For this is a species of error all
traces of which even expert forgers find it difficult to remove.
It is generally assumed, and probably rightly, that v. 88 is intended as
a contemporary utterance of the Three calling upon themselves;
nevertheless it is quite intelligible as the expression of a later
writer summoning them, with the rest of creation, to praise their
Maker. And, assuming this verse to be contemporary with the rest, this
latter idea would of course mark the hymn as not really issuing from the
mouths of the Three.
Everything said and done in this piece takes place within one day, the
day on which Nebuchadnezzar's subjects were ordered to worship the
golden image. There is therefore much less scope than in Bel and the
Dragon, or even Susanna, for those who seek to discover chronological
difficulties, because devotional compositions afford fewer openings than
narrative matter for the raising of such questions.
CANONICITY.
Like Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon, the Song of the Three Children
formed, so far as we know, part of the original LXX text of Daniel,
having a connection with it closer even than theirs.
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