Of the literary qualities of Daniel it is not necessary to speak at length. The Revelation of Daniel was the most prominent example of a long course of apocalyptic literature culminating, for the biblical reader, in the Revelation of St. John. . . . It is the delight of children; but none the less its salient ideas— the stone cut out without hands striking down the mighty image, the three ... braving the burning fiery furnace, Nebuchadnezzar eating grass like oxen and wet with the dew of heaven, Daniel in the den of lions, the writing on the wall—have been absorbed into the common heritage of poetic associations which makes the groundwork of literary speech.
—From "The Modern Reader's Bible," edited by
