The Alexandrian Jews, recognizing the Septuagint as their Bible, accepted the whole of the Apocrypha as canonical. The Palestine Jews, on the other hand, limited their canonical Scriptures to the Hebrew Old Testament. There is, of course, some uncertainty (largely no doubt because it was originally a translation from the Hebrew) as to whether the Septuagint at the first included the Apocrypha in its whole extent or not, but all the evidence points to the fact that it did, though individual books like Dan existed apart before they formed a portion of the Greek or Egyptian canon.
In the early Christian church all the three "additions" are quoted as integral parts of Dan by Greek and by Latin Fathers, as e.g. by Irenaeus (IV, 5, 2 f); Tertullian (De idololatria c.18); Cyprian (Ad fortunatum, c.11).
By a decree of the Council of Trent these "additions" were for the Roman church made as much a part of the Bible canon as the Hebrew Book of Daniel. Protestant churches have as a rule excluded the whole of the Apocrypha from their Bibles, regarding its books as either "Deutero-canonical" or "non-canonical." In consequence of this attitude among Protestants the Apocrypha has until lately been greatly neglected by Protestant writers. But a great change is setting in, and some of the best commentaries by Protestant scholars produced in recent years deal with the Apocrypha and its teaching.
Julius Africanus (flourished about first half of 3rd century AD) was the first to impugn the truth of the stories embodied in the "additions" to Daniel. This he did in a letter to Origen to which the recipient vigorously replied.
The improbabilities and contradictions of these three pieces have often been pointed out from the time of Julius Africanus down to the present day. The following points may be set down as specimens: (1) Daniel is called a priest in the Septuagint (Bel and the Dragon, verse 1), and yet he is identified with the prophet of that name. (2) Habakkuk the prophet (he is so called in Theodotion (see Bel and the Dragon, verse 33), and no other can be intended) is made to be a contemporary of Daniel and also of the Persian king Cyrus (see Bel and the Dragon, verses 1 and 33 in the English Bible). Now Cyrus conquered Babylon in 538 BC, the principal Jews in Babylon returning to Palestine the following year. The events narrated in Bel and the Dragon could not have occurred during the time Cyrus was king of Babylon, but the Septuagint speaks of "the king" without naming him. (3) It was not Cyrus but Xerxes who destroyed the image of Bel, this being in 475 BC (see Herodotus i.183; Strabo xvi.1; Arrian, Exped. Alex., vii.1). (4) It is further objected that dragon-worship in Babylon, such as is implied in the dragon story, is contrary to fact. Star-worship, it has been said, did exist, but not animal-worship. So Eichhorn and Fritzsche. But there is every reason for believing that the worship of living animals as representing deity, and especially of the living serpent, existed in Babylon as among other nations of antiquity, including the Greeks and Romans (see Herzog, 1st edition, article "Drache zu Babylon," by J. G. Muller). It has already been pointed out (see list of meanings) that the word "dragon" denotes a serpent.
LITERATURE.
Eichhorn, Einleitung in die apoc. Schriften des Alten Testaments (1795), 431 ff (remarkable for its time: compares the Septuagint and Theodotion); W. H. Daubney, The Three Additions to Daniel (Cambridge, 1906; contains much matter though rather uncritically treated); the commentaries of Fritzsche (Vol I: still very rich in material; it forms part of the Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch); Bissell (in Lange's series, but not a translation); Ball Speaker's Commentary (this is the best English commentary on the Apocrypha. See also Schurer, Geschichte3,III , 333, and his article inRE 3, I, 639; and the articles by Kamphausen inEB , I, 1014; Toy, in Jewish Encyclopedia,II , 650; R. H. Charles, Encyclopedia Brittanica, VII, 807, and especially that by J. Turner Marshall in HDB, I, 267. Fritzsche Libri Veteris Testamenti Graece (1871), and Swete, The Old Testament in Greek, III, 1894, and later editions, give the Septuagint and Theodotion on parallel pages. In the edition of the Septuagint edited by Tischendorf, the Septuagint is given in the text and Theodotion in an appendix.
T. Witton Davies