Thursday, February 1, 2024

Thomas E. Gaston on Historical issues with the Bel and the Dragon

  

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)