The Reverend Doctor Timothy L. Seals has written a ground-breaking study on the Book of Daniel that expands its horizons for understanding the presence of the Holy in both the ancient and modern worlds. Reading Daniel as a book of mysticism, that is ultimately concerned with the human encounter with the divine in a challenging world, Dr. Seals demonstrates how Daniel strove for encounter with the Holy in his world in resistance to the Seleucid Empire, and he further demonstrates how other Daniels in later times, such as Howard Thurman, Emir Abd el-Kader, Marguerite Porete, and Abraham Abulafia, confronted the empires of their day based on their own encounters with the Divine. A must for all concerned with the presence of the Holy in a very troubled world.

Marvin A. Sweeney, Claremont School of Theology

Very different from former scholarship that reads the book of Daniel within the apocalyptic genre, Timothy L. Seals presents (the author of) Daniel as a mystic, with mystical experiences, with several goals in mind: to resist the terror of Antiochus IV, to decolonize his psyche of negative images of terror, which functioned within the system of Greek colonial power, and to prepare for episodes of illumination. A different and very inspiring book!

Kristin De Troyer, University of Salzburg