Danel

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Danel ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|d|eɪ|n|əl}}, Ugaritic: 𐎄𐎐𐎛𐎍 DNỈL, "El is judge"),Virolleaud 1936, et al. father of Aqhat, was a culture hero who appears in an incomplete Ugaritic text of the fourteenth century BCEMade during the reign of Niqmadu III, ca. 1360 BCE (Walton 1994:49). at Ugarit (now Ras Shamra), Syria.

Tale of Aqhat

The text in Corpus Tablettes Alphabétiques [CTA] 17–19 is often referred to as the Tale of Aqhat. Danel was depicted as "judging the cause of the widow, adjudicating the case of the fatherless" in the city gate.Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 149–51. He passed through trials: his son Aqhat was destroyed but apparently in the missing conclusion was revived or replaced by Danel's patron god, Rpʼu, who sits and judges with Hadad and Astarte and was likely considered to be the equivalent of El.

The text was published and translated in 1936 by Charles VirolleaudVirolleaud, "La légende phénicienne de Danel" vol. I of Mission de Ras Shamra, C. F.-A. Schaeffer, ed. (Paris) 1936. and has been extensively analysed since then.See references section.

The Rephaim

The text of The Rephaim, a title given to the text by Mark S. Smith, also mentions Danel, who appears there and in the Tale of Aqhat as "a model figure in family matters of life and death".{{Cite book |title=Stories from ancient Canaan |date=2012 |publisher=Westminster John Knox Press |isbn=978-0-664-23242-9 |editor-last=Coogan |editor-first=Michael David |edition=2nd |location=Louisville, KY |pages=57 |editor-last2=Smith |editor-first2=Mark S.}} In these texts Danel is mentioned as one who invites the Rephaim, divine beings of the underworld, to a feast during the late summer fuit harvest, reminiscent of the biblical festival of booths.{{Cite book |title=Stories from ancient Canaan |date=2012 |publisher=Westminster John Knox Press |isbn=978-0-664-23242-9 |editor-last=Coogan |editor-first=Michael David |edition=2nd |location=Louisville, KY |pages=59 |editor-last2=Smith |editor-first2=Mark S.}} Danel's title in the text of Rephaim is "the man of Rapau", while Rapau is identified in another Ugaritic text as a god and king of Ashtaroth and Edrei, both cities related to Og the king of Bashan in the biblical account.{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/748338794 |title=Stories from ancient Canaan |date=2012 |publisher=Westminster John Knox Press |isbn=978-0-664-23242-9 |editor-last=Coogan |editor-first=Michael David |edition=2nd |location=Louisville, KY |pages=59, 60 |oclc=748338794 |editor-last2=Smith |editor-first2=Mark S.}}

Danel and the Book of Ezekiel

Three verses in the Book of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 14:14 and 20 and 28:3) refer to {{lang|he|דנאל}} {{smallcaps|dnʾl}} which, according to the Masoretic Text, should be read as "Daniel". This notwithstanding, parallels and contrasts with Danel (without an i)[http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ezekiel%2014:13-14:19&version=31#fen-NIV-20746a NIV footnote on Ezekiel 14:14] of Ezekiel, placed between Noah and JobEzekiel xiv.14, 20 and invoked as the very example of righteous judgement,Ezekiel xxviii. 3 in an apostrophe to the prince of Tyre, "you are indeed wiser than Daniel". first pointed out by René Dussaud in 1931,René Dussaud, "Breves remarques sur les tablettes de Ras Shamra", Syria 12 (1931:77). have led readers commonly to accept(Day 1980) or occasionally to rejectH. H. P. Dressler, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1517436 "The identification of the Ugaritic Dnil with the Daniel of Ezekiel"], Vetus Testamentum 29 (1979:152–61): "To sum up the Ugaritic material: Dnil is neither king, nor wise, nor righteous, nor able to save his son." (p. 155). Danel not meeting Dressler's definition of kingship, is termed "a village-elder or chief" (p. 153).Wallace, Daniel B., [http://bible.org/article/who-ezekiels-daniel “Who is Ezekiel’s Daniel?”]MacGregor, Kirk R. "[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318725539_A_Contemporary_Defense_of_the_Authenticity_of_Daniel A Contemporary Defense of the Authenticity of Daniel]. Journal of the Institute for the Study of Christian Apologetics 9, no. 1 (2016): 59–61 a degree of identification with Ugaritic Danel of the Tale of Aqhat, amounting virtually to the same figure.The author of the Book of Daniel, a contemporary of Ezekiel exiled in Babylon, is not concerned here; the common assumption is that "features of the Daniel alluded to by Ezekiel have contributed to the depiction of the hero of the book of Daniel" (Day 1980:174).{{Cite journal|url=https://hcommons.org/deposits/download/hc:21984/CONTENT/jbq_464_kleindaniel.pdf/|title=Identifying the Daniel character in Ezekiel |author=Klein, Reuven Chaim|year=2018|journal=Jewish Bible Quarterly

|volume=46|issue=4|pages=231-240|DOI=10.17613/5z2g-gj55}}

The three figures referred to in {{bibleverse|Ezekiel|14:14|niv}} — "Even if Noah, Danel and Job were in it" — links the name with two non-Israelites of great antiquity. In {{bibleverse|Ezekiel|28:3|niv}}, Danel is one noted for his wisdom in the prophecy addressed to the king of Tyre: "you are indeed wiser than Danel, no secret is hidden from you". The name "Danel" had a long tradition in Hebrew culture: he is supplied as the father-in-law of Enoch in the Book of Jubilees.Jubilees iv.20, noted by Day 1980:181: Jubilees, which supplies many "missing" names from the Hebrew Bible, was written considerably later than the book of Ezekiel.

Texts in Ugaritic, a language closely related to the Canaanite languages, may provide an important clue. The language was discovered by French archaeologists in 1928 and known only from texts found in the lost city of Ugarit, Syria.Edward L. Greenstein, "Texts from Ugarit Solve Biblical Puzzles," BAR 36:06, Nov/Dec 2010, pp. 48-53, 70. Found at [http://www.bib-arch.org/bar/article.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=36&Issue=6&ArticleID=5 Biblical Archaeology Review website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120314132007/http://www.bib-arch.org/bar/article.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=36&Issue=6&ArticleID=5 |date=2012-03-14 }}, accessed October 29, 2010. Ugaritic has been used by scholars of the Hebrew Bible to clarify Biblical Hebrew texts and has revealed ways in which ancient Israelite culture finds parallels in the neighboring cultures. Ugaritic was "the greatest literary discovery from antiquity since the deciphering of the Egyptian hieroglyphs and Mesopotamian cuneiform."{{cite book|author=Gordon, Cyrus Herzl|author-link=Cyrus Herzl Gordon|title=The Ancient Near East|publisher=W.W. Norton & Company Press|year=1965|isbn=0-393-00275-6|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/ancientneareast0000gord}} at p.99

Literary texts discovered at Ugarit include the "Tale of Aqhat" (or Legend of Danel), revealing a Canaanite religion. According to Edward L. Greenstein, a distinguished professor at Bar-Ilan University, Ugaritic texts solved the biblical puzzle of the anachronism of Ezekiel mentioning Daniel at {{bibleverse||Ezekiel|14:13-16|nrsv}}; it is because in both Ugaritic and the Ancient Hebrew texts, it is correctly Danel—the yod is missing in the originals.

Danel would fit the pattern of being an ancient non-Israelite like Job and Noah. Ezekiel's literary arrangement may also support this position. Yahweh has compared Judah with foreign nations before ({{bibleverse|Ezekiel|5:7|niv}}), and the context appears to contain a similar comparison in {{bibleverse|Ezekiel|14:13-19|niv}}. The hypothetical rebellious country, while a cipher for Israel, is not explicitly named and could represent any ancient Near Eastern country. Ezekiel's audience is enamored with non-Israelite myths (cf. Tammuz in {{bibleverse|Ezekiel|8:14|niv}}), and so they could easily be aware of King Danel's legendary virtues. Thus, if they were three ancient, righteous, non-Israelite men, Ezekiel's triad would fit the pattern of Yahweh judging Israel to some degree by the nations around them.College Press NIV Commentary on Ezekiel By Brandon Fredenburg, p. 138 The connection is more plausible when one considers that Ezekiel alludes to Danel in an oracle against Tyre (Ezekiel 28).Eerdmans dictionary of the Bible By David Noel Freedman, Allen C. Myers, Astrid B. Beck, p. 311 Danel also had a son and, like Job, was unable to deliver him from divine harm (cf. {{bibleverse||Ezekiel|14:20|niv}}).Walther Eichrodt, Ezekiel: A Commentary, trans. Cosslett Quinn, Old Testament Library (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970), p. 189

Recent uses

The name Danel has been given to one of the craters on Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter.

Notes

References

Coogan, M.D. Stories from Ancient Canaan (Philadelphia) 1978:27–47
Day, John. "The Daniel of Ugarit and Ezekiel and the Hero of the Book of Daniel", Vetus Testamentum 30.2 (April 1980:174–184)
Gibson, J.C.L. Canaanite Myths and Legends (Edinburgh) 1978.
Herdner, Andrée. Corpus des tablettes cunéiformes alphabétiques découvertes à Ras Shamra-Ugarit, en 1929 à 1939 (Paris 1963) (CTA 17–19).
Margalit, Baruch. The Ugaritic poem of AQHT: Text, Translation, Commentary (Berlin: de Gruyter) 1989. A highly idiosyncratic commentary and interpretation.
Walton, John H. Ancient Israelite Literature in Its Cultural Context: A Survey of Parallels, "Personal Archives and Epics": Canaanite .2 (Zondervan) 1994:49.