Divination (Merriam-Webster):
1: the
art or practice that seeks to foresee or foretell future events or
discover hidden knowledge usually by the interpretation of omens or by the aid of supernatural powers
2: unusual insight : intuitive perception
When I refer to "divination" here, I mean definition (1).
Some scholars think there is an approved form of divination in the Bible: I disagree. Granted, certain supposed servants of Jehovah (YHWH) practiced divination and they even consulted the dead at times. However, I find no place in Scripture where God approved such practices. As a matter of fact, in more than one place or time period, the Bible explicitly forbids divination. See https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Divination
https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Magic-Sorcery
https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Divination
Compare https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780195393361/obo-9780195393361-0287.xml
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/bullbiblrese.29.2.0139
But what about Daniel 1:17? Does it prove that the prophet Daniel practiced divination? While there will never be unanimous consent on this question in the present age, I would like to post what some scholars have noted about this verse.
Anchor Bible Commentary on Daniel (Hartman, Louis Francis, and Di Lella, Alexander A.): "In the ancient Near East, ritual and ascetical purification was always regarded as a necessary preparation for contact with the deity and as a prerequisite for receiving mystical revelations. But even stronger emphasis was laid on this idea in the Hellenistic age, as evidenced by the practices of the Therapeutae, the Essenes, and the Qumran sectaries. Thus, our heroes too obtain their deeper knowledge and wisdom by fasting and apparently, since no reference is made anywhere in the book to wives or children of these men, also by celibacy. Our author, however, is careful to note that the superior knowledge and wisdom of these men came, not as a direct result of their asceticism, but as a gift from God."
Daniel: Wisdom Commentary to the Wise (Stefanovic, Zdravko, page 69): "Among the four Hebrews, Daniel excelled because God gave him the ability to interpret visions and dreams of all kinds. If wisdom was a highly priced virtue in Babylon, the ability to explain dreams was supreme there. In fact, the topic of visions and dreams was the favorite field of study among the Babylonians. In the Bible, on the other hand, God speaks through dreams (Gen. 28:10-22; 1 Kings 3:5) but not through the other forms of divination that the Babylonians practiced. "Dream interpretation is one mode of divine revelation understood by Babylonians and accepted by pious Israelites."78 Divine wisdom meets people where they are.79 It was not a mere coincidence that 'of all the various divinatory 'techniques' used in the ANE [Ancient Near East], only dreams and dream interpretations find an acceptable place within orthodox Hebrew religion.'80The statement about Daniel given here prepares the reader for the rest of the stories in the book, in which Daniel exhibits this ability to interpret dreams on more than one occasion. It is best to credit his ability to interpret dreams to his life of prayer and to the revelations given to him by God. This prepared him for the role that he assumed later as described in the story in chapter 2. It has been correctly observed that 'with the possible exceptions of Moses (Acts 7:22) and Solomon, Daniel was the most learned man in the Old Testament.'81"
Daniel in the OTL Series (Carol Newsom, page 51): "Nebuchadnezzar’s command concerning the education of the young men in v. 5 clearly assumed that the instruction he provided, like the food, would produce the results he desired. Here, however, their proficiency in the learned literature of the Babylonian curriculum comes from God. A second note distinguishes Daniel from his three companions through his special competency in understanding visions and dreams, gifts he will display in chs. 2 and 4. The interpretation of dreams was never a particularly important part of Mesopotamian manticism and was not a specialized technical divinatory practice (Husser 27–29, 38) nor a consistent concern of Mesopotamian monarchs, although the Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus was preoccupied with revelatory dreams (Beaulieu 1989, 108–13). The focus on dreams and visions as means of divine revelation in Daniel reflects more the interests of emergent Jewish apocalypticism and may be seen as part of the author’s negotiation with the cultural context of the Mesopotamian Diaspora. even as the story cycle acknowledges the status of Babylonian divinatory science, it imaginatively creates a world in which the knowledge that the king vitally needs is the kind of knowledge cultivated not by Babylonian diviners but by Jewish manticism. Thus the narrative shifts the cultural contest to a framework in which the Jewish figures have a divinely granted advantage."
When I refer to "divination" here, I mean definition (1).
Some scholars think there is an approved form of divination in the Bible: I disagree. Granted, certain supposed servants of Jehovah (YHWH) practiced divination and they even consulted the dead at times. However, I find no place in Scripture where God approved such practices. As a matter of fact, in more than one place or time period, the Bible explicitly forbids divination. See https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Divination
https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Magic-Sorcery
https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Divination
Compare https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780195393361/obo-9780195393361-0287.xml
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/bullbiblrese.29.2.0139
But what about Daniel 1:17? Does it prove that the prophet Daniel practiced divination? While there will never be unanimous consent on this question in the present age, I would like to post what some scholars have noted about this verse.
Anchor Bible Commentary on Daniel (Hartman, Louis Francis, and Di Lella, Alexander A.): "In the ancient Near East, ritual and ascetical purification was always regarded as a necessary preparation for contact with the deity and as a prerequisite for receiving mystical revelations. But even stronger emphasis was laid on this idea in the Hellenistic age, as evidenced by the practices of the Therapeutae, the Essenes, and the Qumran sectaries. Thus, our heroes too obtain their deeper knowledge and wisdom by fasting and apparently, since no reference is made anywhere in the book to wives or children of these men, also by celibacy. Our author, however, is careful to note that the superior knowledge and wisdom of these men came, not as a direct result of their asceticism, but as a gift from God."
Daniel: Wisdom Commentary to the Wise (Stefanovic, Zdravko, page 69): "Among the four Hebrews, Daniel excelled because God gave him the ability to interpret visions and dreams of all kinds. If wisdom was a highly priced virtue in Babylon, the ability to explain dreams was supreme there. In fact, the topic of visions and dreams was the favorite field of study among the Babylonians. In the Bible, on the other hand, God speaks through dreams (Gen. 28:10-22; 1 Kings 3:5) but not through the other forms of divination that the Babylonians practiced. "Dream interpretation is one mode of divine revelation understood by Babylonians and accepted by pious Israelites."78 Divine wisdom meets people where they are.79 It was not a mere coincidence that 'of all the various divinatory 'techniques' used in the ANE [Ancient Near East], only dreams and dream interpretations find an acceptable place within orthodox Hebrew religion.'80The statement about Daniel given here prepares the reader for the rest of the stories in the book, in which Daniel exhibits this ability to interpret dreams on more than one occasion. It is best to credit his ability to interpret dreams to his life of prayer and to the revelations given to him by God. This prepared him for the role that he assumed later as described in the story in chapter 2. It has been correctly observed that 'with the possible exceptions of Moses (Acts 7:22) and Solomon, Daniel was the most learned man in the Old Testament.'81"
Daniel in the OTL Series (Carol Newsom, page 51): "Nebuchadnezzar’s command concerning the education of the young men in v. 5 clearly assumed that the instruction he provided, like the food, would produce the results he desired. Here, however, their proficiency in the learned literature of the Babylonian curriculum comes from God. A second note distinguishes Daniel from his three companions through his special competency in understanding visions and dreams, gifts he will display in chs. 2 and 4. The interpretation of dreams was never a particularly important part of Mesopotamian manticism and was not a specialized technical divinatory practice (Husser 27–29, 38) nor a consistent concern of Mesopotamian monarchs, although the Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus was preoccupied with revelatory dreams (Beaulieu 1989, 108–13). The focus on dreams and visions as means of divine revelation in Daniel reflects more the interests of emergent Jewish apocalypticism and may be seen as part of the author’s negotiation with the cultural context of the Mesopotamian Diaspora. even as the story cycle acknowledges the status of Babylonian divinatory science, it imaginatively creates a world in which the knowledge that the king vitally needs is the kind of knowledge cultivated not by Babylonian diviners but by Jewish manticism. Thus the narrative shifts the cultural contest to a framework in which the Jewish figures have a divinely granted advantage."
https://fu-berlin.academia.edu/MathieuOssendrijver
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