Susanna (Book of Daniel)

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Susanna (Book of Daniel)

Susanna or Shoshana (: "lily") is one of the additions to Daniel

Additions to Daniel

The Additions to Daniel comprise three chapters not found in the Hebrew language/Aramaic language text of Book of Daniel. The text of these chapters is found in the Greek language Septuagint and in the earlier Old Greek translation....
, considered apocrypha

Apocrypha

Apocrypha are texts of uncertain authenticity, or writings where the authorship is questioned.When used in the specific context of Judeo-Christian theology, the term apocrypha refers to any collection of scriptural texts that falls outside the Biblical canon....
l by Protestants, but included in the Book of Daniel

Book of Daniel

The Book of Daniel is a book in both the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Originally written in Hebrew language and Aramaic language, it is set during the Babylonian Captivity, a period when Jews were deported and exiled to Babylon following the Siege of Jerusalem of 597 BC....
(as chapter 13) by the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox

Eastern Orthodox Church

The Eastern Orthodox Church is the second largest single Christian communion in the world with an estimated 225 million members worldwide. It is considered by its adherents to be the Four Marks of the Church established by Jesus Christ and his Apostles nearly 2000 years ago....
churches. It is listed in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles

Thirty-Nine Articles

The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion were established in 1563, and are the historic defining statements of Anglican doctrine in relation to the controversies of the English Reformation; especially in the relation of Calvinist doctrine and Roman Catholic practices to the nascent Anglican doctrine of the evolving English Church....
of the Church of England

Church of England

The Church of England is the State religion Christianity Ecclesia in England, the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the oldest among the communion's thirty-eight independent national and regional churches....
. Jews recognize it as a morality tale, but not part of the Tanakh

Tanakh

The Tanakh is the Bible used in Judaism. The name "Tanakh" is a Hebrew language Acronym and initialism formed from the initial Hebrew alphabet of the Tanakh's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim - hence TaNaKh....
.

As the story goes, a fair Hebrew

Hebrews

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Encyclopedia

Susanna or Shoshana (: "lily") is one of the additions to Daniel

Additions to Daniel

Apocrypha

Book of Daniel

Eastern Orthodox Church

Thirty-Nine Articles

Church of England

Tanakh

Hebrews

Hebrews are an ancient people defined as descendants of biblical Patriarch Abraham , a descendent of Noah.In the Bible, the patriarch Abraham is referred to a single time as the ivri, which is the singular form of the Hebrew-language word for Hebrew ....
wife is falsely accused by lecherous voyeurs. As she bathes in her garden, having sent her attendants away, two lusty 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 make love to them.

She refuses to be blackmailed, and is arrested and about to be put to death for promiscuity when a young man named Daniel

Daniel

Daniel is a figure appearing in the Hebrew Bible and the central protagonist of the Book of Daniel. The name "Daniel" means "Judged by El ". "Dan" = judge and "i" = a suffix conjugating the verb such that its action applies to the speaker....
interrupts the proceedings. After separating the two men, they are questioned about details (cross-examination

Cross-examination

In law, cross-examination is the interrogation of a witness called by one's opponent. It is preceded by direct examination and may be followed by a Redirect 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 pun

Pun

A pun, or paronomasia, is a form of word play that deliberately exploits ambiguity between similar-sounding words for humour or rhetorical effect....
s with the sentence given by Daniel. The first says they were under a mastic

Mastic

Mastic is an evergreen shrub or small tree of the Pistacia family growing up to tall which is cultivated for its aromatic resin, mainly on the Greece island of Chios....
(?p? s?????, hupo schinon), and Daniel says that an angel

Ángel

?ngel is the third single from Belinda Peregr?n's debut album: Belinda. It was a massive hit in Mexico and an international hit for Belinda....
stands ready to cut (s??se?, schisei) him in two. The second says they were under an evergreen oak

Oak

The term oak can be used as part of the common name of any of about 400 species of trees and shrubs in the genus Quercus , which are listed in the List of Quercus species, and some related genera, notably Lithocarpus....
tree (?p? p?????, hupo prinon), and Daniel says that an angel stands ready to saw (p??sa?, 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

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....
or Aramaic

Aramaic language

Aramaic is a Semitic languages with a 3,000-year history. It has been the language of administration of empires and the language of divine worship....
, 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

Anchor Bible Series

The Anchor Bible Project, consisting of the Anchor Bible Commentary Series, Anchor Bible Dictionary and Anchor Bible Reference Library is a scholarly and commercial co-venture that began in 1956, when individual volumes in the commentary series began production....
uses "yew

Taxaceae

The family Taxaceae, commonly called the yew family, includes three genera and about 7 to 12 species of coniferous plants, or in other interpretations , six genera and about 30 species....
" and "hew" and "clove

Clove

Cloves are the aromatic dried flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae. Cloves are native to Indonesia and used as a spice in cuisine all over the world....
" 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

Septuagint

The Septuagint , or simply "LXX", is the Koine Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, translated in stages between the 3rd century BC and 1st century BC in Alexandria....
's text appears only in the Codex Chisianus. The version of Theodotion

Theodotion

Theodotion was a Hellenistic Jewish scholar, perhaps working in Ephesus , who translated the Hebrew Bible into Ancient Greek. Whether he was revising the Septuagint, or was working from Hebrew manuscripts that represented a parallel tradition that has not survived, is debated....
, 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

Jerome

Saint Jerome was a Christian priest and Christian apologetics best known for translating the Vulgate. He is recognized by the Catholic Church as a canonized saint and Doctor of the Church, and his version of the Bible is still an important text in Catholicism....
placed it at the end of Daniel, with a notice that it is not found in the Hebrew Bible.

The early Christian consensus accepted the Susanna tale as canonical. Sextus Julius Africanus

Sextus Julius Africanus

Sextus Julius Africanus, was a Christian traveller and historian of the early 3rd century AD. He was possibly born in Libya, though he calls himself a native of Jerusalem, which some scholars take as his hometown....
was the exception. Jerome

Jerome

Vulgate

The Vulgate is an early Fifth Century version of the Bible in Latin, and largely the result of the labors of Jerome, who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to make a revision of Vetus Latina....
, treated this section as a non-canonical fable. In his introduction, he indicated that Susannah was an apocryphal addition because it was not written in Hebrew, as was the original book of Daniel, but was written in Greek. Origen

Origen

Origen was an Early Christianity scholar, theology, and one of the most distinguished of the early Church father of the Christian Church. According to tradition, he is held to have been an Ancient Egypt who taught in Alexandria, reviving the Catechetical School of Alexandria where Clement of Alexandria had taught....
observes (in Epistola ad Africanum) that it was "hidden" (compare "apocrypha

Apocrypha

Apocrypha are texts of uncertain authenticity, or writings where the authorship is questioned.When used in the specific context of Judeo-Christian theology, the term apocrypha refers to any collection of scriptural texts that falls outside the Biblical canon....
") by the Jews in some fashion. There are no early Jewish references to the book.

Susanna in art

The story was frequently painted from about 1500, not least because of the possibilities it offered for a prominent nude female. Some treatments emphasize the drama, others concentrate on the nude; a 19th century version by Francesco Hayez

Francesco Hayez

Francesco Hayez was an Italy painter, the leading artist of Romanticism in mid-19th-century Milan, renowned for his grand historical paintings, political allegories and exceptionally fine portraits....
(National Gallery, London

National Gallery, London

The National Gallery in London, founded in 1824, houses a rich collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900 in its home on Trafalgar Square....
) has no elders visible at all.

Susanna (and not Peter Quince) is the subject of the poem Peter Quince at the Clavier
Peter Quince at the Clavier

"Peter Quince at the Clavier" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium .The poem was first published in 1915 in the "little magazine" Others: A Magazine of the New Verse , edited by Alfred Kreymborg....
by Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens was a United States Modernism poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, and spent most of his life working for an insurance company in Connecticut....
, which has been set to music by the American composer Dominic Argento and by the Canadian Gerald Berg.

In 1749, George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel was an England Baroque music composer of Germany birth who is famous for his operas, oratorios, and concerto grosso. His life and music may justly be described as "cosmopolitan": he was born in Germany, trained in Italy, and spent most of his life in England....
wrote an English-language oratorio Susanna
Susanna (Handel)

Susanna is an oratorio by George Frideric Handel. The libretto is questionably attributed to Newburgh Hamilton, who based it on the apocryphal 'history of Susanna '....
. The American opera Susannah

Susannah

Susannah is an opera in two acts composed by USA opera composer Carlisle Floyd while he was on the piano faculty at Florida State University....
by Carlisle Floyd

Carlisle Floyd

Carlisle Floyd is an United States opera composer. The son of a Methodist minister, he based many of his works on themes from the South. His best known opera, Susannah , is based a story in the so-called Apocrypha, transferred to contemporary, rural Tennessee, and is set in a Southern dialect....
, which takes place in the American South

Southern United States

The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region in the southeastern and south-central United States....
of the 20th century, is also inspired by this story, but with a less than happy ending, and with the elders replaced by a hypocritical traveling preacher who in fact seduces Susannah.

External links

: Susanna
in the New American Bible
New American Bible

In 1970, the New American Bible was first published. It is an English language Bible translations that was produced by members of the Catholic Church biblical scholars in cooperation with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops....