The Book of Daniel

Okay, so here is a brief synopsis:

The Jewish people are in captivity in Babylon. Daniel and his brothers are advisors to a very evil king, and Daniel is doing all the work of running the kingdom, while he and his family are under threat of death or worse. This evil King has Daniel interpret some visions for him, persecutes Daniel and his brothers who are saved by God, and Daniel has visions of his own of the rebirth of Jerusalem.

The book is very visionary, and there are timetables as to when these events will happen that are sealed up in symbolic language. The way it gets you is that you try to figure it out too much, and if you do figure it out, you lose your mind, because the deeper truth about the book of Daniel is hidden, not revealed.

I recommend this book after the Gospels, Genesis, some of the letters of Paul and the Book of Revelations. We must not forget the Tom Sawyer effect, but that seems to me to be the best way.