The Prayer of Susanna (Daniel 13)

Dalia Marx The Prayer of Susanna (Daniel 13) The story of Susanna relates to a “brief but terrifying experience”1 in the life of a faithful and beautiful Jewish woman, the wife of Joachim, a wealthy and respected member of the Jewish community in Babylonia. God-fearing and well versed in the laws of Moses, Susanna falls victim to a false accusation by two Jewish elders who attempt to force her to have sexual relations with them. She stands firm and chooses certain death rather than submit to their lust. In her despair, she prays to God, who hears her supplication, and is subsequently saved by Daniel, a youth who interrogates and condemns the elders, saving Susanna from a disgraceful death.2 Of the four scrolls named after women – Ruth, Esther, Judith, and Susanna – the story of Susanna is the least known to Jews.3 While the books of Ruth and Esther were incorporated into the Hebrew Bible and the apocryphal story of Judith is occasionally mentioned in Jewish texts, Susanna is barely mentioned. Her story is not mentioned in early Jewish sources,4 nor does it have a significant presence in later Jewish texts.5 The story of Susanna is one of the three Greek additions to the book of Daniel, along with the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Children and the story of Bel and the Dragon, which are not found in Semitic languages and have not become part of the Hebrew canon. Like the rest of Daniel, it has been preserved || 1 Moore, Daniel, 77. 2 The story of Susanna seems to make use of many biblical stories. It has been suggested that it represents a feminine equivalent of the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife (Ilan, Women, and the references there). For other biblical stories with intertextual connections to the story of Susanna, see: Levine, Side; Loader, Pseudepigrapha, 231–234. See also note 8 below. 3 Cf. Gera, Shoshanah; Ilan, Women, 138–139. 4 A reference to megillat Shoshan (Shoshan’s Scroll) is found in Naḥmanides’s commentary on Deut 21:12. A translated version of Susanna is printed in Jellinek, Beit Hamidrash, 126–128. It has been suggested that a variation of this story can be found in as early a source as the Tal- mud (b. Sanh. 93a). See McDowell, Prayers, 67; Moore, Daniel, 80–81. The story appears also in the additions to the book of Josippon, Flusser, Sefer Yosipon, 442–444. 5 One possible reason for the absence of the story in most Jewish sources is that it contradicts Jewish law (and common sense), since a mere accusation by two witnesses could not have led to the reported conviction without the accused being permitted to bring other witnesses to prove his or her innocence. Another hypothesis is that the story was rejected due to its depic- tion of the elders of Israel as sinners and adulterers who are defeated by a mere lad and a woman. In any case, the figure of Daniel the Detective that appears in Susanna is inconsistent with Daniel’s character throughout the biblical book that bears his name. DOI 10.1515/9783110369083-013, © 2018 Dalia Marx, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License. 222 | Dalia Marx in two versions, known as the Old Septuagint and the Theodotion. The old Greek has come to us in only two manuscripts (MS 88 and Papyrus 967), while the Theodotion is preserved in numerous manuscripts,6 and has replaced the old Septuagint in the Christian Bibles.7 My perspective is primarily literary and I am interested in the reception of Susanna’s prayer and story; accordingly, this article will focus mainly on the Theodotion version, which is more developed in literary terms and is the text that readers of Susanna have encountered throughout the generations.8 I will refer to the Old Greek version of Susanna’s prayer scene[s] in order to discuss the different phenomenology in both versions. I will also draw on the work of feminist theoreticians in order to elaborate on Susanna’s character and prayer. 1 Susanna as a religious story The story of Susanna is replete with emotional expressions of reverence for God. It begins with a description of Susanna’s piety and ends with thanksgiving to the Divine. It is “a narrative about God raising up a champion of the faith who triumphs over adversity.”9 It teaches that chastity and piety prevail over arro- gance and wickedness, even if the wrongdoers are respectable members of the community – elders and judges – while the righteous are merely a woman and a youth. The story received a great deal of attention from artists in the Christian world and is a familiar theme in Western culture (see below). With the exception of the two villains, all the characters in the book of Su- sanna pray to God. The prayer of Susanna herself is the singular act that causes what seems to be the inevitable plot to be reversed, and averts the terrible de- cree.10 Nevertheless, the story essentially appears to be based on a secular folk || 6 Regarding the antiquity of the Old Greek version, see: Segal, Zion, 30–31, and for references to previous works on the topic, see there, note 2. 7 Cf. Moore, Daniel, 78–80. 8 The Theodotion version may have been preferred for the following reasons: a) It is longer (64 verses as opposed to 48 in the Septuagint) and more picturesque; the Septuagint version does not contain the bathing scene, which became the iconic feature of the story; b) Daniel plays a more significant role in it; and c) It has also been suggested that the theology reflected in the Theodotion text was more plausible, since in the Septuagint it seems as if Daniel speaks against the reliability of elders in general, and religious leaders sought to avoid this (v. 35). See: Moore, Daniel, 92; Segal, Zion, 30–31. 9 Craven, Help, 104. 10 Cf. Moore, Daniel, 89. The Prayer of Susanna (Daniel 13) | 223 story conveying the moral that there are consequences to human conduct: the good are eventually rewarded and evildoers are punished.11 The story stresses Susanna’s religiosity and how she was well-versed in the word of God, yet it also seems to convey a tacit tone of condemnation for her desire to anoint herself and take sensuous pleasure in a garden bath. Of course she does not commit a transgression by enjoying these worldly delights, but the story could be interpreted as warning the reader that such self-indulgence may lead to life-threatening situations, even for a God-fearing person such as Susanna, who did not leave her husband’s garden. Although the story does not overtly criticize Susanna for her self-pampering, it reflects uneasiness about a woman out in the garden who utilizes the day, the garden and her body for her own pleasure, and who fails to serve as an object of pleasure for others, namely men.12 2 What’s in a name? That which we call a Shoshanah As is often the case in folk tales, the names in our story carry symbolic meaning. The name of Susanna’s husband Joachim means “may God establish” (Yeho- yaqim); her father’s name Hilkiah means “God’s lot”; and Daniel’s name has associations with God’s judgement (din, El) – and he indeed plays the role of the judge (dayyan) in the story.13 The richest symbolism, however, is to be found in the name of the story’s protagonist, Susanna (Shoshanah). Shoshanah in Hebrew is usually identified as a lily,14 but is sometimes used as a generic name for flowers.15 In Jewish culture, as in many others, flowers in || 11 Our story is constructed around two popular themes in folk literature: the wise youth who corrects the wrongs of respectable elders; and the modest woman who is unjustly persecuted before ultimately prevailing over her persecutors. Thompson places the story of Susanna in the category of a “chaste wife falsely accused and repudiated, generally on the word of a rejected suitor” (Thompson, Motif-Index 4, 471). See also Bach, Women, 66. 12 Regarding the accusation of Susanna, see: Levine, Side. 13 The names of the elders are not given in the text, but when Origen inquired about it he was told by the Jews that they were Ahab and Zedekiah, two false prophets who are mentioned in the book of Jeremiah (29:21). 14 Cf. Ben-Yehuda, Dictionary 14, 7002–7004. 15 Cf. Ben-Yehuda, Dictionary 14, 7003. 224 | Dalia Marx general and lilies in particular serve as a metaphor for young women.16 In the ְכַּשׁוֹשָׁנּה ֵבּין :Song of Songs, the male singer identifies his beloved one as as a lily [shoshanah] among thorns, so is my“) ַהחוֹ ִחים ֵכּן ַרְעָיִתי ֵבּין ַהָבּנוֹת beloved among the daughters”; Song 2:2). Shoshanah is mentioned in the description of the beloved woman five times in the Song of Songs (2:2; 16; 4:5; 6:3; 7:3). A flower is a beautiful thing that is meant to gratify those who see it and smell it but its life is short, in contrast to trees, which are long lasting (cf. Psalm 92:13–14) and often symbolize men. Even in our story, the two trees that Daniel uses to reveal the elders’ plot (Dan 13:51–59) are synecdochic to them.17 Susanna is planted in her husband’s[!] garden, although the garden itself, as well as its fence, are synecdochic to Susanna, for the male singer in Song of Songs de- גַּ ן :scribes his beloved as a sealed garden, a typical metaphor for a young woman a sealed garden is my sister, my bride; a) נָעוּל ֲאחִֹתי ַכָלּה גַּ ל נָעוּל ַמְעָין ָחתוּם ָ סוּגה ַבַּשּׁוֹשִׁנּים spring shut up, a fountain sealed, Song 4:12).18 The metaphor (“hedge of shoshanim”, Song 7:3) refers to a fence that is not impenetrable, and that everyone can pass through; the tenderness and beauty of the fence are its strength and at the same time its vulnerability.

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