Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology 2017, Vol. 71(2) 143–153 © The Author(s) 2017 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0020964316688077 journals.sagepub.com/home/int Three Books of Daniel: Plurality and Fluidity among the Ancient Versions Anathea Portier-Young Duke Divinity School, Durham, North Carolina, USA Abstract This essay demonstrates that the book of Daniel is not a fixed but fluid text, a collection of traditions that developed over centuries and locations. The three major extant ancient versions of Daniel, represented by the Hebrew/Aramaic Masoretic Text and the “Old Greek” and “Revised Greek” translations, together participate in a complex dance of genres as they move between legend, folk-tale, prayer and song, vision and apocalypse, novella and saint’s life. A greater appreciation of this multiplicity and fluidity complicates our understanding of biblical texts in ways that can enrich interpretation and interfaith dialogue. Keywords Daniel, book of; Diaspora; Greek recensions; Hexapla; Masoretic Text; Qumran; Septuagint; Text criticism Which Daniel? Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Jews consider the book of Daniel to be part of their sacred Scriptures. But we do not all share the same book of Daniel. As a biblical scholar who has done extensive research on early Jewish apocalyptic literature, I am often asked to write or speak on “the book of Daniel.” And each time, I have to ask a clarifying question: “Which one?” Three versions of Daniel are most important for understanding its interpretation and impact within early Judaism and nascent Christianity and among Jews and Christians today. They are (1) the Hebrew and Aramaic form of Daniel preserved in the Masoretic textual tradition; (2) an ancient translation commonly referred to as Old Greek Daniel; (3) an early Greek recension or edition of Daniel, formerly attributed to Theodotion, that I will refer to here as Revised Greek Daniel. These three versions of Daniel have a great deal of material in common. Yet they each have distinctive contours and theological emphases, and they each embody a different literary genre. 1 In this essay 1 Important studies of the Greek versions of Daniel, including comparisons with Hebrew and Aramaic Daniel, include Sharon Pace Jeansonne, The Old Greek Translation of Daniel 7–12 (Washington, DC: The Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1988); Tim McLay, The OG and Th Versions of Daniel (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996); T. J. Meadowcroft, Aramaic Daniel and Greek Daniel: A Literary Comparison (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995); and Marti Steussy, Gardens in Babylon: Narrative and Faith in the Greek Legends of Daniel (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993). For more focused short studies, see Alexander A. DiLella, “The Textual History of Septuagint Daniel and Theodotion-Daniel,” in The Book of Daniel: Composition and Reception, vol. 2, ed. John J. Collins and Peter W. Flint (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 586-607; Corresponding author: Anathea Portier-Young, Duke Divinity School, Box 90968, Durham, NC 27708, USA. Email: apyoung@div.duke.edu Article