Two Texts, Two Trees

• Dictionaries — the Anchor Bible Dictionary, the Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism and the IVP Dictionary of New Testament Background. Headings to search: Susanna; Bel and the Dragon; Daniel, Additions to; Theodotion; Septuagint. These are the headings this page would search, not a claim about any one dictionary’s table of contents; none of the three was read for this page.
• On the text — any article that keeps the Old Greek and Theodotion apart. An article that quotes ‘the Greek of Susanna’ without saying which cannot be used for these stories, because the two agree word for word in no verse.

• Carey A. Moore, Daniel, Esther and Jeremiah: The Additions (Anchor Bible) — a commentary whose title names the additions to Daniel, Esther and Jeremiah together.
• John J. Collins, Daniel (Hermeneia) — a critical commentary on the book.
• Tim McLay, The OG and Th Versions of Daniel — on how the two Greek texts relate.
• NETS (A New English Translation of the Septuagint) — whose Daniel, Susanna and Bel print the Old Greek and Theodotion as two translations. Named as the next step for a reader; not the English quoted here.

• Exodus 23:7 → Sus. 53. Daniel tells the first elder he has condemned the innocent although the Lord says — Theodotion λέγοντος τοῦ κυρίου, the Old Greek τοῦ κυρίου λέγοντος — and then five words: ἀθῷον καὶ δίκαιον οὐκ ἀποκτενεῖς. Measured: those five words stand in 3 units of the screened Greek Old Testament — Exodus 23:7 and the two Greek texts of Sus. 53 — and in 0 New Testament verses. From Exodus’s side, Exodus 23:7’s deepest partners in the whole screened corpus are those two Susanna rows (5 words, tie band 2). Hebrew: וְנָקִ֤י וְצַדִּיק֙ אַֽל־תַּהֲרֹ֔ג — the innocent and the righteous do not kill (this page’s own literal gloss). The text itself marks the words as the Lord’s; this is the one place in either story where a citation formula introduces Scripture.
• Deuteronomy 19 → Sus. 61–62. The false witnesses are done to as they meant to do according to the law of Moses (Theodotion κατὰ τὸν νόμον Μωυσῆ; the Old Greek ὡς ὁ νόμος διαγορεύει). The law is named, not cited. Measured: Theodotion’s 61 shares 2 consecutive words with Deuteronomy 19:19, and the closing αἷμα ἀναίτιον (innocent blood) stands in 4 units: Deuteronomy 19:10, 21:8, and the two Greek texts of Susanna.
• Jeremiah 29:21–23 (Greek Jeremiah 36:21–23) — set beside Susanna by this page because of what both describe: two men in Babylon, adultery with their neighbours’ wives, and a death by fire at the hand of the king of Babylon. Hebrew 29:22: כְּצִדְקִיָּ֣הוּ וּכְאֶחָ֔ב אֲשֶׁר־קָלָ֥ם מֶֽלֶךְ־בָּבֶ֖ל בָּאֵֽשׁ׃ — like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire (this page’s own literal gloss). Measured, the wording is not shared: the longest run either Greek Susanna has with Greek Jeremiah 36:21–23 is 2 words. The Old Greek’s ending, where the angel throws fire between the condemned (ἔρριψε πῦρ διὰ μέσου αὐτῶν), is the nearest it comes, in content only. Whether the story knew Jeremiah’s two men is not measurable.
• Habakkuk → Bel 33–39. The prophet named in the title of the canonical book — ESV Habakkuk 1:1: “The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.” הַמַּשָּׂא֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר חָזָ֔ה חֲבַקּ֖וּק הַנָּבִֽיא׃ — is the man carried to Babylon by the hair to feed Daniel. Measured: the Greek name Αμβακουμ occurs 14 times in the screened Greek Old Testament: 12 times in the two texts of Bel (7 in the Old Greek, counting its opening line; 5 in Theodotion) and 2 times in the book of Habakkuk (1:1, 3:1). From the other side, Habakkuk 1:1’s deepest partner in the whole screened corpus is Theodotion’s Bel 33 — Αμβακουμ ὁ προφήτης, 3 words, tie band 1. The Old Greek heads its story with ἐκ προφητείας Αμβακουμ, from the prophecy of Habakkuk (this page’s own literal gloss). The Greek book of Habakkuk names neither Daniel nor Bel (0 occurrences).
• The idol polemic — Isaiah 44–46 and the Letter of Jeremiah mock gods that are made, carried and served. Measured: the name, in its indeclinable form Βηλ, occurs 28 times in the screened Greek Old Testament, 1 of them outside the two Bel texts (Isaiah 46:1). Declined, it stands in 2 more units: Βῆλος at Jeremiah 27:2 (Greek numbering), and τὸν Βῆλον in the Letter of Jeremiah itself (EpJer 40). The Letter of Jeremiah, whose idols’ priests sell the sacrifices and use the proceeds (EpJer 27, τὰς δὲ θυσίας αὐτῶν ἀποδόμενοι οἱ ἱερεῖς αὐτῶν καταχρῶνται), shares a longest run of 2 words with the Old Greek Bel and 3 with Theodotion. The Old Greek’s closing confession (41) runs 5 words with Isaiah 45:5–6, κύριος ὁ θεός καὶ οὐκ — the Lord God, and there is no … (this page’s own literal gloss) (tie band 2); from Isaiah’s side both verses run deeper with other verses of Isaiah (Stage 4). Same argument, different words.
• 1 Maccabees 2:60 — Mattathias on his deathbed: Δανιηλ ἐν τῇ ἁπλότητι αὐτοῦ ἐρρύσθη ἐκ στόματος λεόντων Daniel in his simplicity was rescued from the mouth of lions (this page’s own literal gloss). Against both texts of Bel its deepest run is 2 words; against the Old Greek’s last verse of Susanna it is 3 (ἐν τῇ ἁπλότητι, in their/his simplicity — a noun that stands in 7 units of the screened corpus). It remembers a den; it does not quote this one.
• Julius Africanus and Origen. In the third century Julius Africanus wrote to Origen arguing that Susanna could not belong with Daniel, and among his reasons were the tree-puns of verses 54–59, which he took to show that the story was composed in Greek; Origen’s reply defended the story and disputed the inference. Neither letter is on this disk; this is reported from outside reading and not checked here. What this page can add is narrow and measured: the puns are not in one Greek text only, but in both (Stage 4).

• Susanna is named 10 times in Theodotion and 3 in the Old Greek. Daniel is named 6 and 5 times. Where Theodotion names her at 22, the Old Greek calls her ἡ Ιουδαία, the Jewess.
• The Old Greek has no bath. It has no rows at all for verses 15–18, 20–21 or 24–27; the washing, the oil, the closed garden doors and the side door are Theodotion’s (15, 17–18). In the Old Greek the elders simply agree to go to her (πορευθῶμεν πρὸς αὐτήν, 19).
• Both Greek texts have Daniel tell the second elder he is no true son of Judah — Theodotion σπέρμα Χανααν καὶ οὐκ Ιουδα, the Old Greek ὡς Σιδῶνος καὶ οὐχ ὡς Ιουδα. An insult in a character’s mouth, measured against Judah; reported, not endorsed.
• Theodotion’s king comes to the den τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ ἑβδόμῃ, on the seventh day; the Old Greek’s μετὰ ταῦτα, after these things. In both texts Daniel is in the den six days (31; 31/32).
• The word for Daniel’s place at court, συμβιωτὴς (one who lives with the king), stands in 3 units of the screened corpus, all of them in Bel.

Susanna: 36 Old Greek rows can be lined up with Theodotion. Identical: 0. Median longest shared run: 3. 15 of the 36 share no more than two consecutive words, and verse 38 shares none. The deepest agreement is 15 words, at verse 9. Bel: 36 rows; identical 0; median 3; 8 share no more than two; the deepest agreement 13 words, at verse 5 — Daniel’s confession of the God who made heaven and earth. With the movable nu folded, Bel’s rows sharing no more than two fall from 8 to 6 (verses 38 and 41 rise), and no figure in the table below changes. Counting only the labels the two files share exactly — 31 in Susanna and 34 in Bel, the counts the companion study prints — the answers do not change: identical in 0 and 0, median 3 and 3, and the single zero at verse 38.

Read the table honestly. Susanna and Bel sit at the low end of Greek Daniel, with chapters 4–6 and 11 — not below them: chapters 4 and 5 run lower still, at a median of 2. A first draft of this page said these two stories were where the two Greek Daniels are furthest apart; measured, they are not, and the claim is withdrawn here rather than quietly dropped. What is unique to Susanna is the zero: of the 476 labels aligned across Greek Daniel, verse 38 is the only one at which the two texts share no word.

Which Greek text does the English column agree with? Theodotion’s, at every diagnostic this page checked. The King James has the verses the Old Greek lacks — Susanna’s opening, There dwelt a man in Babylon, and the bath, she was desirous to wash herself in the garden; it has Theodotion’s prayer after the verdict, O everlasting God (Sus. 42); forty sheep, and six vessels of wine (Bel 3); and Upon the seventh day (Bel 40). The one exception is Bel 24, where it carries both texts (the codex).

In the cross-examination (9 rows, 51–59) the two Greek texts share a median run of 4 words — barely more than the stories’ median of three. But they share its skeleton exactly: the same question twice, ὑπὸ τί δένδρον (4 units in the screened corpus — these four), the same two tree-names, and at 55 the same verb in the same form.

None of the five tree-words — the two names, the splitting verb, the two sawing verbs — stands anywhere else in the 30,348 screened units in these forms. The tree-names, in any form: 2 and 2 units, both Greek texts each time. The splitting verb in this form: 2 units, both texts. The sawing verbs in these forms: 1 unit and 1, each text its own. The verbs themselves are not rare: other forms of the splitting verb stand elsewhere — σχίσας (Genesis 22:3), ἐσχίσθη (Exodus 14:21), σχισθήσεται (Zechariah 14:4) among them — and other saw verbs at Amos 1:3 (ἔπριζον), 1 Chronicles 20:3 (διέπρισεν) and Wisdom 13:11 (ἐκπρίσας). Two texts that agree word for word in no verse agree on the tree-name at 54, the verb at 55 and the tree-name at 58, and part only on the form of the saw at 59.

The English and the Latin do different things with the joke. The King James names two real trees and answers both with “to cut thee in two”, so the English carries neither pun. The Clementine has the Greek tree-names (schino, prino) and answers them with two different verbs. This page reports what each column has; whether the Latin is heard as a pun is a judgement for a Latinist.

Every row of Bel’s den story, in both texts, against every verse of both Greek texts of Daniel 6. Old Greek: 11 rows, median best run 2, deepest 6. Theodotion: 12 rows, median 2.5, deepest 8. One phrase recurs on both sides: εἰς τὸν λάκκον τῶν λεόντων (into the den of the lions) stands in 14 units of the screened Greek Old Testament, every one in Daniel 6 or Bel, and in 0 verses of the New Testament. It is not the only run the two share: across the four texts, 6 distinct five-word sequences stand both in Bel 31–42 and in Daniel 6, and every Bel row that reaches five or more words with Daniel 6 is listed below.

• Theodotion Bel 31 → Theodotion Daniel 6:17 — 8 words, tie band 1. The deepest run either Bel text makes with anything in the screened Greek Old Testament. From Daniel’s side it is not the deepest: Daniel 6:17 reaches 9 words with two verses of Daniel itself (tie band 2). Aramaic 6:17: וּרְמ֕וֹ לְגֻבָּ֖א דִּ֣י אַרְיָוָתָ֑א — and they cast [him] into the pit of the lions (this page’s own literal gloss).
• Old Greek Bel 34 → Old Greek Daniel 6:15 — 6 words, tie band 1; and Theodotion Bel 34 reaches the same Old Greek verse at 6. From Daniel 6:15’s side the band is 3: the two Bel 34s and another verse of the Old Greek Daniel.
• Old Greek Bel 42 → Theodotion Daniel 6:24 — 5 words, tie band 1 from both sides. Δανιηλ ἐκ τοῦ λάκκου καὶ — Daniel out of the pit, and.
• So the recensions cross. Theodotion’s Bel runs deepest with Theodotion’s Daniel at 31, but with the Old Greek’s Daniel at 34; the Old Greek’s Bel runs deepest with Theodotion’s Daniel at 42. The page reports the pairings and does not explain them.
• ⚠️ The page’s own counter-example. Hebrews 11:33, ἔφραξαν στόματα λεόντων, (stopped the mouths of lions), measures 1 at best, against any row of the Old Greek Bel, and 1 at best, against any row of Theodotion’s. Its deepest Greek Old Testament contact anywhere is 2 words, tie band 3, and Bel is not among them. The live Daniel study measured the same verse against Theodotion Daniel 6:23 and found one word as well.

Old Greek Susanna, 37 rows against 30,247 units: all 37 reach two, 30 reach three, 15 four, 2 five, and nothing reaches six. Theodotion Susanna, 64 rows: all 64 reach two, 57 three, 38 four, 12 five, 2 six, and nothing seven. Old Greek Bel, 37 rows against 30,269 units: all 37 reach three, 28 four, 10 five, 3 six, and nothing seven. Theodotion Bel, 42 rows: all 42 reach two, 38 three, 33 four, 15 five, 6 six, 2 seven, 1 eight, and nothing nine.

• Sus. 53 → Exodus 23:7 — 5 words, tie band 1, in both texts (Stage 2): the one run in either story introduced by a citation formula.
• Theodotion Sus. 64 → 1 Samuel 18:9 — 6 words, tie band 1. ἀπὸ τῆς ἡμέρας ἐκείνης καὶ ἐπέκεινα — from that day and onward. In 1 Samuel it is Saul eyeing David with suspicion; here, Daniel held in honour. From 1 Samuel 18:9’s side the band is 2. A time formula, 2 units.
• Theodotion Bel 16 → 1 Maccabees 6:33 — 7 words, tie band 1. καὶ ὤρθρισεν ὁ βασιλεὺς τὸ πρωὶ καὶ — and the king rose early in the morning, and: a king going to inspect a temple, and a king going to battle.
• Old Greek Bel 41 → Isaiah 45:5 and 45:6 — 5 words, tie band 2 (Stage 2): the king’s confession and Isaiah’s there is no other share these five words. From Isaiah’s side the picture is different: Isaiah 45:5 reaches 8 words (tie band 2) and 45:6 reaches 8 (tie band 1), with other verses of Isaiah, not with Bel.

Old Greek Susanna, 37 rows against 7,927 verses: all 37 reach two, 27 reach three, 8 four, and nothing five. Theodotion Susanna, 64 rows: all 64 reach two, 46 three, 18 four, and nothing five. Old Greek Bel, 37 rows: all 37 reach two, 33 three, 7 four, 1 six, and nothing seven. Theodotion Bel, 42 rows: all 42 reach two, 33 three, 11 four, 3 five, 2 six, and nothing seven.

• Bel 5, both texts → Acts 4:24, Acts 14:15 and Revelation 14:7 — 6 words, tie band 3. τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν καὶ — the heaven and the earth, and; its first five words stand in 26 units of the screened Greek Old Testament. From the other side it dissolves: Acts 4:24 and 14:15 run 13 words with Exodus 20:11, and Revelation 14:7 runs 7 with Psalm 113:23 (Greek numbering). A creator formula.
• Theodotion Bel 1 → Acts 13:36 — 6 words, tie band 1. προσετέθη πρὸς τοὺς πατέρας αὐτοῦ καὶ — was added to his fathers, and: Astyages’ death and David’s. From Acts’ side the band is 2: Theodotion’s Bel 1 and 1 Maccabees 2:69, Mattathias’ death. A formula for dying, shared equally with 1 Maccabees.

• A thesis this page did not keep. The first framing was that Susanna and Bel are where Daniel’s two Greek texts are furthest apart. Measured against every chapter of Daniel, they are not: Daniel 4 and 5 have a lower median (2 and 2) than either story (3). The claim is withdrawn in Stage 4; what survives is the single zero at Sus. 38.
• A shorthand this page nearly printed. The working notes for this page called the second pun “prinos / prisei,” on the model of schinos / schisei. Neither Greek file reads prisei: the Old Greek has καταπρίσῃ and Theodotion πρίσαι. The tree-name is shared; the saw is not.
• The English file has one verb that no witness held here has. Bel 38 in the King James reads neither hast thou forsaken them that seek thee and love thee; Theodotion has only τοὺς ἀγαπῶντάς σε (those who love you), the Old Greek τοὺς ἀγαπῶντας αὐτόν, and the Clementine diligentes te. Where seek came from is not established here.
• The English file carries both Greek texts at Bel 24 (the codex), and the Clementine only Theodotion’s. Which Greek or Latin witness the 1611 translators read there is not established here.
• The Clementine carries a verse that neither Greek Bel nor the King James has. Daniel 14:42 — Paveant omnes habitantes in universa terra Deum Danielis — has no counterpart in either Greek Bel or in the King James. Measured on the Latin files: its last 8 words are the last 8 of the Clementine’s Daniel 6:27 (in terra : qui liberavit Danielem de lacu leonum; Theodotion’s and the Aramaic 6:28), and that is the only verse in the whole Clementine it shares four or more consecutive words with (1). The Latin’s Bel ends on the same 8 words as the decree in the Latin’s Daniel 6.

• Any Semitic form of either story. The Masoretic Daniel has none, and no Hebrew or Aramaic retelling is on this disk. Whether Susanna or Bel was composed in Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek is not verifiable from local corpora — and the puns, which Africanus already brought into the question (Stage 2), are evidence about the Greek texts we hold, not about what preceded them.
• The manuscripts. No manuscript of either Greek text is held — not papyrus 967, not the Syro-Hexapla, not the uncials. The CATSS files are digitisations of Rahlfs’s edition and inherit its choices, including where the Old Greek of Susanna begins (at verse 6 in this file).
• Where the stories stand in the manuscripts — at the head of Daniel or after it. The CATSS files are separate books and carry no position, and this page did not check it. The numbering 13–14 used here is the Clementine’s.
• The letters of Julius Africanus and Origen (Stage 2) — reported, not read for this page.
• Why the two Greek texts differ as they do. The literature on the relation of the Old Greek to Theodotion (Stage 1) was named, not read. The figures are measured; an explanation is not offered.
• The Clementine is Jerome’s Latin as the Clementine edition prints it, not the Old Latin, which is not held.

• Alignment of the Old Greek. Where an Old Greek row carries several verse numbers (7/8, 60–62, 15–17, 31/32) it is compared with Theodotion’s verses run together, and the lettered 35a is set aside from the label count. Measured both ways: at exact labels only (31 and 34; 469 across Greek Daniel) the identical-verse counts, the medians and the single zero are unchanged.
• Comparisons across the Daniel table are not perfectly like for like. Chapters 1–12 are compared at labels the two files share exactly; the two stories, in the table, at labels lined up as just described.
• The English and Latin divisions were read, not computed. Every pairing in the versification note is anchored by quoted words that the self-check confirms, but the reading of each clause is a reader’s.
• The structure’s stages are by content. The counted markers are Theodotion’s four loud cries, the two under what tree? questions, the king’s two confessions and the eating verbs; the stage boundaries between them are a reading.
• The English column is quotation, not a measured parallel. It is the only public-domain English held here, it agrees with Theodotion, and the Old Greek has no verse-length English on this page at all — only this page’s glosses of phrases.

• Carey A. Moore, Daniel, Esther and Jeremiah: The Additions (Anchor Bible).
• John J. Collins, Daniel (Hermeneia).
• Tim McLay, The OG and Th Versions of Daniel.
• Joseph Ziegler’s Göttingen edition of Susanna, Daniel, Bel et Draco — the critical text with apparatus. Not held here.
• NETS, Susanna, Daniel and Bel and the Dragon — the Old Greek and Theodotion as two English translations.

• “The Greek” of a story can be two stories’ worth of Greek. Susanna’s two texts agree word for word in none of 36 verses. Whenever someone tells you what an ancient text says, it is fair to ask which copy.
• What both copies carry is worth noticing. The wording differs; the two trees do not. In this story, the detail both texts carry is the one the story turns on.
• The rarest contacts are not always the real ones. Luke 1:38 runs deepest with Bel 9, and the reason is a common phrase and a conjunction. Hebrews 11:33 remembers lions’ mouths and shares one word with this story. Measure before you repeat.
• The story’s own lesson is procedural. Two witnesses agreed; the assembly believed them; an innocent woman was led out to die. In both Greek texts the rescue is God’s — in Theodotion the Lord hears her and rouses the spirit of a young man, in the Old Greek an angel of the Lord gives him a spirit of understanding — and it comes through him, a man who would not accept an unexamined account. Both Greek texts give him the same words for it: οὐκ ἀνακρίναντες οὐδὲ τὸ σαφὲς ἐπιγνόντες, without examining, without learning what is plain.
• One concrete response. Exodus 23:7 is the one verse Daniel cites in this story, and it sits in a passage (23:1–9) that opens לֹ֥א תִשָּׂ֖א שֵׁ֣מַע שָׁ֑וְא — you shall not take up an empty report (this page’s own literal gloss) — and at verse 7 forbids killing the innocent and the righteous. Read it this week, and the next time you are asked to pass on an account you have not examined, examine it first.