What does Daniel 6 verses 1-20 mean?

Answer 1

A:

The Book of Daniel is now known to have been a second-century-BCE novel about events that supposedly occurred hundreds of years earlier, not a book of history. When we find the book speaking of Darius (rather than Cyrus) as the Persian king who defeated the Babylonians, this simply means that the anonymous author was unsure of what was by then already ancient history. Daniel Chapter 6, like much of the book, is intentional Propaganda for both the Jewish people and the Jewish God.

Verses 6:1-3 has Darius setting Daniel over all his leading princes and commanders, as second in command of the entire empire - in spite of Daniel's previous role as second in command of the entire Babylonian empire. The princes immediately conspire to have Daniel slain, but this will be done in such a way as not only to demonstrate Daniel's absolute, fearless allegience to God, but the power of God to defeat all. Daniel is to be caught praying to God, against a contrived order not to do so, and consequently thrown into a den of lions. In 6:16, Darius is made to acknowledge that God alone could deliver Daniel, then in 6:20, the king refers to Daniel's God as "the living God," asking to know if Daniel had been delivered.