Septuagint - Daniel (Chisianus Version)

By Scriptural Research Institute

The Old Greek translation was the version originally in the Septuagint, however, the authenticity and accuracy of any and all versions of the Book of Daniel have always been in doubt. The Codex Chisianus (also known as the Chigi Manuscript 88) is accepted as being the closest to the Old Greek translation. It claims to be a copy of the Christian scholar Origen of Alexandria's recension from circa 240 AD, and as the Syriac translation of Origen's recension from 616 and 617 AD, the Syro-Hexaplar Codex, is virtually identical, they are both accepted as Origen's work. Origen rejected both the shorter version of Daniel found in the Hebrew and Aramaic translation that the Jews of his day were using, as well as Theodotion's translation, which was largely based on the Hebrew and Aramaic text, and claimed the Old Greek translation was the closest to the original text of Daniel.

In 1931, a damaged papyrus from the 3rd-century AD was found, now known as Papyrus 967, which contains a Greek translation of Daniel that is similar to the Codex Chisianus and Syro-Hexaplar Codex's version of Daniel, but does not seem to be Origen's work, supporting his recension as being the 'Old Greek' version. While the content of the Codex Chisianus, Syro-Hexaplar Codex, and Papyrus 967 are essentially the same, Papyrus 967 deviates from the others by having Daniel's visions found in chapters 7 and 8 earlier in the book, before Masoretic chapter 5, likely moved due to confusion over the identities of the two kings named Belshazzar. This translation follows the oldest documented chapter structure of Daniel, starting with the chapter of Susanna, and incorporating the Old Greek versions of Masoretic chapters 7 and 8 earlier in the book, as found in Papyrus 967.

Overall, Daniel may be one of the most abused of the ancient authors, as several authors appear to have added to or redacted his work during the Persian Era. The surviving copies of Daniel are such a mess that they are generally dismissed as a work of fiction by most secular historians that research them, as they do not correspond to any version of Babylonian, Median, and Persian history, although being set in the Neo-Babylonian and Early Persian Eras. Ironically, the early sections of the Book of Daniel could only have been written in the Neo-Babylonian and early Persian eras, as the redactions that took place to the earlier sections of text only make sense in the political reality of the Early-Persian Empire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scriptural Research Institute
• Release date: Sep 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781990289248

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Copyright

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

SEPTUAGINT: DANIEL (CHISIANUS VERSION)

Digital edition. September 19, 2021.

Copyright © 2021 Scriptural Research Institute.

ISBN: 978-1-990289-24-8

The version of Daniel found in the Codex Chisianus was translated into Greek sometime before 134 BC.

This English translation was created by the Scriptural Research Institute in 2021, primarily from the Codex Chisianus and Papyrus 967, although the Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus were also used for reference. Additionally, the Westminster Leningrad Codex and Aleppo Codex of the Masoretic Text, and the Dead Sea Scrolls 1QDana, 4QDana, 4QDanb, 4QDanc, 4QDand, and 6QpapDan, as well as the Peshitta, and the versions of Daniel found in the Harklean translation (SyrH), and ArabGr1 (MS London BL Or. 1326), ArabGr1a (MS London BL Or. 1326), ArabHebr1 (MS Sinai Ar. 2), ArabSyr1 (MSS Sinai Ar. 1, Sinai Ar. 513, Sinai Ar. 597, and Oxford Bodl. Fraser 257), ArabSyr2 (MSS Sinai Ar. NF Paper 9, Sinai Ar. 9, and Berlin Staatsbililothek Diez A fol. 41), and ArabSyr3 (MS Sinai Ar. 539) were used for comparative analysis.

The image used for the cover is ‘Alexander the Great in the Temple of Jerusalem’ by Sebastiano Conca, painted in 1736.

Note: The notes for this book include multiple ancient scripts. For your device to properly render them, it will require a Unicode font capable of displaying Akkadian Cuneiform, Arabic, Avestan, Coptic, Extended Latin, Ge‘ez, Greek, Hebrew, Imperial Aramaic, Inscriptional Pahlavi, Meroitic Cursive, Old Persian Cuneiform, Old South Arabian, Phoenician, Syriac, Tifinagh, and Ugaritic.

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In the mid-3rd century BC, King Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Egypt ordered a translation of the ancient Hebrew scriptures for the Library of Alexandria, which resulted in the creation of the Septuagint. The original version, published circa 250 BC, only included the Torah, or in Greek terms, the Pentateuch. The Torah is the five books traditionally credited to Moses, circa 1500 BC: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. According to Jewish tradition, the original Torah was lost when the Babylonians destroyed the Temple of Solomon and was later rewritten by Ezra the Scribe from memory during the Second Temple period.

It is generally accepted that there were several versions of the ancient Israelite scriptures before the translation of the Septuagint, mostly written in Canaanite or Aramaic, although the older sections of the Torah appear to have originated in Akkadian Cuneiform, and some later books in Greek. The Book of Daniel is by far the least standardized of all the books that made it into both the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text, with no less than 16 versions surviving from the classical and early medieval eras. The Septuagint manuscripts contain two versions, the standard version found in most manuscripts, and the ‘Old Greek’ version, which only survives virtually complete in the Medieval era Codex Chisianus.

The common translation was done by the Jewish scholar Theodotion circa 150 AD, and supplanted the Old Greek translation as the old translation was so poorly made. The language found in the Old Greek translation indicates that the translation was made by someone who was not a native Greek speaker, had not formally learned Greek, and seems to have learned the language haphazardly from a variety of Greeks from across the Greek-speaking world. Many of his choices in vocabulary are similar enough to the meaning he is trying to express, but not actually the correct terms. Additionally, the translation is filled with unique regional terms from a variety of Greek dialects, including Ionic, Attic, Doric, and Aeolic, which would have made reading the book arduous for most Classical Era Greeks.

The Old Greek translation was the version originally in the Septuagint, however, the authenticity and accuracy of any and all versions of the Book of Daniel have always been in doubt. The Codex Chisianus (also known as the Chigi Manuscript 88) is accepted as being the closest to the Old Greek translation. It claims to be a copy of the Christian scholar Origen of Alexandria’s recension from circa 240 AD, and as the Syriac translation of Origen’s recension from 616 and 617 AD, the Syro-Hexaplar Codex, is virtually identical, they are both accepted as Origen’s work. Origen rejected both the shorter version of Daniel found in the Hebrew and Aramaic translation that the Jews of his day were using, as well as Theodotion’s translation, which was largely based on the Hebrew and Aramaic text, and claimed the Old Greek translation was the closest to the original text of Daniel. In 1931, a damaged papyrus from the 3rd-century AD was found, now known as Papyrus 967, which contains a Greek translation of Daniel that is similar to the Codex Chisianus and Syro-Hexaplar Codex’s version of Daniel, but does not seem to be Origen’s work, supporting his recension as being the ‘Old Greek’ version. While the content of the Codex Chisianus, Syro-Hexaplar Codex, and Papyrus 967 are essentially the same, Papyrus 967 deviates from the others by having Daniel’s visions found in chapters 7 and 8 earlier in the book, before Masoretic chapter 5, likely moved due to confusion over the identities of the two kings named Belshazzar.

When Theodotion made his translation, he primarily used the shorter Hebrew and Aramaic texts that the Jews were using at the time, and filled in the missing sections by copying from the Old Greek translation. The version of Daniel found in the Masoretic Text is the shortest version of Daniel to survive to the present, and is arguably the strangest, as it is a book retained in two languages. Chapter 1, and the opening lines of chapter 2 are in Hebrew, the rest of chapter 2, as well as chapters 3 through 7 are in Aramaic, and the rest is in Hebrew. This combination of languages does not match the content of the books, and cannot be explained as the different sections originating in different types of content, as chapters 1 through 3 are stories about Daniel’s three friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. These three chapters were written in the third-person perspective, while chapter 4 was written in the first-person perspective from the view of King Nebuchadnezzar, before the text switched back to the third-person in chapters 5 and 6 where Daniel explained Belshazzar’s visions. Chapter 7 through 12 follow, and are presented as a series of Daniel’s visions, and mostly written in the first person, which culminates with the Persian empire falling to Alexander, the end of the world, and the resurrection of the dead. The natural division of the book would be between chapters 6 and 7, the early stories and the later prophecies, however, both Hebrew and Aramaic text appear in both sections. This strange combination of Hebrew and Aramaic is also present in the surviving fragments of Daniel found among in the Dead Sea Scrolls, indicating the book was already half-Hebrew and half-Aramaic by the era of the Hasmonean Dynasty, which is when the Hebrew translations of most of the other Aramaic and Canaanite (Paleo-Hebrew) books first appeared.

Aramaic loanwords are found intermingled with Hebrew in the Masoretic Text, proving that many of the Hebrew books were translated from Aramaic, however, in the case of Daniel, it appears the Hebrew translator decided to not bother translating large sections of the book. As the Hebrew translations of the books do not appear to have been standardized before the reign of Simon the Zealot, the first High Priest-King of the Hasmonean Dynasty, it is possible that he simply had not finished translating the text of Daniel before he died. There were several other books in use in Judea at the time that were not translated into Hebrew, and ultimately did not become part of the Masoretic Text, although they were translated into Greek at the Library of Alexandria. Hebrew and Aramaic fragments of some of these books have been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls indicating that they were not simply written in Greek and added to the ancient Israel scriptures.

The reason the Masoretic version of Daniel is shorter than the Greek could be because its translation was incomplete, however, the traditional interpretation has been the assumption that the extra chapters in the Greek version were popular with the Israelites living in Egypt when the Septuagint was translated, but not popular in Judea. The 12 chapters found in Masoretic Daniel are found in all variations of Daniel, however, don’t always contain all of the same content. All copies of Daniel other than the Masoretic version, including Theodotion’s translation, have an extended version of the Masoretic chapter 3, which includes the prayer of Azariah and the song of the three young men. Theodotion’s choice to include this in the text of chapter 3, has caused some debate, as he moved two chapters he could not find in the Hebrew or Aramaic version to the end of the book, suggesting he did have a Semitic language version of Daniel which included this text. Additionally, he transliterated Aramaic words in the text which had been translated in the Old Greek version, indicating he was translating from an Aramaic version of Daniel which included the Prayer of Azariah and the song of the three young men.

Theodotion could not find Hebrew or Aramaic versions of two of the chapters in the Old Greek Daniel and so he moved them to the end of his translation, yet, somehow his copy of the two chapters is not the same as the chapters in the Old Greek version, meaning that there was more than one version of the Old Greek chapters in circulation. Theodotion was an obsessive translator, often transliterating Aramaic and Hebrew words instead of translating them into Greek if he was not entirely sure of the meaning, which provides a view of the texts he translated from, and in some cases, the words he transliterated were Aramaic words in texts that are retained in Hebrew within the Masoretic Text, indicating that more of Daniel was available in Aramaic at the time, and he treated it as more authentic than the later Hebrew translation. Nevertheless, the majority of the text he worked from does appear to correspond linguistically to the surviving Masoretic Text.

The chapters moved to the end of his translation are generally known today as Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon, and are sometimes treated as separate books. Bel and the Dragon, which Theodotion placed at the end of his translation, is found in all classical era versions of Daniel other than the Masoretic version. The situation is more complicated with Susanna, which is in around half of the classical versions. According to classical commentaries, Susanna was always the first chapter of Daniel, until Theodotion moved it, and it became the thirteenth chapter. The Syro-Hexaplar Codex maintains Susanna as the opening chapter of Daniel, as do the versions of Daniel found in MS London BL Or. 1326, MS London BL Or. 1326, and MS Sinai Ar. 539, and MS Sinai Ar. NF Paper 9 versions. Both the MS Sinai Ar. 9 and Papyrus 967 versions of Daniel have Susanna last, and in the case of MS Sinai Ar. 9, it appears to have been added by a later scribe, meaning it was originally missing. In the Peshitta, the standard Christian Syriac translation of the Septuagint from the 3rd-century AD, Susanna is sometimes treated as part of Daniel, and sometimes treated as a part of the Books of Women section.

This translation follows the oldest documented chapter structure of Daniel, starting with the chapter of Susanna, and incorporating the Old Greek versions of Masoretic chapters 7 and 8 earlier in the book, as found in Papyrus 967. As all other versions of Daniel follow a common chapter structure, either with Susanna before or after the twelve chapters found in the Masoretic Text, the term ‘common chapter’ is used to define the chapter structure used in the Masoretic version, Theodotion’s translation, and Origen’s translation. While Susanna works an introductory chapter to Daniel, placing common chapters 7 and 8 before the common chapter 5 confuses the chronology more than it already was by all people renamed Belshazzar in the book. The following chart shows a comparison of the common chapters to the structure used in this translation of the Old Greek:

•  Chapter 1 – Common chapter 13 (Susanna)

•  Chapter 2 – Common chapter 1

•  Chapter 3 – Common chapter 2

•  Chapter 4 – Common chapter 3

•  Chapter 5 – Common chapter 4

•  Chapter 6 – Common chapter 7

•  Chapter 7 – Common chapter 8

•  Chapter 8 – Common chapter 5

•  Chapter 9 – Common chapter 6

•  Chapter 10 – Common chapter 9

•  Chapter 11 – Common chapter 10

•  Chapter 12 – Common chapter 11

•  Chapter 13 – Common chapter 12

•  Chapter 14 – Common chapter 14 (Bel and the Dragon)

To this complex situation, someone decided to add another chapter, generally dubbed Daniel’s Fourteenth Vision. This vision is only found in one classical era version Daniel, MS London BL Or. 1326, a bilingual Coptic and Arabic translation, believed to have originated in the early Islamic era. This extra chapter is viewed as authentic by some Muslim scholars, however, has never been viewed as authentic by Jewish or Christian scholars, or secular historians. In all known versions of Daniel other than MS London BL Or. 1326 and the Masoretic version, Bel and the Dragon is the final chapter of Daniel. It is not in the Masoretic version, and is followed by Daniel’s Fourteenth Vision in MS London BL Or. 1326. Theodotion's translation of Bel and the Dragon is not the same as the Old Greek, however, does appear to have been based on it. He likely copied a Greek reworking of Daniel intended for children, similar to the children’s version of Tobit which became standard in the Early Christian Era. While Theodotion’s translation includes an opening line claiming that the chapter took place when Astyages died and Cyrus inherited his kingdom, while was 550 BC, the Old Greek translation states the chapter was taken from the Book of Habakkuk ben Jesus, and does not name the king in the story. This implies that the introduction mentioning Astyages and Cyrus was added later, in order to explain why the chapter was at the end of the book.

Overall, Daniel may be one of the most abused of the ancient authors, as several authors appear to have added to or redacted his work during the Persian Era. The surviving copies of Daniel are such a mess that they are generally dismissed as a work of fiction by most secular historians that research them, as they do not correspond to any version of Babylonian, Median, and Persian history, although being set in the Neo-Babylonian and Early Persian Eras. Ironically, the early sections of the Book of Daniel could only have been written in the Neo-Babylonian and early Persian eras, as the redactions that took place to the earlier sections of text only make sense in the political reality of the Early-Persian Empire.

As this translation follows the oldest chapter structure of the Old Greek version of Daniel, Susanna, common chapter 13, is the first chapter, which introduces Daniel as a youth among the captives from Judah living in Babylon. The wealthy Judahite man in the story, who owns the large house and garden in Babylon where the Judahites in Babylon would meet, is identified as being named Jehoiakim (ΙΩΑΚΙΜ) in the text, the same name as the former king of Judah, although he is not explicitly introduced as being the former king. The wealthy man’s wife is the woman named Susanna (ΣΟΥΣΑΝΝΑ), who is identified as the daughter of Hilkiah (ΧΕΛΚΙΟΥ). Again, Hilkiah is not further identified, however, is the name of a High Priest of Jerusalem from the time of King Jehoiakim’s father King Josiah, according to the Book of 4th Kingdoms (Masoretic Kings). As it was the custom for the king of Judah to marry the daughter of a high priest, this seems a clear indicator that the story was about the captive former king of Judah, Jehoiakim ben Josiah, and one of his wives, Susanna bat Hilkiah. According to 4th Kingdoms, King Jehoiakim’s first wife was Nehushta, the daughter of Elnathan, and she was the mother of Jehoiakim’s heir Jeconiah, which may be why the king was not explicitly identified in the text, however, it is more likely that his identification was intentionally obscured reduce the confusion around his son Jeconiah.

King Jehoiakim was the King of Judah between 609 and 598 BC, the third last king of Judah. He was appointed as king of Judah by King Necho II of Egypt after his father King Josiah was killed fighting the Egyptians at the Battle of Megiddo. In 605 BC, the Babylonians occupied Judah, and King Jehoiakim switched allegiances to Babylon. This was the siege of Jerusalem in which Daniel and the three youths were captured, along with a number of others, although none of the sources are clear on how many. Jehoiakim rebelled against Babylonian rule in 601 BC, leading to the second siege of Jerusalem by King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. This rebellion from Babylonian rule appears to have been funded by the Kushites, who were fomenting rebellion against the Babylonians, and Jehoiakim was expecting the Egyptians to invade and recapture Phoenicia and Aram, however, the Egyptians never came, and the Kushite diplomats escaped, leaving Jehoiakim to deal with Nebuchadnezzar alone. The rebellion was very unpopular among the religious leaders in Judah at the time. The prophet Jeremiah spent most of the siege in prison, and another prophet named Uriah ben Shemaiah was executed for speaking out against the rebellion.

The ancient texts are unclear what happened to Jehoiakim after the siege. The books of 2nd Paralipomenon (Masoretic Diḇrê Hayyāmîm) and 1st Ezra report that he was taken away in chains by Nebuchadnezzar, while the 1st-century Jewish Historian Josephus recorded that Nebuchadnezzar simply killed him. It was generally assumed by ancient Judahites that he died, however, the more likely thing for Nebuchadnezzar to have done, would have been to take him hostage, as he had previously taken the Judahite youths in 605 BC. There are surviving Babylonian records from the era, referred to as the Jehoiakim Ration Tablets, which report Ia’ukinu and his sons as recipients of food rations from the government in Babylon, indicating he lived there for some time. The tablets are dated to circa 592 BC, 13 years after his rebellion, however, are sometimes interpreted as referring to his son Jeconiah instead. As Jeconiah was also taken captive in Jerusalem during that siege, there seems to be a great deal of confusion throughout the ancient texts regarding whom exactly was being held in Babylon, Jehoiakim or Jeconiah. In many ancient texts, Jeconiah was called Jehoiakim the son of Jehoiakim, in other words Jehoiakim II, or Coniah, suggesting that Jeconiah may have been a nickname. The Babylonian spelling of Ia’ukinu (𒅀𒀪𒌑𒆠𒉡) makes it clear that they believed they were holding someone called Jehoiakim, and also his sons, but does not clarify if this was Jehoiakim I or Jehoiakim II (Jeconiah).

While someone called Jehoiakim was being held in Babylon, his brother, or uncle, Zedekiah, was installed as king of Judah after the siege, and after a decade also revolted against the Babylonians, allying his kingdom with Egypt. Again the Egyptian forces failed to materialize, and after