§ 4. THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGE

Until comparatively recent years the prevailing view was that Bel and the Dragon was composed and first edited in the Greek language: so Eichhorn, Ewald, De Wette, Schrader, Fritzsche, Schürer, and König.

(a) In favour of this conclusion the following reasons have been given:

1. No traces of any Semitic original with reasonable claims have been discovered. Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome distinctly say that no Hebrew (or Aramaic) form of this tract was known in their day.

2. It is denied that the Hebraisms are more numerous than can be accounted for on the assumption of a Greek original. See below, (b) 3, 4.

3. In the Greek of Susanna there are certain word-plays inconsistent with a translation: e.g. v. 54 f. ὑπὸ σχίνον … σχίσει, and 58 f. ὑπὸ ποῖνον … πρίσαι. No such word-plays have been discovered in Bel and the Dragon, and where in Susanna they do occur they can be easily due to a translator. Why cannot a translator adopt alliteration? Moreover, it is noteworthy that Bel and the Dragon is more Hebraic than Susanna, though less so than the Song of the Three Children.

(b) On the other hand, the opinion has been growing among recent scholars that the work was written originally in Semitic (Hebrew or Aramaic). Drs. Marshall and Gaster contend for an Aramaic original. But there is evidence conclusive to the present writer that the author of Bel and the Dragon wrote in Hebrew.

1. It has been pointed out (see § 3, 2 (1)) that Θ introduces Hebraisms which are absent from G, a change due undoubtedly to the fact that Theodotion had before him a Hebrew text as well as G, which latter he corrected by means of the former.

2. The extraordinary extent to which the syntactical construction called parataxy (co-ordination) exists points to a Hebrew, not an Aramaic original. The recurrence of the Greek καί with all the shades of meaning borne by the Hebrew waw and the Arabic waw and fa is characteristic of Hebrew very much more than of Aramaic. The latter is much richer than Hebrew in conjunctions and adverbs, so that in it hypotaxy (subordination) of sentences exists, very much in the manner of Greek; especially is this last true of Syriac which came under Greek influence.

3. There are many examples in the LXX and especially in Θ which imply the Hebrew ‘waw consecutive’ construction and cannot be otherwise explained. Thus sentences often begin with καὶ ἦν (= וַיְהִי) and also with καὶ ἐγένετο, followed in this latter case by a finite verb; see vv. 14 and 18. This waw consecutive construction is peculiar to Hebrew at its best, even late Biblical Hebrew has almost lost it (cf. Ecclesiastes, &c.).

4. There are many other Hebraisms: thus v. 14 in Θ begins with words implying וַיְהִי וַיִּתֵּן. In v. 27 (Θ) καὶ ἔδωκεν is good Hebrew (וַיִּתֵּן) but bad Greek, cf. G ὲνέβαλεν. The use of θύρας, ‘doors’, in the sense of the singular is Hebraic, see note on v. 18. οὐδὲ εἷς (v. 18 Θ) is the Hebrew אֵין אֵחָד. The constant recurrence of καὶ εἶπεν with the various shades of meaning possessed by וַיֹּאמֶר is a Hebraism: see v. 20, &c.: ἄγγελος κυρίου = מַלְאַךְ יַהְוֶה, the anarthrous ἄγγελος following the rule for nouns in the construct: see on v. 34; ἀναστάς (קוּם) followed by another verb: see on vv. 37 (G) and 39 (Θ).

5. There are sometimes textual mistakes best explained on the assumption of a Hebrew original: see for examples the notes on v. 14 (G).1

6. It is in favour of a Hebrew original that these two tales have been actually found in that language in a more or less complete form, as in the Midrash Rabba de Rabba.

(c) Dr. M. Gaster discovered an Aramaic form of the Dragon story embedded in the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a work of the tenth century, and he maintains that in this fragment we have a portion of the original text of Bel and the Dragon,1 an opinion with which Dr. Marshall seems to be in sympathy. In that case the original text of the three ‘Additions’ was Aramaic, as these two scholars maintain. The present writer does not think that Dr. Gaster has proved his case.

1. There are constructions in all the ‘Additions’ which are not Greek and which can be explained from Hebrew but not from Aramaic. See above, (b) 2.

2. Two only of the three ‘Additions’ occur in the Aramaic version found by Dr. Gaster, and only a part (Dragon story) of the third; what has become of the rest?

3. This Aramaic form of the Dragon story differs from that in the Greek and Syriac in many particulars. In v. 24 the two Greek versions and Syr W have ‘the king (said)’, which the Aramaic text omits. In v. 35, after ‘And Habakkuk said’, the Aramaic document adds ‘to the angel’, which G, Θ, and Syr. are without.

4. The compiler of the Chronicles of Jerahmeel distinctly says that he had taken the Song of the Three Children and the Dragon story from the writings (i.e. the translation) of Theodotion, he having himself, it is implied, turned the Greek into Aramaic. Dr. Gaster lays stress on the compiler’s words2 that what he gives in Aramaic is that which Theodotion himself found, but the reference can be only to G, which Theodotion made the basis of his own translation, and not to an Aramaic original, though it must be admitted that the compiler does not express himself unambiguously. But when such ambiguity does exist the decision must be according to facts otherwise authenticated.

5. There is of course another explanation of the apparent Semiticisms in Bel and the Dragon. It is probable, as Wellhausen holds,3 that the language of G represents a Hebrew-Greek jargon actually spoken, as is the Yiddish of the present day. In favour of this are, in addition to the innumerable Hebraisms, many of them due to translation, the large number of Hebrew words transliterated instead of being translated even in cases where the sense is not obscure: e.g. βεδέκ for בֶּדֶק, ‘breach’, 2 Kings 22:5; χεττιείμ (χεττιείν) for a restored כתנים = כֻּתֳנוֹת, 2 Kings 23:7; ἰαμείν for יָעָים, ‘shovels’, 2 Kings 25:14. These and other Hebrew words were perhaps taken over into the Greek spoken by these Jews, just as Polish-Russian-German Jews to-day talk in a German interlarded with Hebrew words.