Dressing Daniel: Identity Formation and Embodiment in Daniel 1–6

What is it about?

An interesting commonality shared between Daniel 1-6, Genesis 39-41, and the book of Esther is that at crucial points within the narrative, a central character is dressed in clothing which signifies the promotion of the individual within the royal court. The significance of clothing as an important motif and plot device in the Joseph Story and the book of Esther has been well explored in secondary literature. On the other hand, the implications of clothing in the book of Daniel have hitherto received little attention from scholars. Yet as we contend in this essay, clothing is crucial to understanding not only the book of Daniel, but to these texts providing a “lifestyle for the diaspora” more generally. Joseph, Esther, Mordecai, and Daniel and his friends all adopt foreign dress to succeed in a foreign setting. We might understand this as a kind of colonization, wrought upon bodies. But this raises questions about their ethnic identity: can one remain Jewish if adopting and adapting to foreign embodied practices, including dress, adornment, and diet? Neither the Joseph Story nor the book of Esther really provide an answer to this problem. But by exploring embodied practices as an issue of ethnicity and identity formation in Daniel 1-6, we will argue that these stories make a bold claim about the embodied colonization of the foreign court: underneath their Persian garb, Daniel and his friends remain thoroughly Jewish after all.

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