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Daniel describes three Hebrew men thrown into a blazing, firey furnace who walk out unharmed. Pseudo-Philo likely draws on this to tell a similar story about Abraham, who refuses to build the tower of Babel and survives the furnace.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Daniel 3:27
Hebrew Bible
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. 27 Once the satraps, prefects, governors, and ministers of the king had gathered around, they saw that those men were physically unharmed by the fire. The hair of their heads was not singed, nor were their trousers damaged. Not even the smell of fire was to be found on them! 28 Nebuchadnezzar exclaimed, “Praised be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent forth his angel and has rescued his servants who trusted in him, ignoring the edict of the king and giving up their bodies rather than serve or pay homage to any god other than their God!
Pseudo Philo Biblical Antiquities 6:17
Classical
16 They took him and built a furnace and kindled it with fire, and put bricks burned with fire into the furnace. Then Jectan the prince, troubled in his mind, took Abram and put him with the bricks into the furnace of fire. 17 But God stirred up a great earthquake, and the fire gushed out of the furnace and broke out into flames and sparks of fire, and consumed all who stood around watching the furnace; all who were burned that day were 83,500. But Abram suffered no harm at all from the burning of the fire. 18 Abram rose up out of the furnace, and the fiery furnace collapsed, and Abram was saved. He went to the 11 men who were hidden in the hill country and told them all that had happened to him, and they came down with him out of the hill country rejoicing in the name of the Lord, and no one met them to frighten them that day. And they called that place by the name of Abram, and in the language of the Chaldeans Deli, which means God.
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Notes and References
... The first major story about Abram himself in Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum (chapter 6) associates him with the building of the Tower of Babel. The tale is a variant on the Danielic story of the three young men in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3). Twelve leaders in Babylon refuse to bake bricks in the furnace for the tower, because they consider the building of the tower idolatry that conflicts with their worship of the One God (6:2-4). Given the chance, eleven of the twelve flee for their lives (6:6-10). Only Abram refuses to leave, and is thrown into the furnace (6:11-16). The idolaters are consumed by the flames leaping out of the furnace, but Abram emerges unscathed (6:17). The section that immediately follows (chapter 7) recapitulates the biblical text, contrasting the builders of the tower, who will be scattered, with Abram, whom God chooses to bring out of Mesopotamia into the land of Canaan. ...
Nickelsburg, George W. E.
"Abraham the Convert: A Jewish Tradition and Its Use by the Apostle Paul" in Stone, Michael E.; Bergren, Theodore A. (ed.) Biblical Figures Outside the Bible
(p. 163) Trinity Press International, 1998
* 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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