DANIEL (Dan'el). - An Oriental figure, mentioned in Ex. 14:14-20, to demonstrate the inexorability of God's judgment against an unfaithful land despite the hypothetical presence of Noah, D. and Job, that is, of the greatest righteous men (and therefore intercessors) of the land; then in Ez. 28:3 to measure the supposed divine omniscience of the nāghāth ("prince") of Tyre, Ithobaal III.

From the two passages it is deduced that D. must have been a historical figure, father of sons and daughters, who lived after Noah but before Job, probably in the time of the patriarchs, famous among the Phoenicians and the peoples of the Near East, not a Hebrew, endowed with virtues such that he did not pale in comparison with those of Noah and Job, and with a wisdom that had become proverbial.

A very ancient Judeo-Christian tradition confused him with the prophet Daniel because of the similarity of the name (the Masoretes in Ez. 14:14-20 and 28:3 propose Dāni'ēl instead of Dāni'ēl of the current text) and of the wisdom, and because of ignorance of other famous D.s of antiquity.

The Ugaritic legend of D. (or of Aqhat), brought to light at Rās Samrah, describes a figure named Dnl called Mt Rpe and Gzr Mt Hrmm; in the act of administering justice: "Behold here Dnl Mt - Rpe / Behold there Gzr Mt - Hrmm! / He rises (then) sits before the gate, / under the magnificent trees that (are) near the threshing floor, / and there he judges the cause of the widow and establishes the right of the orphan" (I D 19b - 25 a).

In II D 6, 45 the goddess 'Anat designates him: "The wisest (or the wisdom) of men". The wisdom, the uprightness of this D. and his renown among the Phoenicians led Dussaud, Albright, Viroliad etc. to identify him with the D. of Ezekiel. C. Barton instead links D. to Zebulun, ancestor of the Zebulunites; Dhorme to Dan, ancestor of the Danites; H. Stocks derives the D. of Ezekiel, that of the canonical book of Daniel and of the apocrypha of Enoch and of the Gimbilei from a single tradition. The rationalists consider the prophet Daniel a literary derivation from D., who had already become legendary in Ezekiel. The hypotheses of Barton, of Dhorme, of H. Stocks and of the rationalists have no solid foundation. One can (or must) exclude the identification of D. with the prophet Daniel. Between the D. of Ezekiel and the Ugaritic one there exist evident similarities; however, since we do not possess a reliable version of the Ugaritic legend of D. and lack other data for verification, it does not seem prudent for now to conclude with full certainty to the identification of the two figures. Ezekiel therefore remains the only reliable source concerning D.

Bibliography15 works

BIBL.: T. H. Gaster, The Story of Aqhat, in Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni, 12 (1936, III-IV), pp. 126-49; 12 (1937, I-II), pp. 5-56; 14 (1938, III-IV), pp. 212-15; R. Dussaud, Les découvertes de Ras Shamra et l'Ancien Testament, Paris 1937; U. Cassuto, La leggenda fenicia di Daniel e Aqhat, in Rendiconti della Reale Accademia dei Lincei, 6th series, 14 (1938), pp. 264-68; A. C. F. Schaeffer, Ugaritica. Mission de Ras Shamra, III, Paris 1939; G. Furlani, La religione dei Fenici, in P. Tacchi Venturi, Storia delle religioni, II, Turin 1939, pp. 111-12; G. A. Barton, D., a pre-israelite hero of Galilee, in Journal of Biblical Literature, 60 (1941), pp. 213-25; id., in Memorial Lagrange, Paris 1940, pp. 29-37; H. Stocks, D., die südbabylonische und die nordpatätsinisch-phänikische Überlieferung, in Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 97 (1943), pp. 125-49; B. Mariani, D. «Il patriarca sapiente» nella Bibbia, nella tradizione, nella leggenda (Spicilegium Pont, Athenae Antoniani), Rome 1945; H. L. Ginsberg, The north-canaanite myth of Anath and Aqhat, in Bulletin of the American Society of Oriental Research, 97 (1945), pp. 3-10; 98 (1945), pp. 13-23; R. De Langhe, Les textes de Ras Shamra-Ugarit et leurs rapports avec le milieu biblique de l'Ancien Testament, Gembloux-Paris 1945; E. Obermann, How Daniel was blessed with a son. An incubation scene in ugaritic (Suppl. to the Journal of American Oriental Society), 6, Baltimore 1946.

Bonaventura Mariani

@incollection{ec4_danel_dan_el, author = {Mariani, Bonaventura}, title = {Danel (Dân'El)}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {IV}, pages = {1144--1145}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/danel-dan-el} }

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Daniel (Dan'el)

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