Introduction to the Four Kingdoms as a Time Bound, Timeless, and Timely Historiographical Mechanism and Literary Motif

Abstract

This collection of essays is the result of a collaborative project between Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and Trinity Western University. Our venture began as a small conference in Munich (August 7–8, 2018).1 The outcomes of our conversations there both answered questions and posed new ones. As such, we extended invitations to a larger group of scholars to include voices that were both international and interdisciplinary. The topic that united all of these contributions was the historiographical mechanism and motif of the four kingdoms. The four kingdoms schema has enabled writers of various cultures, times, and locations, to periodize all of history as the staged succession of empires barreling towards the consummation of history and arrival of a utopian age. The motif provided order to lived experiences under empire (the present), in view of ancestral traditions and cultural heritage (the past), and inspired outlooks assuring hope, deliverance, and restoration (the future). Research on the historical origins, imperial identifications, history of interpretation, and contemporary applications of the four kingdoms pattern is expansive.2 The present project both draws upon and extends these studies on the mechanism’s formulation and reformation before, in, and beyond the book of Daniel in three key ways. First, research on the four kingdoms traditionally adopts a quest for origins approach. That is, pursuing and identifying the earliest expressions of this idea—whether in known external sources or redactional histories of biblical