The four kingdoms motif enabled writers of various cultures, times, and places, to periodize history as the staged succession of empires barrelling towards an utopian age. The motif provided order to lived experiences under empire (the present), in view of ancestral traditions and cultural heritage (the past), and inspired outlooks assuring hope, deliverance, and restoration (the future). Four Kingdom Motifs before and beyond the Book of Daniel includes thirteen essays that explore the reach and redeployment of the motif in classical and ancient Near Eastern writings, Jewish and Christian scriptures, texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls, Apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, depictions in European architecture and cartography, as well as patristic, rabbinic, Islamic, and African writings from antiquity through the Mediaeval eras.
Andrew B. Perrin, Ph.D. (2013), McMaster University, is Canada Research Chair in Religious Identities of Ancient Judaism at Trinity Western University. His research on Daniel and Qumran has garnered the Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise and David Noel Freedman Award.
Loren T. Stuckenbruck, Ph.D. (1994), Princeton Theological Seminary, is Professor of New Testament and Second Temple Judaism at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. His previous books include a commentary on 1 Enoch 91–108 and The Myth of Rebellious Angels.
Contributors include Katharina Bracht, Brennan Breed, Kylie Crabbe, Lorenzo DiTommaso, Alexandria Frisch, James R. Hamrick, Geoffrey Herman, Miriam L. Hjälm, Andrew B. Perrin, Michael Segal, Olivia Stewart Lester, Loren T. Stuckenbruck, and Ian Young.
“Die einzelnen Studien sind aus im open access zugänglich, was den hohen Preis des Bandes leichter erträglich macht. Lesenswert ist er in jedem Fall für alle, die sich für das Danielbuch und seine Wirkungsgeschichte interessieren.” – Martin Rösel, Universität Rostock, in: Theologische Literaturzeitung 148 (2023).
Abbreviations
Introduction to the Four Kingdoms as a Time Bound, Timeless, and Timely Historiographical Mechanism and Literary Motif Andrew B. Perrin
The Four Kingdoms and Other Chronological Conceptions in the Book of Daniel Michael Segal
Five Kingdoms, and Talking Beasts: Some Old Greek Variants in Relation to Daniel’s Four Kingdoms Ian Young
The Four (Animal) Kingdoms: Understanding Empires as Beastly Bodies Alexandria Frisch
The Apocalypse of Weeks: Periodization and Tradition-Historical Context Loren T. Stuckenbruck
Expressions of Empire and Four Kingdoms Patterns in the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls Andrew B. Perrin
The Four Kingdoms Motif and Sibylline Temporality in Sibylline Oracles 4 Olivia Stewart Lester
The Generation of Iron and the Final Stumbling Block: The Present Time in Hesiod’s Works and Days 106–201 and Barnabas 4 Kylie Crabbe
The Four Kingdoms of Daniel in Hippolytus’s Commentary on Daniel Katharina Bracht
Persia, Rome and the Four Kingdoms Motif in the Babylonian Talmud Geoffrey Herman
The Four Kingdoms of Daniel in the Early Mediaeval Apocalyptic Tradition Lorenzo DiTommaso
The Four Kingdom Schema and the Seventy Weeks in the Arabic Reception of Daniel Miriam L. Hjälm
Conflicting Traditions: The Interpretation of Daniel’s Four Kingdoms in the Ethiopic Commentary (Tergwāmē) Tradition James R. Hamrick
The Politics of Time: Epistemic Shifts and the Reception History of the Four Kingdoms Schema Brennan Breed
Index of Primary Sources Index of Modern Authors
Advanced students and scholars of the textual formation, apocalyptic theology, and historiographies of the book of Daniel and its diverse reception by writers and communities.