Bible Study: Daniel Chapter 4

All of a sudden Neb himself is writing. He has Daniel interpret a dream about a huge tree that he is commanded by heavenly hosts to cut down. This is a warning that he will be made to live like a beast (long hair, long nails, eating grass) for 7 years, so that he can know how great god is.

You'd think that having watched the guys survive the furnace would have been convincing enough. Some people are really slow learners.

So sure enough after the seven years of grubbing around he's pretty enthusiastic about how great god is.

Thoughts:
- It's interesting to learn that Daniel is written in both Hebrew and Aramaic. You never really get a sense of these things unless you have bible commentary telling you that. I wonder what other parts of the bible are written in mixed languages.
- So there are a lot of things that strike me as improbable in the bible, but for some reason having Neb write a chapter just seems especially unlikely. It's more likely than talking snakes, but still seems like a stretch. I guess it comes down to the fact that something like a talking snake doesn't even have a chance of registering as non-mythical for me so I don't even consider it that way. On the other hand Neb actually existed so I take claims about him more seriously.

[atheism] [bible]