Bel and the Dragon

Above:  Daniel Confounds the Priests of Bel

Image in the Public Domain

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READING DANIEL

PART XII

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Daniel 5:1-30 (Protestant and Anglican)

Daniel 5:1-6:1 (Jewish, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox)

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The folly of idolatry is the theme of Daniel 14.  The two stories (verses 1-22 and 23-42) in this chapter mock and caricature Babylonian religion.

“Bel” was the Babylonian equivalent of “Baal.”  In this case, Bel was Marduk, the head of the Babylonian pantheon.

Daniel 14, like the rest of the Book of Daniel, is ahistorical.

In this chapter, Daniel cleverly points out how ridiculous idolatry is.  He identifies the footprints of priests, their wives, and their children who consumed food offerings to Bel in the middle of the night.  Daniel also feeds a statue of a dragon, causing it to explode.  Then he survives a second round in the lions’ den (see Chapter 6).  And Cyrus II, like kings before him, acknowledges YHWH.

Daniel 14 does erect a straw man then knock him down.  Nevertheless, idolatry is ridiculous.  One need not sacrifice food to statues to commit idolatry.  Statues of false deities are not really idols anyway; the ideas behind them are the actual idols.

Whenever we love something we ought not to love, we commit idolatry.  Whenever we love something or someone more than we should, we also commit idolatry.  To love something or someone more than we ought to do is to deny proper love to God.  Doing so may not seem ridiculous to us when we commit idolatry, but it is foolish.

Thank you for joining me on this journey through the Book of Daniel, O reader.  I invite you to accompany me through the Book of Tobit, my next project.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

NOVEMBER 24, 2020 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF JOHN LAFARGE, JR., U.S. ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST AND RENEWER OF SOCIETY

THE FEAST OF SAINTS ANDREW DUNG-LAC AND PETER THI, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIESTS AND MARTYRS IN VIETNAM, 1839

THE FEAST OF SAINT THEOPHANE VENARD, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST, MISSIONARY, AND MARTYR IN VIETNAM, 1861

THE FEAST OF SAINT VINCENT LIEM, ROMAN CATHOLIC MARTYR, 1773

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