Daniel

Gowan's Abingdon OT Commentary on Daniel (2001) is readable and pastorally warm, with perceptive literary analysis of the court tales and a moving treatment of Dan 3:17–18, but it suffers from several significant weaknesses when measured against the full range of Daniel scholarship. His central axiom—that an inspired author has "no more exact knowledge of the future than any other human being—inspired or not"—is a philosophical presupposition, not an exegetical conclusion, and goes further than even fellow critical scholars like Collins (Hermeneia), Goldingay (WBC), or Newsom (OTL), who handle the dating question without issuing sweeping verdicts on what inspiration can accomplish. This creates a deep internal inconsistency: Gowan affirms God's absolute sovereignty as the book's controlling theme while denying that this sovereign God could communicate future events—even though the text itself explicitly claims that God "reveals deep and hidden things" and "knows what is in the darkness" (2:22), meaning Gowan's hermeneutic requires him to affirm the theology of the text while denying the very epistemological mechanism the text identifies as the basis for that theology. He calls the prophecy "defective" and the author's timing "wrong" without explaining how a defective vehicle carries reliable theology, and even Collins concedes that the prediction in 8:14 "cannot be after the fact and must have been composed before the actual rededication of the temple"—acknowledging genuine predictive content within the critical framework itself—yet Gowan frames the author being "partly right" about Antiochus's imminent fall as essentially a lucky guess rather than engaging its theological significance. He overstates the historical difficulties in Dan 1:1, the Belshazzar problem, and the Darius the Mede question: the Dan 1:1 discrepancy, for instance, is easily explained by the difference between Babylonian accession-year and Judaean non-accession-year dating systems, a solution widely acknowledged since Wiseman and defended by multiple commentators (Miller/NAC, Tanner/EEC, Baldwin/TOTC, Young). His tone toward conservative and dispensationalist readings is unusually sharp—repeatedly labelling them "misuse" and "inappropriate" rather than engaging their arguments, a contrast with Collins's detached neutrality. He raises the question of whether Daniel's angelology represents "a partial surrender, finally, to polytheism," a framing not shared by any major Daniel commentary, whether conservative or critical, all of which treat Daniel's angelology as a development within monotheism rather than a compromise of it. Most strikingly, he parenthetically includes Jesus and Paul among those whose eschatological expectations were mistaken, an extraordinary claim for a commentary series aimed at Christian teaching and preaching; most scholars who engage the imminent-eschatology question frame it with far greater care through the "already/not yet" framework or the distinction between prophetic foreshortening and outright error, and Gowan's formulation carries Christological implications he never explores. Ultimately, Gowan occupies an uneasy middle ground—too theologically committed to satisfy critical scholars, and too dismissive of the text's own claims to satisfy those who take those claims seriously. Readers seeking a rigorous critical commentary are better served by Collins or Goldingay; those seeking theological and pastoral depth will find Davis (BST), Duguid (REC), or Longman (NIVAC) more reliable guides.

Can there ever be too many commentaries? Certainly the market is flooded with anabundance of choices. Leaving aside comprehensive works such as those in theHermeneia series, for this reviewer a good commentary fulfills one of the followingpurposes. First, it can provide a succinct, up-to-date, and balanced summary of the stateof scholarly inquiry into a particular book. A second alternative is to suggest a newinnovative approach to the study of the topic. Donald Gowan’s contribution to this serieson the book of Daniel is a good example of the first option. The series is designed toprovide compact, critical commentaries on the books of the Old Testament fortheological and university students, as well as congregational education. The fundamentalconcern of the series is the analysis and discussion of the literary, sociohistorical,theological, and ethical dimensions of the biblical text (9–11). It is no easy task toadequately cover these various topics in a small volume, and Gowan is to be commendedfor his fine work.The book begins with an introduction that surveys four topics. First, Gowan explores“The Interpretation of Daniel” and outlines four basic ways the book has been readthroughout history (13–18). [Full Review]