Old Greek Daniel 2: Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream as a Visible and Infallible Prophecy

This study focuses on Old Greek Daniel 2. In the MT, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar has a symbolic «dream» that he cannot understand, while Daniel perceives the same dream and its interpretation through a revelatory nocturnal «vision». The lexical differentiation between the oneiric experience of a non-Jew and that of a Jew is not preserved in the OG. The translator uses both «dream» (ἐνύπνιον) and «vision» (ὅραμα) to describe Nebuchadnezzar’s dream experience. Is the employment of the two oneiric terms in DanOG 2 unintentional? Is it deliberate but merely due to stylistic needs? Or is it the result of a conscious effort to convey a new perspective compared to its Semitic source? I address this question by contextualising the semantics of the oneiric lexicon in the light of coeval papyri from Ptolemaic Egypt, LXX, Jewish writings in Greek from the Hellenistic-Roman period, and ancient Greek literature. This investigation shows how, in DanOG 2, the use of technical nouns for «dream» is skilfully and intentionally orchestrated and intended to emphasise the prophetic character of the king’s «vision».