In The Danielic Discourse on Empire in Second Temple Literature, Alexandria Frisch asks: how did Jews in the Second Temple period understand the phenomenon of foreign empire? In answering this question, a remarkable trend reveals itself—the book of Daniel, which situates its narrative in an imperial context and apocalyptically envisions empires, was overwhelmingly used by Jewish writers when they wanted to say something about empires. This study examines Daniel, as well as antecedents to and interpretations of Daniel, in order to identify the diachronic changes in perceptions of empire during this period. Oftentimes, this Danielic discourse directly reacted to imperial ideologies, either copying, subverting, or adapting those ideologies. Throughout this study, postcolonial criticism, therefore, provides a hermeneutical lens through which to ask a second question: in an imperial context, is the Jewish conception of empire actually Jewish?

Although Daniel 2:45 states that the great statue composed of four metals and with feet of clay reveals the future, relatively few biblical scholars have understood it as an amazingly accurate timeline that does exactly that. Liberals have been unwilling to consider that the statue's fourth kingdom is Rome. Most conservatives have recognized that it is Rome, but they have gone astray by seeking a nonexistent link between that ancient empire and the modern world. The key to understanding the statue is to recognize that it presents a prophecy that was fulfilled in the first century by the Coming of Christ, which was the historical equivalent of the rock that destroys the statue. The rock's growth into the mountain that covers all of Earth foretells a process that began in the first century and includes the thousand years of Revelation 20. This process appears to have reached a historical climax in our own time. John S. Evans is a retired professor of economics and international finance who taught at the University of Alabama from 1968 until 2000 after beginning his teaching career in 1959 at the University of South Dakota. His professional accomplishments included a year in Mexico as a Fulbright Lecturer and the writing of a textbook on international financial management. Since 1996, when he went into partial retirement, his primary intellectual activity has consisted of the intensive study of the Bible, with emphasis on the Book of Daniel. In 2004, he published with Xulon Press The Four Kingdoms of Daniel: A Defense of the "Roman" Sequence with AD 70 Fulfillment. The present book expands on parts of The Four Kingdoms and offers much new material. Evans has authored over thirty articles that have been posted at planetpreterist.com and has been a frequent guest on John Anderson's "Voice of Reason."