Patrick Comerford
In my daily prayer diary each morning, I usually reflect on the Gospel readings in the lectionary at the Eucharist. However, throughout this week and last week, the lectionary readings at Morning Prayer have been from the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation.
Having visited Patmos once and tried, over the years, many of the sites of the seven churches named in the Book of Revelation – including Ephesus, Smyrna and Laodicea (the Pergamon Museum in Berlin hardly counts) – re-reading the book these days has been like a biblical tour of Asia Minor.
The books of Daniel and Revelation are paired these weeks because of their apocalyptic visions and themes in the Kingdom Season as we prepare for the Feast of Christ the King and for Advent.
The Book of Daniel is one of the few parts of the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament that includes, depending on which version of the Bible you are using, varying amounts of Koine Greek in the original text.
The first part of Daniel, Chapters 1-6, is written mostly in Biblical Aramaic. This part, with its six court tales, focuses on Daniel and his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, during their exile in Babylon under kings Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar. The episodes that are familiar to many include the fiery furnace, Belshazzar’s Feast, the writing on the wall, and Daniel being thrown into the lions’ den. Chapters 7-12, with their apocalyptic visions, feature symbolic dreams and visions of four vast empires, cosmic conflict, and the ultimate ushering in of God’s kingdom.
The chronological progression moves from Babylonian to Median rule in chapters 1-6, to Persian rule in chapters 7-12. The ram in Chapter 8 represents the Medes and the Persians, the goat is Greece, and the ‘little horn’ is a wicked king.
The book is written in a mixture of Hebrew, Biblical Aramaic and Koine Greek. But Daniel is not unique in its use of Greek. A number of Biblical books that are often described as Apocrypha or deuterocanonical were composed originally in Koine Greek between the third and first centuries BCE. They include: the Wisdom of Solomon, written in Greek in a style emulating Hebrew poetry; II Maccabees, originally in Greek with a distinct Hellenistic rhetorical style; the Letter of Jeremiah, often attached to Baruch; additions to Esther – the Greek version has about 104 additional verses and prayers written in Greek; and three chapters in Daniel found in the Septuagint but not in the Hebrew or Aramaic text, including the Prayer of Azariah, the Song of the Three Holy Children, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon.
In addition, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) was originally written in Hebrew ca 180 BCE by Ben Sira, then translated into Greek by his grandson around 132 BCE. Portions of Baruch may have a Semitic background, although the final form or sections circulated heavily in Greek.
Indeed, the traditional names used in English for almost the entire Old Testament come from the Greek titles in the Septuagint rather than their original Hebrew titles, including Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
The title Psalm and the word Psalms come from the Greek ψαλμός (psalmos), meaning a song sung to the accompaniment of a harp or stringed instrument. Psalmos was used in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew word מִזְמוֹר (mizmor), which refers to a song accompanied by music, and in the Hebrew Bible the book is called Tehillim (תהילים), which means ‘Praises’.
Other books with popular names derived from their Greek titles in the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew titles include Chronicles and Lamentations.
The New Testament – including the recorded words of Jesus – frequently reflects or quotes the Septuagint. In all, 340 places in the New Testament cite the Septuagint text, but only 33 places that cite from the Masoretic Text rather than the Septuagint. However, theologians and historians continue to debate whether Jesus directly quotes the Greek Septuagint or spoke in Hebrew and Aramaic which the Greek Gospel writers later translated or aligned with the text of the Septuagint.
Of course, some people ask about the use of the Septuagint by the New Testament authors because the Septuagint has the seven deuterocanonical books that are now omitted in Protestant Bibles. Showing that the New Testament authors quoted from the Septuagint might argue in favour of the inspiration of these seven books, although it does not in itself prove so.
The Jewish canon of scripture, the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible, comprises 24 authoritative books preserved primarily in the Masoretic Text. While the core collection took shape during and after the Second Temple period, the exact boundaries and text stabilisation evolved through rabbinic traditions culminating in the Masoretic standardisation between the seventh and tenth centuries CE.
On the other hand, the Early Church used the Septuagint, and the Church decided on the canon of the Bible in the fourth century CE, at the Council of Rome (382), the Synod of Hippo (393) and two of the Councils of Carthage (397, 419), and later at the Council of Florence (1431-1449). The Reformers who rejected the canon that had been accepted in the Church from the fourth century on rejected over 1,000 years of tradition because of their own views on a number of practices. It could be argued they allowed their own doctrines to shape Scripture rather than allowing Scripture to shape their doctrines.
Returning to the Greek text of Daniel, it is considerably longer than the Hebrew text due to the additional stories. They remain in Catholic and Orthodox versions, but were rejected by the Reformation movements in the 16th century, arguably because they were absent from the Hebrew Bible, despite Luther was respecter of Jews or Jewish tradition, but also because they support accepting concepts such as Purgatory and the ‘Holy Souls’ and practices such as praying for the dead.
The Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children are placed after Daniel 3: 23; the story of Susanna and the Elders is placed before chapter 1 in some Greek versions and after chapter 12 in others; the story of Bel and the Dragon is placed at the end of the book.
Daniel must be the prime candidate to be the patron of vegetarians for he and his companions in prison were given only vegetables to eat and water to drink yet ‘they appeared better and fatter than all the young men who had been eating the royal rations’. (Daniel 1: 11-17)
The Book of Daniel is preserved in the 12-chapter Masoretic Text and in two longer Greek versions, the original Septuagint version (ca 100 BCE), and the later Theodotion version from some time in the second century CE. Both Greek texts contain the three additions to Daniel. Theodotion is much closer to the Masoretic Text and replaced the original Septuagint version in all but two manuscripts of the Septuagint itself.
At least four words in Daniel 3 are derived from Greek: κιθάρα (cithara), σαμβύκη (sambuca), ψαλτήριον (psaltery) and συμφωνία (symphonia). Their use appears to support arguments for the late composition of the Book of Daniel. Although the events are set in the sixth century BCE during the Babylonian exile, proficiency in Greek was not widespread in the Near East before the Macedonian conquests in the 330s. Most scholars date the final form of the book to the second century BCE, ca 167 to 163 BCE, during the persecution of the Jews during the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
The text includes prophecy rooted in Jewish history as well as a portrayal of the end times that is cosmic in scope and political in focus. The message for the original readers is that just as the God of Israel saves Daniel from his enemies, so too God shall save the people in their present oppression.
The concepts of immortality and resurrection, with rewards for the righteous and punishment for the wicked, have roots much deeper than the Book of Daniel. Still, the earliest clear Biblical statement on these ideas appears in the final chapter: ‘Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt’ (Daniel 12: 2). Interpreters of a more Protestant disposition are concerned that this text, and other passages they dismiss or ignore as apocryphal or deuterocanonical, can lead to arguments about such issues as Purgatory and prayer for or on behalf of the dead.
One of the readings earlier this week (Daniel 5: 1-12) described Belshazzar’s feast in which the king is arrayed clothed in purple, with a chain of gold around his neck. It reminds me of the parable of Dives and Lazarus (Luke 16: 19-31), in which the unnamed rich man is dressed in purple and fine linen as he feasts ‘sumptuously every day’, while Lazarus is a reworking of the role of Daniel and his three friends. Both Belshazzar and Dives die that very night.
The separation of the sheep and goats is also an apocalyptic image found in the Gospel on Sunday week, the Feast of Christ the King and the Sunday next before Advent (Matthew 25: 31-46).
During these weeks, as I read about Daniel’s captivity in Babylon, I have thought too of how the phrase ‘Great Babylon’ is heard in Leonard Cohen’s work, most notably in his song ‘Last Year’s Man’ in the album Songs of Love and Hate (1971), and connects with his recurring themes of exile, spirituality and biblical imagery. In the lyrics of ‘Last Year’s Man’, he sings:
I came upon a wedding that old families had contrived
Bethlehem the bridegroom, Babylon the bride
Great Babylon was naked, oh she stood there trembling for me
And Bethlehem inflamed us both like the shy one at some orgy
Cohen juxtaposes Bethlehem (representing spiritual tradition, the Messiah, or the sacred) with Babylon (representing worldly temptation, material exile, or the flesh) as an arranged union or tension in human experience.
Great Babylon stands exposed and vulnerable (‘naked … trembling for me’), capturing a classic Cohen mixture of the sacred and the profane.
There are other references to Babylon in Cohen’s songs and poetry. Where he draws on Biblical and Kabbalistic symbolism, as in Book of Mercy, Babylon serves as a metaphorical landscape for worldly confusion, mortality, and the human soul torn between divine longing and earthly enticement.
In his book Leonard Cohen: The Mystical Roots Of Genius (2021), Harry Freedman explores the folklore, legends and Bible stories that inspired Cohen in his work. He suggests one of the most intriguing aspects of Cohen’s songs is how much he used Bible stories and religious folklore in his lyrics.
Freedman says ‘Babylon features a lot in Cohen’s music’ and that ‘he uses it as a symbol of darkness, corruption and evil’. In ‘By the Rivers Dark’, on the album Ten New Songs (2001), Cohen draws heavily on Psalm 137 and the Babylonian captivity, symbolising spiritual exile, the threat of losing one’s cultural or religious identity, and finding oneself seduced or transformed by the darkness of Babylon.
The morning cycle of readings from the Book of Daniel continues tomorrow (Daniel 7: 15-28). Daniel 7 opens the second half of the book, which presents four apocalyptic visions that recognise that the people of God experience oppression now and into the future but that at the end of time God will intervene to rescue them.
In the heavenly court, the Ancient of Days, who is God as judge (verse 9), gives an everlasting kingdom to one ‘like a son of man’, a term Jesus later applies to himself.
The writer admits at the end, ‘Here the account ends. As for me, Daniel, my thoughts greatly terrified me, and my face turned pale; but I kept the matter in my mind.’
Still, before that admission, the message is one of hope for global justice and peace:
The kingship and dominion
and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven
shall be given to the people of the holy ones of the Most High;
their kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom,
and all dominions shall serve and obey them.’ (Daniel 7: 27)
‘Great Babylon was naked, oh she stood there trembling for me’ (Leonard Cohen, ‘Last Year’s Man’, 1971)
