Differences in the Old Greek Version of Daniel

Most people don’t know that there are two main versions of Daniel, with fragments of a third version found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The differences are not small. The older, lesser-known ‘Old Greek’ version points to Jesus as the Messiah far more clearly than the traditional Hebrew/Aramaic text.

Three main versions of Daniel have come down to us:

The Hebrew/Aramaic text (also known as the Masoretic Text)
The ‘Old Greek’ translation
Theodotion’s 2^nd century AD Greek translation of the Hebrew/Aramaic text

Most modern Bibles use the Hebrew/Aramaic text (also known as the Masoretic text).

Where did it come from?

The ‘Old Greek’ version was translated sometime in the centuries BC by persons unknown. It was used by Greek-speaking Jews and Christians until the 2^nd to 4^th centuries AD. However, people were unhappy with it because it was quite different to the Masoretic Text, so people assumed that it was an innacurate or corrupted translation.

That’s why in the 2^nd century AD, it was gradually replaced by a new translation from the Hebrew/Aramaic text by the Jewish scholar Theodotion. His version eventually completely replaced the ‘Old Greek’ in common use, and people were generally happy with this ‘more accurate’ translation from the ‘original.’

However, there was a flaw in their logic. It assumed that the Hebrew/Aramaic text was original and unaltered, but was it? Well, it’s quite possible that it had acquired some copyist errors, and had perhaps even been deliberately corrupted. If this was so, then the supposedly ‘inaccurate’ and ‘badly translated’ Old Greek version may actually preserve some original readings; it would act like a ‘lifeboat’ to preserve the original text.

Of course, a Greek translation can also acquire copyist errors, and perhaps even be deliberately corrupted too. However, it’s always good to have a second witness to the original text, even if imperfect.

Indeed, as we document in this series of articles, the differences in the Old Greek version are illuminating:

It’s more historically accurate than the Masoretic Text.
The prophecies of Jesus work better.
The prophecies are easier to understand.

What are the differences?

Compared to the Masoretic Text, the ‘Old Greek’ translation contains:

Extra material
Two extra chapters
Fairly large differences in wording

What’s the extra material?

They appear to be folk tales or legends that were added to the text later:

Chapter 3 has an addition known as The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Holy Children. It’s inserted between verses 23 and 24 of the standard text.
Extra chapter 13 is known as Susanna, or sometimes as Susanna and the Elders.
Extra chapter 14 is known as Bel and the Dragon.

We’ve included them in our translations, so you can read them and decide for yourself whether they are inspired or not. It’s very possible that they were always known as additional, uninspired material, rather than frauds or fakes. They appear to have been originally written in Greek, unlike the rest of Daniel, which was written in Hebrew and Aramaic.

What’s the different wording?

The wording of the ‘Old Greek’ version is sometimes very different.

This may be partly because it was translated interpretively in places (to say what the translator thought it meant), but we also strongly suspect that the Hebrew/Aramaic ‘original’ of DaniEl was deliberately altered in places to further someone’s agenda.

What agenda?

In the late 1^st / early 2^nd centuries AD, Christian writings record how the Pharisees tried to discredit Christians by corrupting many key prophecies about Jesus in the Jewish Bible.

Thankfully, the Pharisees failed to change the Greek Septuagint translation, which acted as a lifeboat to preserve the original prophecies. The Dead Sea Scrolls confirm this by preserving the original Hebrew readings of those precious prophecies (e.g. in Genesis, Psalms, and Isaiah).

So, did they also corrupt Messianic prophecies in the Hebrew/Aramaic text of Daniel?

We think so, yes.

The Dead Sea Scrolls version only has surviving fragments, some of which support the Old Greek version.

So we have examined the text critically and noted any pattern in the differences. We believe we have found some very suspicious patterns indeed! Further, we see that the Old Greek version is more historically accurate than the Masoretic Text.

This series of articles goes through each chapter of Daniel, describing the differences (and potential deliberate changes).

You will find an exhaustive list of all differences, along with explanations of why we think the Old Greek version may be more authentic, historically accurate, and what tampering may have occurred to discredit Jesus.

We even point out some places where the Pharisees may have changed the text to promote a 2^nd century false Messiah.

Start in chapter 1

What parts of Daniel survived in the Dead Sea Scrolls?

In addition to the Hebrew/Aramaic Masoretic text and the Old Greek translation, the Dead Sea Scrolls contain small fragments of Daniel written between the late 2^nd century BC and the middle of the 1^st century AD.

Not much survived.

Chapter 1: Scattered words from verses 10-21.
Chapter 2: Verses 20-33, plus scattered words from verses 2-6, 9-11, 19, 34-35, 37-49.
Chapter 3: Scattered words from verses 1-2, 5-8, 22-30.
Chapter 4: Verses 15-16, plus scattered words from verses 8-12, 17-19, 32-33.
Chapter 5: Verse 17, plus scattered words from verses 5-7, 10-16, 18-22.
Chapter 6: Scattered words from verses 7-21, 26-27.
Chapter 7: Scattered words from verses 1-7, 11, 15-23, 25-28.
Chapter 8: Verses 1-5, plus scattered words from verses 6-8, 13-17, and 20-21.
Chapter 9: Scattered words from verses 12-17.
Chapter 10: Scattered words from verses 5-21.
Chapter 11: Portions of verses 1-2 and 15-17, plus scattered words from verses 13-38.
Chapter 12: Nothing.

The main Messianic prophecies in Daniel (at 2:44-45; 7:13-14; 9:24-27; 12:1-3) didn’t survive intact in the Dead Sea Scrolls, so they can’t help us see if those words were altered.