Editing Book of Daniel (section)

== Influence ==
[[File:Merian's Daniel 7 engraving.jpg|thumb|320px|Engraving of Daniel's vision of the four beasts in chapter 7 by [[Matthäus Merian]], 1630]]

The concepts of [[immortality]] and [[resurrection]], with rewards for the righteous and punishment for the wicked, have roots much deeper than Daniel, but the first clear statement is found in the final chapter of that book: "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to everlasting shame and contempt."{{sfn|Cohen|2002|pp=86–87}} According to [[Daniel R. Schwartz]], without the claim of the [[resurrection of Jesus]], [[Christianity]] would have disappeared like the movements following other charismatic Jewish figures of the 1st century.{{sfn|Schwartz|1992|p=2}}

Daniel was quoted and referenced by both Jews and Christians in the 1st century AD as predicting the imminent end-time.{{sfn|Grabbe|2001|p=244}} Moments of national and cultural crisis continually reawakened the apocalyptic spirit, through the [[Montanism|Montanists]] of the 2nd/3rd centuries, persecuted for their [[millennialism]], to the more extreme elements of the 16th-century Reformation such as the [[Zwickau prophets]] and the [[Münster Rebellion]].{{sfn|Towner|1984|pp=2–3}} During the [[English Civil War]], the [[Fifth Monarchists|Fifth Monarchy Men]] took their name and political program from Daniel 7, demanding that [[Oliver Cromwell]] allow them to form a "government of saints" in preparation for the coming of the Messiah; when Cromwell refused, they identified him instead as the Beast usurping the rightful place of King Jesus.{{sfn|Weber|2007|p=374}} For modern popularizers, the visions and revelations of Daniel remain a guide to the future, when the [[Antichrist]] will be destroyed by [[Jesus Christ]] at the [[Second Coming]].{{sfn|Boyer|1992|pp=24, 30–31}}

Daniel belongs not only to the religious tradition but also to the wider Western intellectual and artistic heritage. It was easily the most popular of the prophetic books for the [[Anglo-Saxons]], who nevertheless treated it not as prophecy but as a historical book, "a repository of dramatic stories about confrontations between God and a series of emperor-figures who represent the highest reach of man".{{sfn|Godden|2013|p=231}} [[Isaac Newton]] paid special attention to it, [[Francis Bacon]] borrowed a [[motto]] from it for his work ''[[Novum Organum]]'', [[Baruch Spinoza]] drew on it, its apocalyptic second half attracted the attention of [[Carl Jung]], and it inspired musicians from medieval liturgical drama to [[Darius Milhaud]] and artists including [[Michelangelo]], [[Rembrandt]] and [[Eugène Delacroix]].{{sfn|Doukhan|2000|p=11}}