Daniel’s Genre

September 21, 2026 | Posted by Ray Fowler

To celebrate the release of my new book, Daniel: Stories and Visions, I am sharing portions from the first chapter this week.

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Daniel’s Genre

We’ve looked at the reasons why we should study the book of Daniel. We’ve looked at Daniel’s structure and history. Now we need to look at Daniel’s genre. It’s important to know the genre of a work for accurate interpretation.

Genre is simply the type or style of a work. Examples of genre in movies and novels include drama, action, comedy, westerns and science fiction. A comic book is a different genre of writing than a newspaper. If you read a comic book like a newspaper, or a newspaper like a comic book, you are going to be very confused.

The Bible is a big book and contains many different genres of writing. There is law, history, wisdom, poetry, narrative, prophecy, apocalyptic, the gospels, and the epistles. When you read the Bible, it’s important to know which genre you’re reading for accurate interpretation.

1) Historical narrative

The book of Daniel is a mixture of three different genres. The first six chapters of the book are largely historical narrative. It’s interesting, in the Hebrew Bible, the book of Daniel is placed in the Writings section of the Bible, right between Esther and the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. That makes sense because so much of the book is historical narrative.

2) Prophecy

However, the last six chapters of Daniel are mostly prophecy. That’s why in our English Bibles, Daniel is placed with the prophetical books. That also makes sense. Daniel was a prophet, and a large part of the book is devoted to prophecy.

3) Apocalyptic

Daniel also contains a genre known as apocalyptic. Apocalyptic is a special type of prophetical writing, which communicates prophecies through strange visions, startling symbols, supernatural happenings and great cosmic events. Apocalyptic draws back the curtain to look at earthly events from a heavenly perspective. This is especially true of end-times prophecy.

The books of Daniel, Zechariah and Revelation contain the highest percentage of apocalyptic in the Bible, but you will also find sections of apocalyptic in the books of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Joel and Amos. Jesus’ prophecies of the end times in the gospels also contain elements of apocalyptic (Matt. 24; Mark 13; Luke 21).

~ Excerpted from the book Daniel: Stories and Visions by Ray Fowler

Click on the book image to view on Amazon.