Abstract

The Gospel writers, pre-eminently Matthew, appear to have found in the history of Susanna a narrative template for the synoptic accounts of the arrest, trial and death of Christ. Establishing this strong probability has significant implications for the history of the development of scripture, of the canon, of Jewish-Christian relations, and of the role of women in early Christianity. Yet the present study is the first to suggest that the Gospels themselves offer any woman as a type of Christ. Their reliance on Susanna's history helps explain the Christian preference of Theodotion-Daniel over the LXX version of that book and at the same time suggests a strong reason for Jewish authorities to have excluded Susanna's account from their canon of scripture. The numerous parallels between the experiences of Susanna and Jesus concern their entire ordeals and are often expressed in the Gospels through direct verbal borrowings: Each is arrested in a garden and endures two trials. In the first trial, each is condemned to death by the «elders of the people» on the testimony of two false witnesses. The judge of the second trial proclaims, «I am innocent of the blood of this one». When death is imminent, Susanna and Jesus each «exclaimed in a great voice "My God"», Susanna continues, «Behold! I die!», her words corresponding to the actual death of Jesus. Within Matthew 26-27 are found seventeen verbal echoes of Theodotion-Susanna. That is, Matthew may draw upon the history of Susanna as extensively as upon Psalm 22