2--4 only, contains no important variation. ?” (only from v.
21 to v. 41) contains in v. 22 the curious word ??”?????????± instead of
??”???????„????.
All things considered, the text of both versions may be said to be in as
fair condition as in the canonical part of Daniel.
LANGUAGE AND STYLE.
LANGUAGE.
[_See_ corresponding title in Susanna.]
The indications of a Semitic original give this fragment, in that
respect, a middle place between the other two. Less numerous than in the
Song of the Three, they are more so than in the History of Susanna,
though this is a shorter piece than that.
The non-discovery by Origen and others of Hebrew originals in their own
day by no means goes so far as to prove that such never existed, as
Rothstein in Kautzsch (I. 179) truly says.
Since Gaster's discovery of an Aramaic text of the Dragon (not of Bel),
the probability of a Semitic rather than a Greek original seems
strengthened. But see what Sch??rer thinks, under the corresponding
title in the Song of the Three, as also of the Syriac version at the end
of Neubauer's _Tobit.
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