book of Daniel is a historic piece of writing and was written by Daniel between the time 540 bc
­ 530 bc, the purpose of writing the book of Daniel was to tell the world of the kings and his visions and their meanings so that anyone who reads can know the truth about the past, present and future. The book of daniel was meant for the atheists/non­christians in the first couple of chapters then the second half of the book is meant for the jews to prove that god exists and he always keeps his word and does whatever he says he does an example of this is when king nebuchadnezzar invaded jerusalem,this proves what jesus said in luke; “and jerusalem shall be trodden down of the gentiles, until the times of the gentiles is fulfilled”.

The book of Daniel is written in a unique way, the authors purpose was to encourage the jews who were under the persecuting reign of Antiochus. There are a few different theories about the structure of the book of Daniel; Goodings theory is that there are two parts to Daniel and that the two different parts are parallel in the events that occur in each half way. Lenglets theory is the concentric structure theory in which he believes that there are paralleling relationships between some of the chapters. the main theme of Daniel is the warning of the antichrist which is the purpose of all the visions and stories.

The book of Daniel has got a lot of imagery in the form of visions each with their own symbolism. each of the many visions in the book of daniel have their own imagery which interpret each one. the vision of the statue is one of significance in Daniel, it involves a big statue of a man, the head was made of gold, the chest was made of silver, the stomach and thighs were made of brass, the calves were made of iron, the feet was made of a mixture of iron and clay. the head of gold represents babylon, the greatest kingdom of al the ages. the chest of silver represents the kingdom of medo­persia which overthrew the babylonians. The stomach and thighs of brass represented the greek kingdom which overthrew the medo­persians. The legs of iron represent the roman kingdom which took the greek kingdom.
The mix of iron and clay represents the dividing of the kingdom which is like the separation of iron and clay in the sense that that they don't combine together they stay separated like the world is now with all the different countries. the way daniel puts this across is well done because he shoves it down the throat of the reader which makes the reader interested and draws them in. the story of shadrach, meshach and abednego with the fiery