Between Two Daniels

• Anchor Bible Dictionary — “Baruch, Book of,” “Baruch (Person),” “Jeremiah, Additions to.”
• Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism — “Baruch, Book of,” “Prayer, Penitential,” “Psalms of Solomon.”
• Dictionary of New Testament Background (IVP) — “Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha,” “Wisdom.”
• F. Gigot, “Baruch,” The Catholic Encyclopedia (1907) — read for this page (online). It divides the book as 1:1–14, 1:15–3:8, 3:9–4:4 and 4:5–5:9; says the prayer section has much in common with the Book of Daniel (Dan. 9:4-19); and calls the closing psalm closely connected with the eleventh of the apocryphal Psalms of Solomon. Stage 4 measures both statements.
• On the text — any article on Greek Daniel that separates the Old Greek from Theodotion. An article that speaks of ‘the Septuagint of Daniel 9’ without that distinction cannot be used to compare Baruch with Daniel.

• Carey A. Moore, Daniel, Esther, and Jeremiah: The Additions (Anchor Bible, 1977) — the commentary that treats Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah under ‘Jeremiah.’
• Emanuel Tov, The Septuagint Translation of Jeremiah and Baruch (1976), and Tov, The Book of Baruch also called I Baruch (Greek and Hebrew) (1975).
• David G. Burke, The Poetry of Baruch (1982) — on 3:9–5:9.
• Odil Hannes Steck, Das apokryphe Baruchbuch (1993).
• Sean A. Adams, Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah (Brill, 2014).
• NETS (A New English Translation of the Septuagint), “Barouch” — the obvious next English for a reader of the Greek; not the edition quoted here.

• Jeremiah’s own story, re-entered. The frame of 1:1–14 runs longest with Greek Jeremiah: 1:9 with Jeremiah 24:1, 8 words, tie band 1 from both sides (the deportation of Jeconiah with the princes and the prisoners); 1:7 with Jeremiah 36:1 (MT 29:1), 6, band 1 from Baruch’s side — the opening of Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles in Babylon, though the six words are a list of addressees, and to the priests and to, and from Jeremiah 36:1’s side the deepest partner is Jeremiah 33:16 (MT 26:16), at 7, not Baruch 1:7; 1:3 with Jeremiah 43:10 (MT 36:10), 5, band 1 from Baruch’s side and 3 from Jeremiah’s — in the ears of all the people, where Baruch reads the scroll in the temple. The Jeremiah 33–38 study prints the same five and says what this page says: a measurement, not a claim about who used whom.
• Where Baruch was. Baruch 1:1 puts him in Babylon. Greek Jeremiah 50:6–7 (MT 43:6–7) lists καὶ Βαρουχ υἱὸν Νηριου among those taken down to Egypt, to Taphnas. The two books place the same man in two countries, and Baruch gives no account of how he came to the other one. The page reports both and resolves neither. The Jeremiah 45–48 study prints the word to Baruch that stands at Greek 51:31–35 (MT 45:1–5).
• The date. Baruch 1:2 reads ἐν τῷ ἔτει τῷ πέμπτῳ ἐν ἑβδόμῃ τοῦ μηνὸς, in the fifth year, on the seventh of the month. Greek 2 Kings 25:8 dates the burning to ἐν τῷ μηνὶ τῷ πέμπτῳ ἑβδόμῃ τοῦ μηνός, the fifth month, the seventh of the month, and Greek Jeremiah 52:12 to the fifth month and the tenth day. Year in Baruch, month in Kings; the run between them is 3. Which year Baruch means it does not say.
• Praying for the king. Jeremiah’s letter tells the exiles to pray for the city of their captivity (Greek Jeremiah 36:7, MT 29:7; the run with Baruch 1:11 is 3, and pray for). Baruch names the king, and his son: Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar. This shelf’s Daniel 1–6 study, citing the Nabonidus Chronicle and the Verse Account of Nabonidus, makes Belshazzar the son of Nabonidus; Daniel 5 calls Nebuchadnezzar his father (5:2), as Baruch does. This page did not consult the Babylonian records.
• Daniel’s prayer (Daniel 9:4–19). The same confession in a canonical book, held here in Hebrew and in two Greek texts. The Hebrew of Daniel 9:4–19, screened against the other 23,188 verse units of the Hebrew Bible, reaches 5 consecutive words and no more — at 9:4 (Deuteronomy 7:9 and Nehemiah 1:5) and 9:10 (Jeremiah 3:25) — and two of its 16 verses, 9:5 and 9:9, share no two consecutive words with any other verse. This is the figure the Daniel 8–11 study prints. A Hebrew run and a Greek run are not the same unit: the five Hebrew words of 9:10’s run with Jeremiah 3:25 are nine Greek words in the Old Greek of 9:10 and in Baruch 1:21; their Greek tail, τῆς φωνῆς κυρίου τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν, stands in 5 Greek units, two of them Jeremiah. The page does not compare depths across languages.
• The Psalms of Solomon. 18 psalms in Greek, usually dated to the first century BC; the eleventh shares Baruch’s closing images. Measured in Stage 4, and no direction is claimed: two texts can share a source neither copied.

• Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.35.1 quotes Baruch 4:36–5:9 — introduced as the words of Jeremiah the prophet — to argue that the promises to Jerusalem are to be read of an earthly Jerusalem and not allegorised.
• Cyprian, To Quirinus (Testimonies) 2.6, under the heading That Christ is God, quotes the verses the KJV numbers Baruch 3:35–37 (Greek and Latin 3:36–38), introduced in Jeremiah, ending After this He was seen upon earth, and He conversed with men.
• Augustine, City of God 18.33 quotes the same verses among Jeremiah’s prophecies of Christ, and says that some ascribe the testimony to Baruch, Jeremiah’s secretary, though it is more commonly ascribed to Jeremiah.

• Greek Baruch: 141 rows, 2,608 words, chapters 1–5 = 22, 35, 38, 37, 9.
• KJV Baruch 1–5: 140 verses (22, 35, 37, 37, 9); Vulgate: 141 (22, 35, 38, 37, 9). The only offset in verse numbers is KJV chapter 3, one behind from Greek 3:36 on; the places where a clause sits in a neighbouring verse are listed under Versification above.
• Baruch’s own internal echoes: 1:15 and 2:6 share 8 words; 1:18 and 2:10 share 9; 4:37 and 5:5 share 4 — and where 4:37 has the sons gathered from east to west, 5:5 has them from the setting of the sun to the east.
• The triple confession at 2:12 — ἡμάρτομεν ἠσεβήσαμεν ἠδικήσαμεν — stands in 1 unit of the 30,348, this one. The Old Greek of Daniel 9:5 has the same three verbs in another order (ἡμάρτομεν ἠδικήσαμεν ἠσεβήσαμεν), and the run engine scores the pair 1. A reordered list is invisible to a contiguous run, and this is the cleanest example on the page.
• The prayer of the dead (3:4). The Greek reads τῆς προσευχῆς τῶν τεθνηκότων Ισραηλ, the prayer of the dead of Israel; the KJV, the prayers of the dead Israelites. Earlier the same prayer says that the dead in Hades give God no glory (2:17), and the poem that follows calls the living exiles counted with those in Hades (3:10–11). It is a prayer said by the dead of Israel, not a prayer for the dead, and the page draws no teaching about the dead from it.

Baruch 1–5, 141 rows against 7,927 verses of the Greek New Testament: 138 reach two, 100 reach three, 19 reach four, 3 reach five, nothing reaches six, seven or eight, and 1 row reaches 9. 8 rows reach four or more with a tie band of 1.

The 9 is not contact with Baruch (see 2:35 in the codex): it is the covenant formula of Greek Jeremiah 38:33, which Hebrews 8 introduces as speech and matches for 13 words. The two fives are 1:3 with Revelation 22:9 (5 words, the words of this book; tie band 1 from Baruch’s side and 1 from Revelation’s, whose deepest Greek Old Testament run is this one, at 5) and 2:2 with Luke 24:44, the things written in the law — 5 words, band 1 from Baruch’s side, but from Luke’s side 7 Greek Old Testament units reach five and Joshua (B) 9:2e (MT Joshua 8:34) reaches 6. A band of 1 on one side and 7 on the other is a formula. The 4 with Paul — 4:7 with 1 Corinthians 10:20 — is band 1 from Baruch and 2 from Paul, whose deepest Greek Old Testament run is 4: Deuteronomy 32:17 and Baruch 4:7.

• Baruch 3:29 → Romans 10:6 — 3. Paul’s Who will go up into heaven? scores 3 with Deuteronomy 30:12 too; its own deepest Greek Old Testament partners are Deuteronomy 8:17 and 9:4 at 6 — Μὴ εἴπῃς ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ σου·, do not say in your heart — and 114 Greek Old Testament units reach three with it. Baruch 3:30 → Romans 10:7: 1. Baruch crosses the sea; Paul goes down into the abyss.
• Baruch 3:38 → John 1:14 — 1. Deepest New Testament run for 3:38: 3 (upon the earth), tie band 57.
• Baruch 1:10 → Hebrews 10:6 and 10:8 — 4, tie band 2: whole burnt offerings and for sin. From Hebrews’ side the band is 2: Baruch 1:10 and Greek Psalm 39:7 (MT 40:7, KJV 40:6), which is the psalm Hebrews 10 introduces with he says. A sacrificial list, not contact.

Baruch’s 141 rows against the other 30,207 screened Greek Old Testament units: all reach two, 123 reach three, 90 four, 46 five, 31 six, 15 seven, 10 eight, 4 nine, 2 ten, and 1 reaches 12.

The prose half and the poetic half are different kinds of text by this measure. 28 of 65 prose rows reach six; 3 of 76 poetic rows do, and those three are Proverbs 30:4 (3:29, the who went up), Genesis 3:1 (3:16, the beasts upon the earth) and Judges (A) 9:13 (4:36, the joy that is from God).

Across the 27 verses of 1:15–2:19, each Baruch verse was measured against the 16 verses of Daniel 9:4–19 in each Greek text. Theodotion is the nearer at 7, the Old Greek at 7, and they tie at 13. Theodotion holds the deepest run (12, at 2:11); the Old Greek’s deepest is 9, at 1:21.

Then the wider screen, in the same breath. Against all 30,207 other Greek Old Testament units, 6 verses of the confession have a Greek Daniel as their only deepest partner — 3 of them Theodotion (1:16 at 10, 2:8 at 7, 2:11 at 12) and 3 the Old Greek (1:18 at 6, 1:21 at 9, 2:10 at 6). And from Daniel’s side: Theodotion’s 9:15 has Baruch 2:11 as its only deepest partner (12); the Old Greek’s 9:10 has Baruch 1:21 (9); Theodotion’s 9:8 ties at 10 between Baruch 1:16 and its own Old Greek twin (2 partners; Baruch 1:16 against the Old Greek’s 9:8 is only 5).

The runs are exclusive. Each of these sequences stands in exactly two of the 30,348 units — Baruch and one Daniel: the twelve of 2:11 (and even its six-word core, from the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, which has 2; the three-word with a mighty hand alone has 12); the six-word core of 1:16 (2); the nine of 1:21 (2); we did not entreat the face of the Lord at 2:8 (2); all these evils came upon us at 2:7 (2).

What this does not show. It does not show which way anything went, and it does not date anything. A text can sit between two Greek translations because it used both, because both drew on something like it, or because a later hand brought one text towards another. The page measures the position and declines the story.

• The sentence a reader matches first is not the long run. 1:15 and Daniel 9:7 say the same thing and score 4 (Theodotion) and 2 (Old Greek); the four is as at this day, which stands in 22 units.
• Not every deep confession run is Daniel. 2:7’s deepest partner is Jeremiah 16:10 (8 words), not Daniel; 2:17’s is Hezekiah’s prayer, 2 Kings 19:16 (7, open, O Lord, your eyes and see); 2:35’s is Jeremiah 38:33 (9). The deepest partners of the prayer’s verses lie in Greek Jeremiah, Deuteronomy, Kings and other books as well as Daniel — 12 of the 27 confession verses have a Daniel 9 verse anywhere among their deepest partners.
• The triple confession at 2:12 scores 1 against the Old Greek of Daniel 9:5, which has the same three verbs in a different order. Contiguity is the engine’s rule, and here it hides an agreement a reader sees at once.

• Job 28: deepest run 3, at 2 verses of the wisdom poem.
• Deuteronomy 30:12–13: 3:29 scores 4 with 30:12 — and those words, into heaven and, stand in 25 Greek Old Testament units and 3 New Testament verses — and 3:30 scores 4 with 30:13 — tie band 1 for 3:30 (across the sea and). Proverbs 30:4: 6, band 1 both ways. The errand into heaven runs longer with Proverbs; the errand across the sea runs only with Deuteronomy.
• Greek Isaiah 40–66: across the 42 verses of the consolation the deepest run is 4, reached by 6, and nothing reaches five; Isaiah 1–39 also tops out at 4, reached by 2. 5:7’s levelled mountains score 2 with Isaiah 40:4. Whatever the consolation shares with Isaiah 40–66 in theme, it shares no more than 4 consecutive words with it.

• Anything Semitic behind the Greek. No Hebrew or Aramaic Baruch is held. Whether the prose half, the poems, or neither were composed in Hebrew is reported in the literature both ways and is not tested here. Gigot (1907) reports Syro-Hexaplar marginal notes saying some Greek words ‘are not found in the Hebrew’; the Syro-Hexapla is not on this disk, and the page cannot check what those notes say or what Hebrew they mean.
• Tov’s argument about the Greek. An encyclopedia summary read online (Wikipedia, ‘Book of Baruch’) reports that Emanuel Tov, in The Septuagint Translation of Jeremiah and Baruch (1976), found the revision that marks the second half of Greek Jeremiah continuing into Baruch 1:1–3:8. The page did not read Tov. Its seam at 3:9 is a run-depth count and is not offered as a test of his thesis — a count can agree with a thesis for a different reason.
• The dates of the two Greek Daniels. The usual account puts the Old Greek earlier and the Theodotion text later, and scholars debate how much of the Theodotion-type text is older than the man it is named for. This page consulted none of that literature and draws no chronology from its runs. That Baruch shares exclusive runs with both is measured; what that implies about dates is not.
• The commentaries. Moore (1977), Burke (1982), Steck (1993) and Adams (2014) were identified and not consulted. Nothing on this page claims their support.
• The date of Baruch, and of the Psalms of Solomon. Taken from the reference works, not measured, and nothing here depends on them.
• Belshazzar’s father. The Babylonian records were not consulted; the page reports that Baruch and Daniel 5 agree with each other, and what the Daniel 1–6 study says of the records.

• The English column is quotation, not a measured parallel. The KJV Apocrypha is a translation of a Greek text close to, but not identical with, the CATSS edition, and it divides chapter 3 differently. The page marks the offset and the internal shifts, and aligns by content.
• A clause the Greek file does not have. At 2:2 the KJV and the Vulgate both open with a clause that the CATSS row lacks — KJV To bring upon us great plagues, Vulgate ut adduceret Dominus super nos mala magna — and both Greek Daniels have such a clause at 9:12, ἐπαγαγεῖν ἐφ' ἡμᾶς κακὰ μεγάλα. No other Greek text of Baruch is held, so the page cannot say whether the file has dropped words or the Greek it was made from differs. Every Baruch figure on this page is a count of the file as held, and at 2:2 a fuller text could change the Daniel figures.
• Contiguous runs miss reordering — the 2:12 triad scores 1 against verbs a reader can see are the same — and miss vocabulary shared out of order, which is the whole of the Psalms of Solomon relation. The Daniel finding is strong because it is long, contiguous and exclusive; the page’s weaker findings are weaker for exactly the reasons this screen is blind.
• Two normalisations. The New Testament screen folds the spellings MorphGNT treats as one (ou/ouk/ouch, ek/ex, the movable nu); the Greek Old Testament screen, one edition against itself, does not. The 30,207 target units include both Greek Daniels, so a run shared by both counts twice in a band — which is why the page reports the Daniels separately.
• Verse length is not controlled in the headline seam. The prose verses average 22.3 words and the poetic ones 15.3, and a longer verse has more chances to share a run. Restricted to verses of 14 words or more, 26 of 54 prose verses reach six and 3 of 42 poetic verses do; restricted to verses of 10 to 20 words, 10 of 25 and 3 of 50. The seam survives the control, but the counts in the introduction do not show that by themselves.
• The structure diagram claims one thing: the seam, which it counts. The four parts are the text’s own divisions, and the page expressly declines to make a chiasm of them.
• Hebrew and Greek depths are different units and are never compared on this page as if they were the same.

• Carey A. Moore, Daniel, Esther, and Jeremiah: The Additions (Anchor Bible, 1977).
• Emanuel Tov, The Septuagint Translation of Jeremiah and Baruch (1976).
• David G. Burke, The Poetry of Baruch (1982).
• Odil Hannes Steck, Das apokryphe Baruchbuch (1993).
• Sean A. Adams, Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah (Brill, 2014).
• F. Gigot, “Baruch,” The Catholic Encyclopedia (1907) — read.
• Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.35.1; Cyprian, To Quirinus 2.6; Augustine, City of God 18.33 — read in English translation online.

• “The Greek of Daniel” is two texts. Baruch’s confession runs twelve words with one of them and nine with the other, and in one sentence it runs with both. Whenever someone tells you what ‘the Greek’ of a book reads, it is fair to ask which Greek.
• The obvious parallel is not where the evidence is. 1:15 and Daniel 9:7 say the same thing and score four; the twelve-word run is at 2:11. Measure before you repeat.
• Some kinship cannot be counted in a row. Baruch 5 and Psalms of Solomon 11 share rare words and the order of three images, and never more than three words running. A screen that finds only copying would call them strangers.
• The book’s own subject is a prayer said in two cities. The exiles write it; Jerusalem is to read it aloud on feast days. Confession, here, is something a people does together, in public, and at a distance from each other.
• One concrete response. Baruch’s confession has a line the canon shares, in Daniel’s mouth: we did not listen to the voice of the Lord our God (Daniel 9:10, this page’s gloss of the Hebrew). Pray Daniel 9:4–19 aloud this week, with someone else, in the first person plural.