some of the host of the stars it cast down to the ground and trampled upon them", indicating that Antiochus fights against the "heavenly host" of God's angels. Indeed, he "aspired to be as great as the Prince of the host," God himself. Daniel is the only book in the Hebrew Bible which gives names to angels. Gabriel may have received his because he "has the appearance of a man" (Hebrew gaber); he appears here as a messenger and interpreter of God's message, the same role he was later given by the author of Luke's annunciation scene (,). Michael is depicted as Israel's guardian angel and a warrior. The prominence given these divine beings in Daniel is typical of Hellenistic Jewish literature, but much more restricted than in contemporary works such as First Enoch. The 2,300 evenings and mornings In verse 13 Daniel overhears two "holy ones" (angels). One asks" "For how long is this vision concerning the regular burnt offering, the transgression that makes desolate, and the giving over the sanctuary and host to be trampled?" and Daniel is informed that it will be "for 2,300 evenings and mornings," or 1,150 days. This is contradicted (twice in one sentence) at the end of Daniel 12, which says that "from the time the regular burnt offering is taken away ... there shall be 1,290 days; happy are those that persevere and attain the 1,335 days" (): the different numbers, first 1,150 days, then 1,290, finally 1,335, are presumably revisions made when the earlier numbers passed without fulfillment. The period in question was initially the duration of the desecration of the Temple, but 1,150 days is slightly less than three and a half years, while the desecration lasted only three years. It seems likely that the focus of the author shifted from the desecration and re-dedication of the Temple to the end of history, which would be marked by the resurrection of the dead: the final number in is followed by the instruction to Daniel to "go your way and rest; you shall rise for your reward at the end of days." The interpretation of the 2,300 evenings and mornings as equivalent to half that number of days–1150 days–appears to be the most common, but C. L. Seow, a leading Daniel scholar, takes it to mean 2,300 full days. This would be equivalent to about seven years; assuming that the end-point