Note 102 — DEVELOPMENT OF THE MYTHICAL POINT OF VIEW IN RELATION TO THE GOSPEL HISTORIES.

The comparison of the first chapter of this book with the history of Joseph in Genesis, gives an instructive view of the tendency of the later Hebrew legend and poetry to form new relations upon the pattern of the old. As Joseph was carried captive to Egypt, so was Daniel to Babylon (i. 2); like Joseph he must change his name (7). God makes the ‏שַׂר הַסָּרִיסִים‎ favourable to him, as the ‏סָרִים שַׂר הַטַבָּחִים‎ to Joseph (9); he abstains from polluting himself with partaking of the king’s meats and drinks, which are pressed upon him (8); a self-denial held as meritorious in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, as that of Joseph with regard to Potiphar’s wife; like Joseph he gains eminence by the interpretation of a dream of the king, which his ‏חַרְטֻמִּים‎ were unable to explain to him (ii.); whilst the additional circumstance that Daniel is enabled to give not only the interpretation, but the dream itself, which had escaped the memory of the king, appears to be a romantic exaggeration of that which was attributed to Joseph. In the account of Josephus, the history of Daniel has reacted in a singular manner upon that of Joseph; for as Nebuchadnezzar forgets his dream, and the interpretation according to Josephus revealed to him at the same time, so does he make Pharaoh forget the interpretation shown to him with the dream. Antiq. ii. 5, 4. ↑