The Book of Daniel: Part I

Moskowitz argues that the Book of Daniel was composed as a covert theological-political tract for the Hasidim resisting Antiochus IV’s persecution, its real Seleucid-era setting deliberately disguised beneath a Babylonian and Persian timeline. He draws detailed parallels between Daniel’s court tales — maintaining Hebrew identity, dietary law, and resistance to idolatry under threat of death — and the pressures facing Hellenistic-era Jews, reading the book’s central message as an assurance that persecuting empires inevitably fall while Israel endures.