANIEL 1:3-7
UPBRINGING IN THE BOOK OF DANIEL – THE IDEAL OF A YOUNG JEWISH MAN ACCORDING TO DANIEL 1:3-7

Summary/Abstract: The opening chapter (Dan 1) introduces the reader to the Hebrew heroes of the book, Daniel and his companions, and records the manner in which these young nobles were taken to Babylon as captives by Nebuchadnezzar. The three-year program of study that Daniel and his three companions underwent involved “the language and literature of the Chaldeans”. The Babylonian education of the Jewish youths was to make them loyal courtiers to the king. In Daniel 1:3-7 are shown a number of qualifications necessary for these young men to be eligible for training, both the physical (without any defect, handsome), and intellectual skills (wisdom, knowledge, intelligence). The theme of the education of young Jewish men appears in Daniel 1 in the context of the preservation of Jewish national and religious identity of those living in the Diaspora, far away from the motherland and in a hostile pagan environment. The author of Daniel 1 accepts the possibility of a “pagan” education of Jews, but on the condition that they will remain faithful to God and national traditions. The figure of Daniel has been shown as the ideal – a model worthy of imitation – a Jew who in spite of a pagan upbringing remains faithful to God. This kind of “model” behaviour becomes a topic of the day in the era of the Book of Daniel’s final redactor (Maccabean). The struggle to preserve Jewish national distinctions and faithfulness to God in the face of growing Hellenisation was the quintessential problem in that period of history.

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