In the modern church we often make reference to the imagery of Nebuchadnezzar’s famous dream and refer to the church as the “stone cut out without hands†and its destiny to fill “the whole earth.†In classes we sometimes discuss which historic empires were represented by the different sections of Nebuchadnezzar’s great image. Let’s take a look at the relationship between the stone and the image.
First we’ll review the dream from Daniel 2:31-35:
Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.
Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.
Daniel proceeds to interpret the dream in the subsequent verses, and we learn that the head of gold represents Nebuchadnezzar and the kingdom of Babylon, and the other body parts represent subsequent kingdoms and groups of kingdoms.
Daniel explains that the Stone cut out without hands represents the kingdom that God himself will set up in the latter-days, “which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.â€
Here is the question that I have: Why does the Kingdom of God shatter not only the existing contemporaneous kingdoms, but also all of the kingdoms which fell and ceased to exist thousands of years before? Why does the kingdom of God established in the latter days destroy the kingdoms of the past?
One possible interpretation is that while the political kingdoms no longer exist, their values, philosophical and spiritual systems, and their ideals still wield influence in our world. It is easy to tie much of our modern culture, science, philosophy, and spirituality back to the ancient Roman and Greek Empires. I am not well versed in this part of history, but I suppose that one could trace the roots of the Greek and Roman cultures back through the other ancient empires all the way to Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon. Thus the association of the name Babylon with the systems and desires of the world.
The Kingdom of God, established in the latter-day, rolls forth to fulfill its divine destiny to fill the whole earth and shatters the philosophical and cultural systems that our modern world has inherited from the past.
I believe that the author’s intended audience is the Jews of the 2nd Century BC. Thus, I take the mountain to represent the Kingdom of God as understood at that time; i.e., the Jews. They were, of course, subject to or threatened by all of the kingdoms depicted in the statue (study Bibles customarily give these as silver = Medes, bronze = Persians, iron and clay = Greeks/Macedonians [Alexander III of Macedon’s empire divided between the Ptolemaics & Seleucids]). On this reading, the Jews will geographically consume the realms of these kingdoms. Thus, the shattering occurs when the Jews obtain political control over the territory of those kingdoms.
On a totally different note, there is the well known reference to the “Mountain of the Lord” in Isaiah chapter 2. Joseph took this to refer to the temple. Latter-day Saints may likewise take the mountain in Daniel to symbolize temples and temple work. Temples (a) consume past kingdoms through ordinance work for their dead, and (b) fill the entire earth (as they very nearly do thanks to President Hinckley’s direction). I realize that this may be a rather unconventional interpretation, but I believe that it is a rather pregnant one. Moreover, it is consistent with the standard restoration readings of the Old Testament.
Yours is not an interpretation I’ve seen before, but its almost self-evident when you see it. Sometimes the cosmic vision of this faith of ours takes even an born-and-bred Mormon like me by surprise.
You mean the second, restoration interpretation, right? I think that the first one is fairly common.
Yuss.
Interesting thoughts Arturo. I hadn’t thought of it in terms of temples.
Many of the explanations that I have seen say that the two silver arms are a representations of Medes and Persian empires which jointly conquered Assyria and divided it up, the bronze a representation of the Alexander’s Greco-Macedonian empire, the Iron of the Roman Empire. Apparently, Sir Isaac Newton used this sceme when trying to interpret Daniel in his Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (see this intestersting article).
This webpage contrasts the liberal christian view of the book of Daniel with the conservative view.
I’m not sure where the idea that Daniel could have been written as late as 165 B.C. originated, but many of the arguments for that view were popularized by Issac Asimov’s skeptical Guide to the Bible. This page offers some rebuttal, though it is not an LDS perspective.
I’ve never read Asimov’s guide. The 2nd century BC date I offered is taken from some works I’ve read by Catholic scholars. The division of kingdoms that I’ve listed is pretty standard (it’s in both the Oxford Annotated Bible and the New Jerusalem Bible). I’ve seen the Medio-Persian empire interpretation in the NIV Study Bible. I don’t agree with it, because (if I remember correctly–I’m at work right now) the Median empire conquered the Persians, and then the Persians operated in league with the Medians; it was never really a Medio-Persian empire. Thus, that scheme leaves out the independent Median Empire and makes the prophecy faulty. Also I believe that the iron and clay mixture applies more neatly to the attempted union of the Ptolemaics & Seleucids by marriage than it does to the division of the Roman empire.
I’ve published my opinions on the Book of Daniel as scripture elsewhere, so I won’t repeat them here.
I think that Daniel 5:28 indicates pretty clearly that the second empire is the Medio-Persians. It says “PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.” The control did not pass first to the Medes and later to the Persians. If I understand the history correctly the Medes first conquered the Persians. Then Cyrus overthrew the Median rulers and thus converted the Median Empire into the Medio-Persian Empire in 546 B.C. Cyrus’s Medio-Persian empire conquered Babylon in 539 B.C.; thus the two arms of silver.
The text of the book of Daniel indicates this simultaneous rule:
Also in Daniel 9:1 Darius the Great, king of the Persian Empire, is identified as “the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans;“
So there was no independent Median Empire at any time after the defeat of Babylon.
Jonathan,
Your interpretation with regards to the political kingdoms that “their values, philosophical and spiritual systems, and their ideals still wield influence in our world” is also consistent with Paul’s perspective:
In German, the term Gedankengebäude (literally, “buildings of thought”) is often used for “imaginations” in this selection. The imagery conveyed by the German seems conducive to the idea of smashing a structure, much in the way depicted in the dream.
Not only that, but in line with the interpretation I suggested in my post, the covenants, annointings, and associated promises, along with the knowledge and system of thought taught in the temples are to shatter the worldly systems of Babylon.
John, the association of “Buildings of Thought” with “imaginations” does fit nicely into the imagery. Even more interesting is how it fits into the Great and Spacious Building of Lehi and Nephi’s dream, which represented the vain imaginations of the world, and which was destined to fall. In other words the Great and Spacious Building and the Nebuchadnezzar’s Image are related. The kingdoms of the world and their wisdom.
You’re right about the history. I stated exactly the opposite of what is the case. In fact, what I stated does not even support the customary division that I offer. Specifically, the Medes and Persians were separate empires that succeeded each other. Although Cyrus was part Median (through his mother he was supposedly the grandson of Asyages, the Median King), he was raised as a Persian prince and was King of Persia. The Persians had been paying tribute to the Medes, and Cyrus’s revolt defeated the Medes (under Astyages) and ended the tribute.
The Bible gets it mixed up the same way that I do, by ascribing primacy to the Medes (much the same way that I did in my previous post).
I checked out literalist interpretation defense page you link to. It’s pretty standard fare for that kind of thing; i.e., it does for Biblical criticism what creationism does for biology. They actually use the Prayer of Nabonidus as evidence for Daniel. Kind of whacky.
Ah, come on. We can stomach a bit literalism can’t we? That is, if we believe that the millennial Kingdom has a political dimention to it. And if we believe that it has a political dimention to it then I think it’s fair to assume that it has a spatial dimention to it (how’s that for double talk?). Because if it does, then it would seem necessary for it (the stone) to dismantle or make obsolete other political entities in order to make room for itself. The scriptures seem pretty clear in describing Zion as a literal physical place as well as an ideal or spiritual condition of the people involved.
I’m glad you chimed in Jack, because I need to be more specific. I don’t have any problem with literalism per se. And I don’t have a gripe with Zion as a global, geo-political entity. I’m just picking on Daniel a bit, because I think there may be decent reasons to suspect its legitimacy. I much prefer Isaiah, even though it can get very difficult at times. But it may well boil down to a matter of taste.