Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego of a letter from king Nebuchadnezzar. Chapter 3 is unique in that Daniel does not appear in it. Daniel 3 forms part of a chiasmus (a poetic structure in which the main point or message of a passage is placed in the centre and framed by further repetitions on either side) within Daniel 2-7, paired with Daniel 6, the story of Daniel in the lions' den: Chapters 3 and 6 contain significant differences, however. The story of the fiery furnace does not include Daniel, while the story of the lions' den does not include Daniel's friends; the first story takes
Old Testament as the Pentateuch and Deuteronomistic history and probably date from the 4th century BC. Chronicles, and Ezra–Nehemiah, were probably finished during the 3rd century BC. Catholic and Orthodox Old Testaments contain two (Catholic Old Testament) to four (Orthodox) Books of Maccabees, written in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. These history books make up around half the total content of the Old Testament. Of the remainder, the books of the various prophets – Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve "minor prophets" – were written between the 8th and 6th centuries BC, with the exceptions of Jonah and Daniel, which were