Texts in Conversation
In Daniel, three men are thrown into a blazing furnace but emerge unharmed because God intervenes. The Acts of Paul and Thecla follows this pattern, where Thecla is condemned to be burned, but divine intervention saves her.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Daniel 3:25
Hebrew Bible
23 But those three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell into the furnace of blazing fire while still securely bound. 24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar was startled and quickly got up. He said to his ministers, “Wasn’t it three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?” They replied to the king, “For sure, O king.” 25 He answered, “But I see four men, untied and walking around in the midst of the fire! No harm has come to them! And the appearance of the fourth is like that of a god!” 26 Then Nebuchadnezzar approached the door of the furnace of blazing fire. He called out, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the most high God, come out! Come here!” Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego emerged from the fire.
Acts of Paul and Thecla 22
Paul and Thecla
Early Christian
22 Now the boys and the maidens brought wood and hay to burn Thecla: and when she was brought in naked, the governor wept and marvelled at the power that was in her. And they laid the wood, and the executioner bade her mount upon the pyre: and she, making the sign of the cross, went up upon the wood. And they lighted it, and though a great fire blazed forth, the fire took no hold on her; for God had compassion on her, and caused a sound under the earth, and a cloud overshadowed her above, full of rain and hail, and all the vessel of it was poured out so that many were in peril of death, and the fire was quenched, and Thecla was preserved.
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Notes and References
... The Acts of Paul, a composition usually dated by scholars before 200 CE, tells about the fiery tribulation of the Christian proto-martyr Thecla. Her ordeal brings to mind some details found in Daniel 3, as well as the accounts of Abraham's own fiery tribulation. Several details of Thecla's miraculous escape are also present in Daniel 3, especially in its Greek renderings. The first notable feature is the quenching of fire by water sent from a heavenly being. In the Greek rendering of Daniel 3, the Angel of the Lord cools the oven of Nebuchadnezzar with dew. A second parallel is the death of the antagonistic spectators, a feature present in the Aramaic version of Daniel 3 and reiterated by various later versions. The third shared feature is the resistance of the adept's body to the element of fire. Focusing on the phrase "fire did not touch her," Stephen Davis argues that Thecla "remains completely impervious to the threatening elements around her." ...
Orlov, Andrei A.
Demons of Change: Antagonism and Apotheosis in Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism
(pp. 61-62) State University of New York Press, 2020
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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