Bel and the Dragon is a portion of the Book of Daniel as found in the books of the Septuagint, the Old Testament accepted as inspired and canonical by the Orthodox Church in the Greek Orthodox Bible, and found in the books of the Old Testament of the Vulgate as Daniel chapter 14 and included in the canon of inspired scripture by the Third Council of Carthage (397). It is included in the canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible. Since the Council of Trent it is dogmatically accepted as inspired and canonical by the Catholic Church in the Catholic Bible—books of the Bible accepted as divinely inspired by the majority of Christian believers in the United States and throughout the world.[1][2]
The 14th chapter of Daniel is regarded by the majority of Christians as inspired, originally composed in Hebrew or Aramaic, which has not been preserved, and translated from the Greek form of the Book of Daniel in the Septuagint. This chapter, detailing Daniel's victories over Bel and the Dragon, was first removed from the Old Testament and placed in the Apocrypha by Martin Luther in the 16th century. This separated chapter, cut off from the end of the Book of Daniel, is regarded as an apocryphal addition to the Old Testament by less than one-third of Christian believers.[2]
In the King James Version of the Bible, in the Apocrypha, this separated 14th chapter of Daniel is titled
In Ecumenical Bibles this portion of Daniel has been restored by the editors according to its original place in the book, as chapter 14.
See Apocrypha.
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Categories: [Bible] [Apocrypha]