Prophet Daniel the New Moses

by

Damien F. Mackey

 

“… Jewish Talmudic writers viewed Ezra … as a second Moses …”.

Lisbeth S. Fried

Whilst this is a commonly held view, Ezra the scribe as “a second Moses” or “a new Moses”, what has it to do with the prophet Daniel?
Daniel who, according to Sir Robert Anderson, was omitted by Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) from his list of famous men because Daniel stayed well away from Israel and its “struggles”: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=BMhjDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT15&lpg=PT15&dq=sir+ro

The Coming Prince

…

"This panegyric [Sirach], it is true, omits the name of Daniel. But in what connection would his name be included? Daniel was exiled to Babylon in early youth, and never spent a single day of his long life among his people, never was openly associated with them in their struggles or their sorrows. …".

Well, it actually has everything to do with Daniel if I am right in my recent expansion of the great Jewish sage to embrace, in his very person, this same Ezra the New Moses. See my:

Even more to Daniel than may meet the eye

https://www.academia.edu/37229635/Even_more_to_Daniel_than_may_meet_the_eye

Ezra who likewise, incidentally, was not listed by Sirach – at least qua Ezra.
But Nehemiah was listed by Sirach. And Nehemiah was, according to my Daniel article above, both Ezra and Daniel. So, in other words, Sirach, in praising Nehemiah, was also praising Ezra, was praising Daniel.
And, when one reads the amazing life of Daniel as a combination (Daniel=Ezra=Nehemiah), then it could hardly be said, as Sir Robert Anderson thought, that “Daniel … never spent a single day of his long life among his people, never was openly associated with them in their struggles or their sorrows”. Daniel in fact, as Ezra-Nehemiah, carried the people of Israel.
He was the very founder of the Jewish nation, deservedly known as the “Father of Judaïsm”.

Interesting that Sir Robert Anderson should refer to the “long life” of Daniel.
For, according to tradition, Ezra may have lived for 120 years – the same life length as Moses (Deuteronomy 34:7). (Though it may be that tradition has accorded Ezra that exact time length due to comparisons of him with Moses). Ezra was certainly old. And the long time stretch has enabled me – in combination with a very radically reduced neo-Assyrian-Babylonian and Medo-Persian chronology, one  more compatible with the archaeological evidence – to identify Ezra, Greek Esdras, with the Maccabean elder Razis, also known as a “Father of the Jews” (2 Maccabees 14:37), thereby illuminating us about the great man’s extraordinary death.

Again, as Moses was “educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” (Acts 7:22), and went into exile, before leading the Exodus out of Egypt, so was the exiled Daniel given “knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning … of visions and dreams of all kinds” (Daniel 1:17), before he (as Ezra-Nehemiah) led the new Exodus out of Babylon.