Bel and the Dragon
The story of Bel and the Dragon
relates how Daniel demonstrated that the two titular objects of worship were
not real gods. The idol of Bel appears to consume food. Daniel demonstrates
that it is the priests and their families that are consuming the food making
use of secret doors. The dragon is a living creature that Daniel slays ‘without
iron or club’ by giving it cakes of pitch, at and hair to eat. The Babylonians are
indignant at Daniel’s actions and demand that Daniel is thrown into a pit of
lions for six days. On the sixth day the prophet Habakkuk is transported to
Daniel with food. When the king finds Daniel alive, he has Daniel brought out
to the pit and his accusers are thrown in and devoured. The story has a clear
polemic against idolatry.
It is fairly obvious that this story
was composed independently of the autograph. OG-Dan opens with the words ‘From
the prophecy of Hambakoum [i.e. Habakkuk] the son of Iesous of the tribe of Lieu”
(Dan. 14:1 NETS), implying that this was conceived as a story about Habakkuk and
not part of the book of Daniel. (OG-Dan does identify the Daniel in this story
with the Daniel of the book by naming him ‘Baltasar’ [i.e. Belteshazzar]—Dan 14:34).
Th-Dan tries to integrate the story into the book of Daniel, opening with the
transition from the reign of Astyages to Cyrus. Nevertheless, it is clear that
the story does not belong at the end of chapter 12, as it is placed, but (if
anywhere) after chapter 5. The re-use of the lion’s den is crude and is another
indication that this story is a later composition.
In OG-Dan the king is identified only
as ‘the king of Babylon’ (Dan. 14:2). Th-Dan, presumably in an attempt to lend
weight to the account by adding historical detail, identifies the king as ‘Cyrus
the Persian’ (Dan. 14:1). However, the writer describes Cyrus as receiving his
kingdom from As Astyages. This demonstrates a misunderstanding of history. While
Cyrus received the Median kingdom from Astyages, this was not a natural succession
but Cyrus deposed Astyages. In any case, these events took place in 550 BC,
long before Cyrus conquered Babylon; Astyages was never king of Babylon. This
attempt by the writer of Th-Dan to identify Darius the Mede and add historical detail
to the story was not based on recollection of the events but on a clumsy
reading of the Greek historians.
The name ‘Bel’ means ‘lord’ and could
have been used for various Babylonian gods. In the Neo-Babylonian context, Bel
would especially have been used for Marduk, the patron god of Babylon. The use
of Bel in the story may be another indication of a reliance on Greek historians
as opposed to firsthand knowledge. According to Th-Dan, Daniel destroys both
Bel and his temple (Dan. 14:22); OG-Dan mentions only the destruction of Bel. The
temple of Marduk in Babylon was the Esagila, which housed statues of Marduk and
his consort. However, the Esagila was not destroyed during the reign of Cyrus,
nor is there any record of the statue of Marduk being destroyed. Herodotus
records that Xerxes removed a statue from the Esagila when he desecrated the
temple and sacked the city in 482 BC. Yet the temple was not destroyed and was destroyed
by Alexander the Great. The idea that Daniel was responsible for the destruction
of the statue of Marduk or of the Esagila appears fanciful.
The second supposed god in the story,
the dragon, seems also fanciful. Whilst the story does not record this δραγων breathing fire, the fact that it bursts when
it consumes pitch and fat might imply this. The worship given to the dragon
suggests that it is not some ordinary serpent but a distinctive and unique
creature. This does not recommend the historicity of this account. In any case,
there is no record of the Babylonians worshipping a live dragon.
Finally, we may think about the prophet
Habakkuk. Of course, his transportation to Babylon to provide food for Daniel
was miraculous, but laying that aside there are reasons to question the
historicity of the account. Whilst the prophecy of Habakkuk is not precisely
dated, it is written in anticipation of the Babylonian invasion (cf. Hab. 1:6),
whereas the events of Bel and the Dragon date, according to Th-Dan, to the
reign of Cyrus. There is a good seventy years dividing the two. Now, we must
allow that if it is plausible that Daniel could have lived long enough for his
life to span the whole Babylonian captivity then the same might be said of Habakkuk.
But if Habakkuk is older than Daniel, as one might guess from the tenor of his
prophecy, then it stretches credulity to believe him to be still living in the
reign of Cyrus. (Thomas E. Gaston, Historical Issues in the Book of Daniel [Paternoster
Biblical Monographs; Milton Keynes, U.K.: Paternoster, 2016], 125-26)
