Book of Shadrach

At some point before the Greeks conquered the Persians, the Book of Shadrach became part of the Twelve, or as Christians would later call them, the books of the minor prophets. These books span several hundred years of Israelite history, and generally identify the time period each book is set in by mentioning the king who was ruling the land at the time. The earliest, other than Shadrach, is the Book of Hosea, who lived “in the days of Uzziah, and Jotham, and Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam II, son of Jehoash, king of Israel,” who ruled the Judah between approximately 783 and 687 BC. These kings were also recorded in the Assyrian records from the era, and are considered to be historical people, while King Jeroboam II, the son of Jehoash, ruled Samaria (Northern Kingdom of Israel) for 41 years sometime between 793 and 746 BC.

The most recently composed of the twelve books to identify a ruler were the books of Haggai and Zachariah, both set in the “second year of King Darius.” King Darius I was the third ‘King of Kings’ (Emperor) of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, reigning from 522 BC until his death in 486 BC, which would place the date of Haggai and Zachariah to circa 520 BC. As the Book of Shadrach is set earlier than the rest of the twelve, it should have been the first of the twelve, but seems to have always been placed at the end. The Greek translation of the Dodeka, made at the library of Alexandria circa 190 BC, and the Masoretic Texts which were copied by the Masorites between 400 and 1000 AD, use different sequences for the twelve books, however, in both cases Shadrach was at the end. In both cases, the Book of Shadrach has also been split into two books, the seconds half of the Book of Zachariah and the Book of Malachi. As the Book of Zachariah is set during the Persian Era, in the second year of Darius, which was 520 BC, this book cannot have also been written centuries earlier, when Egypt and Assyria were enemies of Samaria, and Judah ruled Edom. The Book of ‘Malachi’ is even more confusing, as it is anonymous. The name Malachi is simply a corruption of the Hebrew and Canaanite word for ‘messengers.’ The fact that the Book of ‘Malachi’ is anonymous, has been commented on for more than two thousand years, however, most modern Christian churches choose to accept the prophet that wrote it had the remarkably unlikely name of ‘Messengers’ rather than admit they don’t know who wrote the book. It is unclear why Shadrach was misplaced among the twelve, however, appears to have been in its current position, divided between Zachariah and Malachi by the beginning of the Greek rule of Judea, suggesting it happened during the Persian era.