Nov. 6] SOCIETYOF BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY. [1894.shouldthe Church feel it proper to accept this latter, if not for their
convictionthatthis way is a more faithfulrenderingof the original?
Delitzcsh,in his study on Habakkuk,* has alreadydrawnattentionto
a fragment of the Bel legend in an old Hebrew Midrashquoted by
RaymundusMartiniin the 13th century. Thesamehas since been
discovered by Dr. Neubauer in another fragment of the same
Midrash Major, as that book is called. He has published this
legend,togetherwith the Aramaic version of the Bookof Tobit.t
Thelanguageof this text, however,is more like Syriac thanAramaic,
andit differs in many importantdetailsfromthe old Greek versions.
It can, therefore, not be considered as the probable originalfrom
whichthosetranslations havebeen made. Theygo, on the other
hand, a long wayto prove the existence of these legends in a
Semiticdialect.
Anotherproofis furnished by the fact thatall the additions to
Daniel are found also in the Hebrew Josephus,better knownas
Josippon. We have therethe throwing of Daniel into the den of
the lions, andthe prophet Habakkukdrawnby the lock of his hair
from Palestineto feed himin that pit, J then the history of Bel,§
and that of the Dragon. || As will be seen afterwards,theseportions
werein the oldest knownMS.of Josippon, andformpart of that
book; they are not later additions or interpolations, but belong
to the body of that work. As the question concerningJosippon
is still an open one,and its relation to the Greek Josephusnot yet
sufficientlyclearedup, I prefer not to take this parallelas a proof
for the antiquity of these texts. Theysufficeto prove, however,
the existence of Semitic parallels to the apocryphal additionsto
Daniel. It will becomeevidentlateron that the version contained
in Josippon, whichhas some detailswhichare wanting in the Greek
versionsbothof the LXX andTheodotion,is not taken fromthese
versions,butin every probabilityfromthe original Semiticsource
whichservedas basis to these Greektranslations.
It is dangerous to dogmatise, and to try to settle definitely
questionswhich laterdiscoveries may easily upset. Such is the
casewiththese additions to Daniel, which, as shown, are declared
* De Habacuci Prophetaevita,etc. ; Leipzig, 1842.pp. 32, 33.
+ The Bookof Tobit ; Oxford, 1878,pp. 41, 42.
J Ed. Breithaupt, I, cap. x, xi, pp. 33-37.
§ Ibid., cap.xiii, pp. 40-42.
|i Ibid., cap.xiv, pp. 42-45.
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