DANIEL, ADDITIONS A. The additions (additions) to Daniel consist of three extensive passages in the Greek LXX that have no counterpart in the canonical text of Daniel: (1) -The prayer of Azariah and the hymn of the three young men-, which It consists of 66 verses and is located between what would correspond to vv 23 and 24 of the third chap. of the canonical Daniel; (2) -Susanna-, which consists of 64 lines; and (3) -Bel and the Serpent-, consisting of 42 verses, the last two added usually appearing after the canonical chapters. Daniel’s. All three Adds take place in Babylon and describe how a Jew who trusted in the Lord God of Israel was delivered from certain death through the intervention of an angel.
Evidently not a part of the Jewish canon (nor one probably established by ca. 150 BC), nor as it existed in the days of Josephus in the 1st century AD (HJP² 3/2: 706-8), the Adds were regarded as part of the Christian canon of the Western Church until the time of the Protestant and Catholic movements, at which time they were rejected by the Protestants and called “apocrypha” while the Roman Catholic Church at its Council of Trent in 1546 reaffirmed them and called “deuterocanonical”.
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A.Introduction
1. His secondary character
2. The two Greek texts
B. “The prayer of Azariah and the hymn of the three young men”
1. Components
2. The effect of these additions
3. Regarding canonicity
C.”Susanna”
1. Summary
2. The two Greek accounts
3. original language
4. Gender
5. Religious elements
6. Purpose
7. Author, place and date of composition
8. Regarding canonicity
D. “Bel and the Serpent”
1. Summary
2. Genre of the two stories
3. Differences between ” Ɵ ” and the LXX
4. Original language of the stories
5. Concerning canonicity
6. Religious ideas and purposes
7. Date and place of composition
8. The Greek and other ancient versions
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A.Introduction
1. Its secondary character. External evidence proves that these three compositions are, in fact, later additions. There is no further evidence of its existence among ancient Jews, not even among the Dead Sea Scrolls, where seven Semitic copies of Daniel have been found to date, most of them quite fragmentary (Milik 1981), and three aramaic. texts containing hitherto unknown legends about him (Pseudo-Daniel a, b, c).
Josephus does not mention any of the Adds although he does record some other non-canonical legends about the prophet Daniel (cf. Ant 10.11.6-7). There is also no Greek translation of them by Aquila, the 2nd century AD Jewish convert who translated the then current rabbinic text into ludicrously literal Greek (for details on Aquila, see AQUILA’S VERSION). Both Origen (185?-?254) and Jerome (340?-420) expressly stated that they knew of no current Hebrew text of the Adds (on Jerome, see Braverman 1978:49-52). Finally, the so-called Hebrew and Aramaic “survivals” of these Adds found in the medieval works of Josippon and Jerahmeel (hence Gaster 1894-95; 1899) are actually Gk translations and Latversiones of the Adds (Lévi 1933; Moore 1977: 49, 86, 117; for details on Josippon, see JOSIPPON). An examination of the internal evidence (see passim below) also confirms the secondary character of the Adds.
2. The two Greek texts. The Greek text of Daniel occurs in two quite different forms: the Septuagint (LXX) and the so-called Theodotion (-Ɵ-), both printed for the purpose of convenient comparison in Swete (1894), Rahlfs and Ziegler’s Septuagint ( 1954). While the – Ɵ – has many witnesses (Ziegler 1954: 7-76), the LXX has only three: (1) the Chester Beatty-Cologne papyrus 967, dating to ca. AD 150 (its fragments are scattered among the works of Ziegler 1954; Geissen 1968; and Hamm 1969, 1977); (2) Codex Chisianus 88, a ninth-century cursive; and (3) the Ambrosian sirohexaplar, a very literal Syriac translation of Origen’s text made by Pablo de Tella in 615-617. Since the LXX of Daniel was used by the translator of 1 Maccabees (Bludau 1897:8, n. 6; Montgomery, Daniel ICC, 38), virtually all scholars agree that the LXX of Daniel existed in the year 100 a. C. and that it originated in Egypt, probably Alexandria (Pfeiffer 1949: 440).
For reasons that are not entirely clear (Moore 1977: 31), the LXX of Daniel was replaced by -Ɵ- in the Christian Church sometime between 150 and 250.
Regardless of who was the scribe Theodotion (i.e. –Ɵ-) in other books of the LXX (Montgomery, Daniel ICC, 24-29, 35-42, 46-55; Hartman and DiLella, Daniel AB, 74-84) , the – Ɵ – of Daniel does not represent that second-century recensionist; because many phrases of – Ɵ – from Daniel are found in Baruch’s Greek and in Hebrews and Revelation (Hartman and DiLella, 80-81). Daniel’s -Ɵ- is also not from the same tradition as Proto-Theodotion (kaige) in other LXX books (Schmitt 1966:11-16, 100-12; but see Grelot 1966:392; Delcor 1971:22). Rather, the –Ɵ-Daniel is best regarded as a separate translation of the Semitic Book of Daniel (ie, not an LXX recension), although its Greek translator sometimes adopted the LXX wording. The – Ɵ – of Daniel probably dates from the first century of the pre-Christian era; 1st century AD is its latest possible date. On the basis of the official list in Dan 3:2, Koch (1973) proposes Syria-Mesopotamia as the place of origin of the translation.
The origin and relationship of the deuterocanonical sections of the LXX and –Ɵ– in Daniel are even more puzzling. For although the LXX and the ” Ɵ ” are virtually identical in “The Prayer of Azariah and the Hymn of the Three Young Men”, they differ considerably (both in wording and content) in “Susana”, while in “Bel y the serpent” occupies an intermediate position in this matter. Schmitt (1966: 100-12) could account for these differences in the Summa by arguing that the canonical and deuterocanonical sections – ɵ – had different translators, the Summa is probably performing 2d-century AD Symmachus By contrast, Schüpphaus ( 1971 : 49-72) argues that the additions of –Ɵ- are nothing more than an extensive reissue of both the style and content of the LXX and not a new translation (ignoring, however, the question of whether the Adds had a Vorlage). Semitic). The consensus of scholars is that neither in the LXX nor in – Ɵ – is there a difference between the Greek of the canonical and deuterocanonical sections, that is, in each case the canonical and deuterocanonical sections were done by the same Greek translator. That being the case, the differences between the LXX and Daniel’s -Ɵ- are, in essence, a reflection of his different Semitic Vorlagen.
In all ancient and modern versions of Daniel, the Adds are based on ” Ɵ “, the only exceptions being the Syro-Hexaplar and the first edition of Vetus Latina (or OL) (Montgomery, Daniel ICC, 29-32; Charles 1929 : 1viii). Furthermore, the Syriac Peshitta and the Vulgate, as well as the Coptic, Ethiopic, Arabic, and Armenian, are all fairly literal translations of – Ɵ -.
B. “The prayer of Azariah and the hymn of the three young men”
1. Components. This material of the LXX is located between what would correspond to verses 23 and 24 of the third chap. from the canonical book of Daniel, where three Jewish youths (i.e. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego) were miraculously preserved by the angel of God after being thrown into the fiery furnace by King Nebuchadnezzar for refusing to worship a great idol of gold . The king was so impressed by his deliverance that he decreed that anyone who spoke against his God should be killed and his house destroyed, because there is no other God who could deliver like that.
The Add contains three (more likely four) separate and independent compositions: (1) the sentence (3:24-45 LXX); (2) the narrative (3:46-51); (3) the ode (3:52-56) or, as it is called in the Roman Catholic liturgy, Benedictus is; and (4) the psalm (3:57-90), or benedicita (for a discussion of its liturgical use, see Daubney 1906:83-97). Those scholars who regard the ode and psalm as a composition commonly refer to it as the “hymn” (Moore 1977: 75-76).
With the possible exception of the narration, these four compositions are clearly secondary, since they were added after the completion of the canonical book (i.e. sometime after 163 BC) but before its translation into Greek. (ca. 100 BC). Questions about the original language, date and provenance should be asked about each of the additions, because there is no justification for dealing with them en masse.
a. The prayer. The Azariah prayer (hence – Ɵ -) was offered by all the martyrs (hence the older LXX) while inside the fiery furnace, miraculously unaffected by its scorching heat. The fact that the sentence was a separate and independent entity that originally had nothing to do with the fiery furnace is indicated by four lines of argument: (1) the clumsy and repetitive character of the sentence’s own introduction to itself in lines 24-25 of the previous version. LXX; (2) its use in v. 24 of the heroes’ Hebrew names, while in the MT fiery furnace account their Aramaic names are always used (13 times); (3) the obvious inappropriateness of much of the sentence for its context; and (4) the logical and chronological error of the sentence compared to the narrative (3:46-51).
As for the inappropriateness of the prayer, it is clearly a communal prayer of repentance and supplication, the basic theme of which is well expressed in verses 30-31:
We have not obeyed or fulfilled them, as you have commanded us to do well. So everything you brought upon us and everything you did to us, you did with true judgment.
While such a prayer is never out of date, it is totally inappropriate for the current context in which the three young men find themselves in their current situation precisely because they have been faithful to their God. (Admittedly, 3:41-44 is appropriate for your situation and perhaps that is why the sentence was initially inserted.) The sentence is reminiscent of national laments like Psalms 44, 74, 79, and 80, and of prose confessions like Dan 9:4-19; Ezra 9:6-15; Neh 9:6-37; and Bar 1:15-3:8.
That the prayer was originally in Hebrew is suggested by four lines of evidence: (1) the prayer calls the martyrs by their Hebrew names while the MT uses their Aramaic names; (2) the sentence has some common Hebraisms (cf. 3:27, 33) and some unusual (eg, 3:34, 40); (3) Hebrew is ipso facto the language of Jewish prayer and worship; and (4) Kuhl (1940: 132-54), without taking too many liberties with the…