Bel and the Dragon

[luciasclay]

I was reading the passages removed from Daniel, particularly Susana and Bel and The Dragon. In the case of Bel and the Dragon I wonder why it was removed. As I read it I noticed that the point Daniel makes to the King iis the futility of offering of grain and wine to a dead god instead of the living God.

To me that seems very eucharistic. It seems to me that after Christ there had to be a few people expounding the point that unlike the Babylonians we offer our bread and wine to the living God, the Christ.

Are there any patristic writers who expounded on this passage in this way ?

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

I was reading the passages removed from Daniel, particularly Susana and Bel and The Dragon. In the case of Bel and the Dragon I wonder why it was removed. As I read it I noticed that the point Daniel makes to the King iis the futility of offering of grain and wine to a dead god instead of the living God.

To me that seems very eucharistic. It seems to me that after Christ there had to be a few people expounding the point that unlike the Babylonians we offer our bread and wine to the living God, the Christ.

Are there any patristic writers who expounded on this passage in this way ?

A fair amount is known about the “diet” - and the “food allergies” - of various gods of that region: grain and wine were quite often “served” to them. Any Eucharistic reference, if present, is likely to be in the intention of the Divine Author, rather than in the intention of the human author or, indeed, that of the worshippers of Bel: who in this story is certainly Marduk, the patron god of Babylon. The “dragon”, mushhushshu to be exact (formerly read as sirrushu) is his beast (certain animals, real or fantastic, are associate with certain deities in Ancient Mesopotamia).​

STM you’re onto something

 

[Mintaka]

These passages were removed by the Reformers, and I believe by the Jamnia (spelling?) Jewish folks before them, because they were known primarily from the Septuagint versions of Daniel (in Greek) and not in Hebrew.

After the big Jewish revolt was crushed by the Romans, as you may know, Judaism went into crisis because there wasn’t any Temple, a good chunk of all Jews had been killed or starved to death in the revolt in Judea, and a lot of other Jews were joining this weird Christian sect. There was a big meeting of rabbis at Jamnia, and they decided (among other things) that any Bible book not written in Hebrew could not possibly be of God. (This also allowed them to ignore a lot of favorite texts of Christians.) But it was a bit hard on the wisdom the Jewish people had accumulated outside of Israel.

Most Christians thought this was not right, and they stuck to all the books that had been acknowledged before the big revolt got crushed. Especially since the Septuagint had been good enough for Jesus, and was quoted by Him.

Luther and the Reformers decided they would rather go with Jamnia. (This also allowed them to ignore a lot of favorite texts of Catholic theologians.)

I know that a lot of the Greek books have recently been found (at least fragmentarily) in ancient Hebrew versions. I don’t know if these Daniel parts are part of that. It would be ironic if stuff had gotten taken out that was actually from Hebrew in the beginning.

But anyway, that’s why the removal. Hope this helped.

 

[Cluny]

<<These passages were removed by the Reformers, and I believe by the Jamnia (spelling?) Jewish folks before them, because they were known primarily from the Septuagint versions of Daniel (in Greek) and not in Hebrew.>>

Considering how hard it is to make manuscript books, to say nothing about the labor of translations, it’s more reasonable to assume that these passages (to say nothing about the other disputed books) existed in Hebrew and were accepted as scripture at the time of the translation of the LXX 2 centuries before Christ.

If the short canon were indeed the definitive one, wouldn’t the LXX translators have simply stopped there instead of making up more stuff to copy?

 

[luciasclay]

Respectfully I’m not interested in the debate about which canon is right or why it happened, though I did muse about it above. That ground has been turned over many times.

I’m interested in finding if there is any trace of any patristic sources using this story in this way and if not what other ways they may have used Bel and the Dragon’s stories.

Thanks!

 

[Scardinoz]

JewishEncyclopedia.com:

It is quoted as the work of the prophet Daniel by Tertullian and other early Christian writers, and its claim to canonicity is defended by Origen (“Epistola ad Africanum”)…

That’s where I would start looking.