Transfiguration Sunday: Daniel's Vision
Greetings friends, for those of you that have been following my PhD journey, I’m pleased to say that I passed my viva with minor corrections at the end of June. The corrections have now been submitted so this is the first newsletter coming to you from Dr Christie 🎉 I was also ordained priest this month which goes some way to explain why things have been a bit quiet here… But thanks for remaining subscribed, it’s great to know that you’re still there!
The set reading for this Sunday comes from the book of Daniel, one of the apocalyptic texts of the Hebrew Bible. I’ve written about the genre of apocalypse before, so if you’d like more detail on that you can find it here:
The book of Daniel is divided into two main parts; Chapters 1-6 form a narrative that tells the story of Daniel in Babylon. He and his friends are faithful worshippers of God who refused to become involved in Babylonian idolatry. As a result of his integrity, Daniel eventually rises to power and interprets the dreams of King Nebuchadnezzar. We might be reminded here of the Joseph cycle - both Joseph and Daniel are strangers in a foreign land who eventually find themselves in positions of prominence, close to the king/Pharoah. Both interpret dreams and are trusted by those in authority. Scholars are confident that Daniel is a very late text. It situates itself in Babylon but is most likely a product of the Persian period. Some also think that there is a late post-exilic layer to the Joseph cycle, which means that these texts might be more closely associated than we first imagine. 1
Chapter 7, where we find ourselves this Sunday, marks the beginning of a series of dreams and visions which make up the rest of the book. These are strange and frightening, to the extent that Daniel himself says in 7:15 that ‘the visions of my head terrified me’ and in 8:27 he ‘lay sick for some days’ as a result of their overwhelming nature.
As John Collins states, ‘we shall find throughout Daniel 7-12 that human events are acted out against a backdrop of supernatural, angelic activity’. 2 The political chaos of the Babylonian empire, particularly when it faced the opposition of the Persians, is reflected in the heavenly imagery of Daniel’s visions.
In 7:12 we come across ‘one like a human being’ or traditionally ‘one like a son of man’. Like the servant of second Isaiah, this figure is one who the church has identified as Jesus. This is largely because it is hard for us to hear ‘son of man’ without thinking of it in terms of its usage in Mark’s gospel, where Jesus repeatedly applies it to himself. He may well have been deliberately referring to Daniel by using this phrase, and so there is good reason for Christians to read that back into the text.
Just as with the servant, there are also traditional Jewish associations which we should bear in mind alongside this. Collins says that ‘it is very unlikely that the “one who is like a son of man” and the “holy ones” were mere ciphers for the persecuted Jews. Rather, they are mythical-realistic symbols which refer to the angelic powers, under their leader Michael, which Daniel believed would allow the Jews to prevail’.3 We see here how the Son of Man figure can be read in several different ways.
So here, as in other apocalyptic texts, social and political upheaval is reflected in the tumultuous visions that leave Daniel shaken and sick. But there is hope, because above the chaos the Ancient One is enthroned, untouched by the beasts below.
The Transfiguration
At the transfiguration we remember Jesus changing before the very eyes of his disciples, the scale of his glory revealed. I wonder if they, like Daniel, would have been physically affected by the shock of what they were seeing - perhaps Peter’s desire to put up a tent reflects his desire to have a lie down!
The Apocalyptic writings are powerfully evocative and remind us of the scale of God’s glory. Daniel sheds an important light on the events of the transfiguration and reminds us of our place in the cosmic order, dwarfed by God’s glory but nonetheless beloved.
Warner, Megan. "“Are You Indeed to Reign over Us?”: The Politics of Genesis 37–50". In Political Theologies in the Hebrew Bible, (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill | Schöningh, 2023)
Collins, John Joseph Daniel: with an introduction to apocalyptic literature. (Spain: W.B. Eerdmans, 1984) p 82; You can see a decent chunk of this book for free on google books!
Collins, Daniel, p 82