2006-12-26 04:25:40 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Bel and the Dragon is an Apocryphal work that has been included in the Roman Bible.
The tale of Bel and the Dragon is from chapter 14 of the Book of Daniel. This chapter, along with chapter 13, is referred to as deuterocanonical, in that it is not universally accepted among Christians as belonging to the Bible. The story is typically not included in Protestant Bibles.
2006-12-26 04:33:25 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
"Bel and the Dragon" are found in chapter 14 of the book of Daniel: http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/daniel/daniel14.htm
The New Testament canon of the Catholic Bible and the Protestant Bible are the same with 27 Books.
The difference in the Old Testaments actually goes back to the time before and during Christ’s life. At this time, there was no official Jewish canon of scripture.
The Jews in Egypt translated their choices of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek in the second century before Christ. This translation of 46 books, called the Septuagint, had wide use in the Roman world because most Jews lived far from Palestine in Greek cities. Many of these Jews spoke only Greek.
The early Christian Church was born into this world. The Church, with its bilingual Jews and more and more Greek-speaking Gentiles, used the books of the Septuagint as its Bible. Remember the early Christians were just writing the documents what would become the New Testament.
After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, with increasing persecution from the Romans and competition from the fledgling Christian Church, the Jewish leaders came together and declared its official canon of Scripture, eliminating seven books from the Septuagint.
The books removed were Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Wisdom (of Solomon), Sirach, and Baruch. Parts of existing books were also removed including Psalm 151 (from Psalms), parts of the Book of Esther, Susanna (from Daniel as chapter 13), and Bel and the Dragon (from Daniel as chapter 14).
The Christian Church did not follow suit but kept all the books in the Septuagint. 46 + 27 = 73 Books total.
1500 years later, Protestants decided to change its Old Testament from the Catholic canon to the Jewish canon. The books they dropped are sometimes called the Apocrypha.
Here is a Catholic Bible website: http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/
With love in Christ.
2006-12-27 01:59:50 · answer #2 · answered by imacatholic2 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is truly a book about Daniel and a king who became a Jew.
Bel was a god made of brass. The offerings to Bel were actually eaten by the priests and their wives and children. Daniel showed this by scattering ash on the floor. When the seal on the temple was broken and the offerings were shown to be gone (the priests had a secret entrance), Daniel pointed out the footprints.
The dragon was supposedly a flesh and blood dragon that Daniel slew by "...pitch, and fat, and hair, and did seethe them together, and made lumps thereof: this he put in the dragon's mouth, and so the dragon burst in sunder : and Daniel said, Lo, these are the gods ye worship. "
There is also a small section about a prophet Habbacuc who is diverted to giving Daniel food while Daniel is in the lion's den.
All in all, a pretty wild series of stories. I think it would make a good movie.
2006-12-26 12:32:02 · answer #3 · answered by NeoArt 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
"Bel and the Dragon" is an apocryphal book often placed at the end of the Book of Daniel as chapter 14 in Catholic versions of the Bible. It is indeed and entertaining story, but the powers that be during the Reformation decided not to include it as part of the true and holy scripture.
2006-12-26 12:40:25 · answer #4 · answered by Krys Tamar 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Bel and the Dragon is in the Old Testement - or at least it WAS until the Vatican removed it, had all the copies of the text gathered from all the monestaries and then burned them all (or what they THOUGHT was all of them).
Another spelling of "Bel" is "Ba'al", and the story is refered to in Kings - but of course never found in a modern printing.
The ORIGINAL Bible was 1500 volumes long, consisting of approximately 500,000 pages of text. Compared to the current size of it, the Vatican removed and burned so much history because of God's Jesus's teachings that forbade a male dominated Church, among many many other things.
2006-12-26 12:31:15 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
Better look at the Apocrypha that is in the ROMAN Catholic Bible!
It is one of those books!
2006-12-26 12:29:01 · answer #6 · answered by whynotaskdon 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Many comparisons on this site (various religions..including catholocism)
http://www.contenderministries.org/
2006-12-26 12:29:58 · answer #7 · answered by Jeff C 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋