Some say if you read the books of the Macabees the book of Daniel become more understandable, but I and most Jews think it's a mess. Its amazing how fundlementalist Christians use this book as their foundation about the end times while the Jews look at this as a minor prophetic writing not to be taken seriously at all.
An author by the name of Atwill wrote that he thinks the Gospels we're just made up and so was Jesus to be a passive Messiah to subdue the Messianic revolts by the people living in Palestine. So maybe this writing Daniel was too somekind of work written to push an idea of a coming Messiah that would save Palestine like Cyrus did. Atwill says that all the writings found at the dead see scrolls we're ones about this idea of a coming Messiah giving the Jews hope that someday someone would throw off their oppressors.