The narrative of Bel and the Dragon is incorporated as chapter 14 of the extended Book of Daniel. The original

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

text in Greek survives in a single manuscript,

Codex Chisianus Codex Chisianus 45 (also ''Codex Chigianus 45''; Vatican Library, Chigi R. VII 45; numbered 88 in Rahlfs Septuagint manuscripts, 87 in Frederick Field (scholar), Field's ''Hexapla'' ) is a biblical manuscript variably dated to the 10th centur ...

, while the standard text is due to

Theodotion Theodotion (; , ''gen''.: Θεοδοτίωνος; died c. 200) was a Hellenistic Jewish scholar, perhaps working in Ephesus, who in c. A.D. 150 translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek. History Whether he was revising the Septuagint, or was wor ...

, the 2nd-century AD revisor. This chapter, along with chapter 13, is considered

deuterocanonical The deuterocanonical books, meaning 'of, pertaining to, or constituting a second Biblical canon, canon', collectively known as the Deuterocanon (DC), are certain books and passages considered to be Biblical canon, canonical books of the Old ...

: it was unknown to early

Rabbinic Judaism Rabbinic Judaism (), also called Rabbinism, Rabbinicism, Rabbanite Judaism, or Talmudic Judaism, is rooted in the many forms of Judaism that coexisted and together formed Second Temple Judaism in the land of Israel, giving birth to classical rabb ...

, and while it is considered non-canonical by most

Protestants Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

, it is canonical to

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

and

Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity, is one of the three main Branches of Christianity, branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholic Church, Catholicism and Protestantism ...

Christians, and is found in the

Apocrypha Apocrypha () are biblical or related writings not forming part of the accepted canon of scripture, some of which might be of doubtful authorship or authenticity. In Christianity, the word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to ...

section of some Protestant Bibles.

Summaries

The chapter contains a single story which may previously have represented three separate narratives, which place

Daniel Daniel commonly refers to: * Daniel (given name), a masculine given name and a surname * List of people named Daniel * List of people with surname Daniel * Daniel (biblical figure) * Book of Daniel, a biblical apocalypse, "an account of the acti ...

at the court of

Cyrus Cyrus () is a Persian-language masculine given name. It is historically best known as the name of several List of monarchs of Iran, Persian kings, most notably including Cyrus the Great, who founded the Achaemenid Empire in 550 BC. It remains wid ...

, king of the Persians: "When King

Astyages Astyages was the last king of the Median kingdom, reigning from 585 to 550 BCE. The son of Cyaxares, he was dethroned by the Persian king Cyrus the Great. Reign Astyages succeeded his father in 585 BCE, following the Battle of Halys, wh ...

was laid to rest with his ancestors, Cyrus the Persian succeeded to his kingdom." There Daniel "was a companion of the king, and was the most honored of all his Friends". However, while

's Greek apparently dates the story to the time of Astyages, the

Old Greek Old Greek is the Greek language as spoken from Late Antiquity () to . Greek spoken during this period is usually split into: *Late Greek ( AD) *Medieval Greek () "Old Greek" (OG) is also the technical term for the presumed initial Greek trans ...

versions of the story do not specify this. As such, the real identity of the king is up for debate. Some Bibles, such as the Douay-Rheims, use the more traditional identification of this king as being Evil-Merodach, or

Amel-Marduk Amel-Marduk ( Babylonian cuneiform: ''Amēl-Marduk'', meaning "man of Marduk"), also known as Awil-Marduk, or in the biblical rendition of his name, Evil-Merodach (), was the third emperor of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from 562 BCE until ...

. This identification is supported by the Scriptural Research Institute in their book ''Septuagint: Daniel'', where they cited similarities between Amel-Marduk's reign and the account, namely that Amel-Marduk was the only king of Babylon to have seen religious riots during his reign.

Bel

The narrative of

Bel Bel can mean: Mythology * Belenus or Bel, a Celtic deity * Bel (mythology), a title (meaning "lord" or "master") for various gods in Babylonian religion People * Bel (name) * Annabel Linquist, known as Bel, American artist, musician, and entrepr ...

(Daniel 14:1–22) ridicules the worship of idols. The king asks Daniel, "You do not think Bel is a living god? Do you not see how much he eats and drinks every day?" to which Daniel answers that the idol is made of

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

covered by

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

and thus cannot eat or drink. Enraged, the king then demands that the seventy priests of Bel show him who consumes the offerings made to the idol. The priests then challenge the king to set the offerings as usual (which were "twelve great measures of fine flour, and forty sheep, and six vessels of wine") and then seal the entrance to the temple with his ring: if Bel does not consume the offerings, the priests are to be sentenced to death; otherwise, Daniel is to be killed. Daniel then uncovers the ruse (by scattering ashes over the floor of the temple in the presence of the king after the priests have left) and shows that the "sacred" meal of Bel is actually consumed at night by the priests and their wives and children, who enter through a secret door when the temple's doors are sealed. The next morning, the king comes to inspect the test by observing from above. He sees that the food has been consumed and points out that the wax seals he put on the temple doors are unbroken, and offers a

hosanna ''Hosanna'' () is a liturgical word in Judaism and Christianity. In Judaism it refers to a cry expressing an appeal for divine help.Friberg Lexicon In Christianity it is used as a cry of praise. Etymology The word ''hosanna'' (Latin ', Greek , ...

to Bel. Daniel calls attention to the footprints on the temple floor; which the king then realizes by seeing footprints, along with more slender ones and smaller ones, shows that women and children also participated in the gluttony. The priests of Bel are then arrested and, confessing their deed, reveal the secret passage that they used to sneak inside the temple. They, their wives and children are put to death, and Daniel is permitted to destroy the idol of Bel and the temple. This version has been cited as an ancestor of the "

locked-room mystery The "locked-room" or "impossible crime" mystery is a type of crime seen in crime and detective fiction. The crime in question, typically murder ("locked-room murder"), is committed in circumstances under which it appeared impossible for the perp ...

The dragon

According to the brief companion narrative of the

dragon A dragon is a Magic (supernatural), magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but European dragon, dragons in Western cultures since the Hi ...

(Daniel 14:23–30), "there was a great dragon which the Babylonians revered". Some time after the temple's condemnation the Babylonians worship the dragon. The king says that, unlike Bel, the dragon is a clear example of a live animal. Daniel promises to slay the dragon without the aid of a sword, and does so by baking pitch, fat, and hair (''trichas'') to make cakes (''mazas'', barley-cakes) that cause the dragon to burst open upon consumption. In other variants, other ingredients serve the purpose: in a form known to the

Midrash ''Midrash'' (;"midrash"
. ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; or ''midrashot' ...

, straw was fed in which nails were hidden, or skins of camels were filled with hot coals. A similar story occurs in the Persian poet

Ferdowsi Abu'l-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi (also Firdawsi, ; 940 – 1019/1025) was a Persians, Persian poet and the author of ''Shahnameh'' ("Book of Kings"), which is one of the world's longest epic poetry, epic poems created by a single poet, and the gre ...

Shahnameh The ''Shahnameh'' (, ), also transliterated ''Shahnama'', is a long epic poem written by the Persian literature, Persian poet Ferdowsi between and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 50,000 distichs or couple ...

, where

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

, or "Iskandar", kills a dragon by feeding it cow hides stuffed with poison and tar. Earlier scholarship has suggested a parallel between this text and the contest between

Marduk Marduk (; cuneiform: Dingir, ᵈAMAR.UTU; Sumerian language, Sumerian: "calf of the sun; solar calf"; ) is a god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of Babylon who eventually rose to prominence in the 1st millennium BC. In B ...

and

Tiamat In Mesopotamian religion, Tiamat ( or , ) is the primordial sea, mating with Abzû (Apsu), the groundwater, to produce the gods in the Babylonian epic '' Enûma Elish'', which translates as "when on high". She is referred to as a woman, an ...

in Mesopotamian mythology, where the winds controlled by Marduk burst Tiamat open and barley-cake plays the same role as the wind. However, David DeSilva (2018) casts doubt on this reading.DeSilva, David. ''Introducing the Apocrypha, 2nd Edition Message, Context, and Significance''. Baker Academic, 2018, 250–263.

References

Sources

* Levine, Amy-Jill 2010. "Commentary on 'Bel and the Dragon in Coogan, Michael D. ''The New Oxford Annotated Bible'' (fourth ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. * F. Zimmermann, "Bel and the Dragon", ''

Vetus Testamentum ''Vetus Testamentum'' is a quarterly academic journal covering various aspects of the Old Testament. It is published by Brill Publishers Brill Academic Publishers () is a Dutch international academic publisher of books, academic journals, and ...

'' 8.4 (October 1958)

External links

* * {{Authority control 2nd-century BC books 2nd-century books Additions to Daniel Angelic apparitions in the Bible Baal Daniel (biblical figure) Dragons Locked-room mysteries

Summaries

Bel

The dragon

See also

References

Sources

External links