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About This Text
Composed: c.350 – c.150 BCE
The Book of Sussanah is an apocryphal short story about an attempted rape of a righteous married woman by two Jewish elders. When she resists their advances, the elders accuse her of adultery, and she is condemned to death. She beseeches God for mercy, and is proven innocent when the elders, interrogated by the prophet Daniel, disagree about the tree under which the adultery allegedly took place. The story is included in the Septuagint and other Greek biblical manuscripts as part of the Book of Daniel, but not in Hebrew manuscripts. It has inspired much art and music.