In this article, aspects of narrative critique, genre, editorial critique, the body and space are uniquely combined into a body-space framework. This spatial framework is used to examine the second episode of ‘Bel and the Dragon’, called ‘Daniel Dragonslayer’. It is postulated that the second episode of ‘Bel and the Dragon’ should be read in a reciprocal relationship with not only ‘Bel and the Dragon’, but also the larger Book of Daniel. Firstly, such an analysis indicates that the smaller episode is part of a larger clash of deities. Secondly, it shows that the editor /author utilises the episode to create a new cosmology. In this new cosmology, the Jewish deity is an almighty one, whilst other deities are seen as false and not real living gods. In his own way, the editor or author contributes to the way in which Jews regarded their God within the reality of the diaspora.
However, the roots to the dragon-slaying motif in both the New Testament and early Christian tradition can be traced back even further to the apocryphal story of
Two Greek versions of
In both OG and Th,
The research in this article is part of a larger investigation into the utilisation of body, space, narrative and genre by the Greek editor or author
In previous research done on Daniel Dragonslayer, commentaries tend to echo each other in following the well-travelled road. Few scholars, if any, try to incorporate insights from new developments in language and text studies. Usually scholars focus on
A brief summary of past research follows:
The narrative's polemic use against idolatry (Jones
The investigation of the intertextual relationship between
Comparison of differences in the narrative between the OG and Th as well as the history of these two text versions (Van der Bergh
The themes of humour and irony in the narrative (Nickelsburg
The relationship between the court tales of Daniel 1–6 and
The theme of food in the sense of ‘eating’ and ‘not eating’ as a motif in the narrative (Bergmann
Much research has been done on the place and date of origin of
The similarities and dissimilarities between OG and Th as well as
The original language of
The tolerance of the king towards Daniel and his God (Collins
The character of Daniel as a weapon of attack and defence through the ages (Jordaan
Due to the works of cognitive linguists such as Evens, Bergen, Zinken, Lakoff, Croft and Cruse as well as Foucault's
Some scholars such as Ogden (
This article aims to investigate the following:
Aspects of narrative critique are combined with the creative properties of language. No commentary as far as could be established, has previously considered this possibility.
Space and body are regarded as markers utilised by the editor or author to create specific realities.
The narrative itself is read as a mechanism to create a new identity of the living God and Jewish believers within the reality of the diaspora.
The episode is read against the apocalyptic genre for which
Narratives are regarded as structural units demarcated by spatial markers.
This article combines aspects of narrative critique, genre, body and space into a body-space framework.
Language has the ability to not only reflect realities, but also construct realities (Evans & Green
The ongoing process of creating worldviews, realities and narratives.
From another angle, this link between narratives, worldviews and language can also be explained in that all of life is a narrative (Lakoff
The same is true of the editor or author of the
The editor or author sets his narrative within the apocalyptic genre (Clifford
The power struggle between the God of Israel and the deities of the gentile world can be described as a struggle between a
Ancient Near Eastern people believed that each nation had its own deities and that those gods were confined within the boundaries of the people who worshiped them. Nations called upon their gods to protect them and to give them victory in times of war. It was believed that, as nations engaged in war, their gods also engaged in the fighting. Supposedly, the nation with the strongest gods won the war. The loser's gods became subordinate to the victor's, whilst their earthly territories became part of the winning deity's powerbase (cf. Walton
Authors built and/or composed narratives around bodies in the form of characters (Foucault
interact with the world around them and to experience it
conceptualise and form worldviews or cosmologies and opinions
construct different spaces and words (through bodily experience), which in turn establish frameworks
function as a space or vessel in itself where specific concepts or experiences may be embodied
comprehend events in the world in relation to what human bodies can or cannot do.
In the episode of
How editors or authors utilise space to create realities, goes beyond the identification of different spaces in terms of places. Rather, it is an investigation into the creative properties of words that are associated with specific spaces.
Space is one of the basic domains of human thinking (Haspelmath
Spatial markers are indications of embodied spaces within a text. Low and Lawrence-Zúñiga (
To read
In
Fundamentally, δράκων refers to a large supernatural snake or serpent within the mystical world (Ogden
A picture from a Babylonian cylinder − possibly the god Bel (Marduk) battling a dragon-like creature.
As stated earlier, the
Following the events of the first episode (
The king shows Daniel a δράκων, emphasising the fact that this creature does in fact eat and drink and therefore was alive (OG, v. 24). According to the worldview of the king and the Babylonians, divinity was determined by both qualitative and quantitative elements. In order to qualify as a deity, a god should be nourished by humans and he or she should eat a lot (Th, v. 6). Within this worldview, Daniel showed the king that Bel was not a god for he did not eat, but the δράκων was indeed another matter. Daniel could not deny that it eats and drinks. People did not have to depend on priests for affirmation that the δράκων ate − they could evaluate it with their own eyes. Thus, the king commanded Daniel to worship the creature (Th, verse 24), stating that this is a living god (Th, verse 24). In this way tension is created in the story: What is Daniel going to do?
Surprisingly, Daniel does not submit to the divinity of the δράκων, but instead declares that he will only worship the Lord his God, the God of Israel, because he is a living God (τὸν ζῶντα θεὸν; Th, verse 25). In this the editor or author utilises Daniel as a defence mechanism for the presence of the God of Israel. This is emphasised in OG, verse 1, where Daniel is introduced as a priest (ἱερεύς) of God. Daniel can thus be described as a priestly vessel of God and an extension of the God of Israel's god space. It can be argued that Daniel, as a priest, mediates the presence of God. Two spaces or worldviews can thus be identified within this smaller episode, viz. that of Daniel and that of the gentile Babylonians. These worldviews can be summarised as follows:
The Babylonian worldview (dominant worldview):
The δράκων is an embodied deity.
Daniel should submit to the Babylonian gods, for they defeated the God of Israel when Nebuchadnezzar invaded his god space (Dn 1).
Within the vicinity of the δράκων, the God of Israel should not have power, for he is a degraded god.
Daniel's worldview (challenging worldview):
The δράκων is not a living god.
Only the God of Israel is a real living deity.
The God of Israel is not a degraded deity.
The editor or author also utilises Daniel to challenge the worldview of the gentile world. Accordingly, Daniel also becomes a mechanism of attack. Instead of revering the δράκων, Daniel does the unthinkable: he asks the king permission to kill the δράκων and, by doing so, prove to the world that it is not a living deity (καὶ εἶπεν δανιηλ κυρίῳ τῷ θεῷ μου προσκυνήσω ὅτι οὗτός ἐστιν θεὸς ζῶν σὺ δέ βασιλεῦ δός μοι ἐξουσίαν καὶ ἀποκτενῶ τὸν δράκοντα ἄνευ μαχαίρας καὶ ῥάβδου; Th, v. 25). The events of the first episode should still have been fresh in the king's memory. Whatever the reason may have been, the king granted Daniel permission to prove his statements. Elsewhere, it was proposed that the king embodies those people who had their doubts about the God of Israel.
Similar to the first episode, Daniel used the Babylonians’ own worldview to prove that the δράκων is not a real living god. If a deity should be nourished by humans, Daniel will do so, and if the δράκων is a god, it will live and prosper. Daniel feeds the creature with cakes (μάζας) made from a mixture of pitch [πίσσαν], fat [στῆρ] and hair [τρίχας]. As with the events in the first episode, βρῶμα [food] is used as a tool of destruction. In episode 1, food is part of the motive to reveal the truth that Bel does
We do not know why Daniel fed the creature this specific mixture. Perhaps, Daniel, as a priestly vessel of God, had some divine insight about the explosive quality of the mixture (Collins
In killing the δράκων, Daniel turned the gentile worldview upside down. One would expect that a deity should know if something is harmful or not. From childhood, humans learn through bodily experience that some foods are not good for human health. Although humans make mistakes and can accidently eat something harmful, one would think that a deity should know better, because one would further assume that deities are superior in knowledge. Furthermore, one would expect that a deity could sustain or cure itself when ill, but not this δράκων. It simply burst open and died. In dying after eating, the creature itself proved that it is no living god. The δράκων cannot sustain life.
When the second episode ends, the identities of the gods of the gentile world as well as those of the God of Israel are successful recreated. Before the challenge to the divinity of the δράκων, there still was a chance that at least one other Babylonian deity may be stronger than the God of Israel – alas, there is none. Now that it is proven that the Babylonian gods are false lifeless gods, people can begin to reconsider the identity of the God of Israel as a degraded deity. If the Babylonian gods are false and no real gods, then the God of Israel was never defeated by them in the first place when his god space was violated. With the killing of the δράκων, the clash between the God of Israel and the Babylonian gods has come full circle. What started as an invasion of the God of Israel's god space in
The recreation of the δράκων identity can be summarised by the following scheme (see
The recreation of the δράκων identity.
As in episode 1, the same worldviews that once proclaimed the δράκων as a living god, must now admit that it is
Two major spaces can be identified in the larger narrative of the
The movement of
The events of
The events of
The consequences of the editor or author's recreation of the ancient worldviews are the same for both the first and second episodes of
Within this new cosmology, Jews should not be afraid of foreign worldviews − other so-called deities or kings such as Antiochus IV Epiphanes who imagined themselves a god. The God of Israel is in total control. All other gods are not only powerless, but also false. The Jews living in the diaspora should remain faithful to God. Religious syncretism and foreign religious practices should not be tolerated. Because God is victorious over evil, it is the faithful's duty to fight evil in their daily lives − even if it means showing intolerance to other religions whether Babylonian, Persian or Greek, all other religions and their gods must be opposed.
Combining the aspects of narrative critique, editorial critique, genre, body and space into a body-space framework indicates the following:
The episode called
The editor or author utilises this episode, together with the other chapters of
The editor or author creates a new worldview about the God of Israel, making it possible for Jews to remain faithful to their God, even in the face of persecution.
There is a shift in tolerance towards other worldviews in the
The dragon-slaying motive in this episode-story may have influenced the New Testament (cf. Rv 12–13) and early dragon-slaying Christian traditions.
In a unique way, the editor or author contributes to the development of how Jews regarded the God of Israel within the reality of the diaspora.
For a better distinction,
Due to the complex origin of
This series of articles is part of a Masters dissertation under the supervision of prof. Pierre Jordaan of the NWU, Potchefstroom–Campus.
‘Constructing a deceitful deity. The disempowerment of Bel –
The details of these scholars' work are given as the article progresses.
Crimea was annexed by Russia on the 18th of March 2014 after the majority of Crimea's people declared via a referendum that they wanted to be part of the Russian Federation.
This is true of both
In experiencing spaces a distinction can be made between