The king is cornered, and he knows it. His prestige and authority are on the line. The three dissidents’ disrespect is devastating — and more so because their stance has an audience.

It is crunch time in Babylon. It is do or die! The experts try to calm down the king and bring him to his senses.

Daniel is... a book where politics and religion are inseparable. We find politics and religion as seamless cloth already in the first verses.

The Study Guide for this quarter goes out of its way to say that Daniel is an apocalyptic book. I take this to mean that the lesson authors feel ownership in both regards: we value Daniel, and we...