GREEK VERSIONS OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL

The book of Daniel is actually organized in three different ways:

 Genres

The first six chapters are widely recognized as court tales involving Daniel and his friends and told in the third person while the rest of the book consists of various visions and revelations usually classified as apocalyptic literature and narrated by Daniel himself.

Languages

An unusual feature of Daniel is the way in which the passages in the book are divided by language. Verses 2:4b-7:28 are in Aramaic, a language related to Hebrew, while the rest is in Hebrew as is most of the Old Testament. But that division does not quite match up with the two-fold division by genre mentioned above. In other words, why is Daniel 1 in Hebrew instead of Aramaic as are the other court stories of Daniel, and why isn't Daniel 7 in Hebrew along with the other visions of the second half of the book?

It has been pointed out that the first year of a king's reign (found only at Daniel 1:21 and 7:1) “connotes the beginning of something.” Therefore a possible answer to the question above is that Daniel 1 is written in Hebrew to highlight its unique function as an introduction to the entire book by starting with the Exile and alluding to the Return with its mention of Cyrus at the end. Similarly, retaining Daniel 7 in Aramaic acts as “an interlocking device” to tie together the two halves of the book.

Chronological

An additional reason for seeing a second half beginning at 7:1 comes from a consideration of the various reigns in which each section is said to take place:

Nebuchadnezzar (chs. 1-4)

Belshazzar (ch. 5)

Darius (ch. 6)

----------------------------------------------

Belshazzar (chs. 7-8)

Darius (ch. 9)

Cyrus (chs. 10-12) (18)

Note that there is a slight hiccup in a strictly chronological scheme. Thus, as in Daniel's visions themselves; Ezekiel 38-39; Zechariah 1-6; and the whole Book of Revelation, there are successive cycles of action with the time frame shifted ahead slightly in each new cycle: a phenomenon sometimes called progressive recapitulation. This is a somewhat definitive characteristic of apocalyptic writings.

Chapters10-12 of Daniel comprise “a climactic revelation,” being the longest, most detailed and clearest. (Collins) This literary explanation is a preferred alternative to the suggestion of Redditt that each successive cycle was written at a slightly later date with the most current events incorporated into the latest cycle.

Greek Versions

The ancient Greek versions of Daniel were used to compose the Latin Vulgate and found their way from there into the original printings of the King James Version. Besides our canonical book of Daniel, they contained both short added passages as well as stand-alone stories not in the Hebrew text (H). Today, only some Roman Catholic editions include those additions within the text of Daniel itself. Most other English versions either omit them entirely or place them somewhere after the biblical text grouped together with the other books of what is known as the Apocrypha.

Collins says, “Irrespective of the date at which the Greek 'additions' were attached to Daniel, the question of their coherence with the book remains.” One way to study that question is to see what sort of effect the various additions to the text has on each of the three forms of organization described above.

Two facts would be very useful to have in hand before making that attempt: the intended location within the book for these fragments and the original language(s) in which they were written. For the first point we have the evidence of two Greek versions, the Septuagint (LXX) written during the 3rd-1^st century B.C. and the A.D. 150 edition prepared by Theodotion. Both are in general agreement as to the placement of these units, with one exception shown below. Determining the original languages of the additions is more difficult. They may have been originally composed in Greek (G) or possibly in a Semitic language such as Aramaic (A), as Carey and others have proposed (tentative original languages are given in parentheses below).

The Greek Version of the Book of Daniel

Stories                             Visions                                             Reign

Susanna – Theodotion (G or A)                                              Nebuchadnezzar

Dan. 1 (H)                                                                                 "

Dan. 2 (H followed by A)                                                         "

Dan. 3:1-23 (A)                                                                        "

Prayer of Azariah (G or H)                                                       "

Prose narrative concerning the fiery furnace (G or A)             "

Hymn of the Three Young Men (G or H)                                 "

Dan. 3:24-30 (A)                                                                       "

Dan. 4 (A)                                                                                 "

Dan. 5 (A)                                                                                         Belshazzar

Dan. 6 (A)                                                                                                   Darius

-----------------------------------------------------

                                     Dan. 7 (A)                                                    Belshazzar

                                     Dan. 8 (H)                                                     "

                                     Dan. 9 (H)                                                               Darius

                                    Dan. 10-12 (H)                                                                  Cyrus

[Susanna – LXX (G or A)                                                       Nebuchadnezzar]

Bel and the Dragon (G)                                                                                        Cyrus

As you can see above,

1. The Greek version disrupts the two-fold division according to genre by placing two additional narratives at the end of Daniel.

2. Whether you go with LXX or Theodotion, the division according to original languages is totally destroyed.

3. The last two additions do not affect the pattern of progressive recapitulation as long as one goes with Theodotion's order instead of that in the Septuagint.

This is one more, of several, reasons for rejecting the apocryphal additions to Daniel as being inauthentic.