What Are the Additions to Daniel?
Some of my favourite parts of the apocrypha are the Additions of Daniel. As the name suggests, they do not originally belong to Daniel. Still, they are fun to read and worth looking at. The date of composition is unknown. Some scholars have thought that they were originally composed having nothing to do with Daniel and then were changed to fit that context.
The first addition is the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Jews. Azariah is the friend of Daniel, more commonly known as Abednego. Both the prayer and the song take place in the story of Daniel’s friends being put in the furnace.
Susanna is a fine example of an ancient novel. In many ways it is the first detective story. Susanna is a righteous woman who is falsely accused of a crime. Daniel steps in and uses his detective skills to prove her innocence and bring the guilty to justice.
Bel and the Dragon is really two stories, one about priests of Bel and another about a dragon. In the story of Bel, it looks as if the god Bel is alive enough to consume the food that is offered to him. Daniel, who know that only his God truly lives, uses his wisdom to show the king what really happens to the food. In the story of the dragon, Daniel’s nemesis is truly alive, but not for long as Daniel kills him with a greasy hairball.
You can find the text for the Additions to Daniel online but I’m using the one found in the The New Oxford Annotated Bible.
