Susanna (Book of Daniel)

Susanna (Book Of Daniel)

Susanna or Shoshana (Hebrew: שׁוֹשַׁנָּה, Šošana Šôšannâ: "lily") included in the Book of Daniel (as chapter 13) by the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. It is one of the additions to Daniel, considered apocryphal by Protestants. It is listed in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England among the books which are included in the Bible but not for the formation of doctrine. It is not included in the Jewish Tanakh and is not mentioned in early Jewish literature.

As the story goes, a fair Hebrew wife named Susanna was falsely accused by lecherous voyeurs. As she bathes in her garden, having sent her attendants away, two lustful elders secretly observe the lovely Susanna. When she makes her way back to her house, they accost her, threatening to claim that she was meeting a young man in the garden unless she agrees to have sex with them.

She refuses to be blackmailed and is arrested and about to be put to death for promiscuity when a young man named Daniel interrupts the proceedings, shouting that the elders should be questioned to prevent the death of an innocent. After being separated, the two men are questioned about details (cross-examination) of what they saw but disagree about the tree under which Susanna supposedly met her lover. In the Greek text, the names of the trees cited by the elders form puns with the sentence given by Daniel. The first says they were under a mastic (ὑπο σχίνον, hupo schinon), and Daniel says that an angel stands ready to cut (σχίσει, schisei) him in two. The second says they were under an evergreen oak tree (ὑπο πρίνον, hupo prinon), and Daniel says that an angel stands ready to saw (πρίσαι, prisai) him in two. The great difference in size between a mastic and an oak makes the elders' lie plain to all the observers. The false accusers are put to death, and virtue triumphs.

The Greek puns in the texts have been cited by some as proof that the text never existed in Hebrew or Aramaic, but other researchers have suggested pairs of words for trees and cutting that sound similar enough to suppose that they could have been used in an original. The Anchor Bible uses "yew" and "hew" and "clove" and "cleave" to get this effect in English. Others suggest that the puns were added by the Greek translator and say nothing about the original form of the text.

The Greek text survives in two versions. The Septuagint's text appears only in the Codex Chisianus. The version of Theodotion is the one that appears in Roman Catholic bibles. It was regarded as a part of the Daniel literature and was placed at the beginning of the Book of Daniel in manuscripts of the Old Testament. Jerome placed it at the end of Daniel, with a notice that it is not found in the Hebrew Bible.

Sextus Julius Africanus did not regard the story as canonical. Jerome (347–420), while translating the Vulgate, treated this section as a non-canonical fable. In his introduction, he indicated that Susanna was an apocryphal addition because it was not written in Hebrew, as was the original book of Daniel, but was written in Greek. Origen observes (in Epistola ad Africanum) that it was "hidden" (compare "apocrypha") by the Jews in some fashion. There are no early Jewish references to the book.