Daniel 3:25 Was the 4th Man in the Furnace “like the Son of God” or “like a son of the gods?”
According to the KJV, NKJV, and the Catholic Douay Rheims Bible, Nebuchadnezzar claimed that the fourth Man in the fiery furnace was “like the Son of God.” However, the vast majority of modern versions have “like a son of the gods.”
This difference is because the KJV, NKJV do not slavishly follow the Hebrew Masoretic Text, but sometimes revert to readings in the Greek Septuagint especially in Christologically significant passages. On the other hand, most modern versions ignore the Septuagint altogether, and follow the Masoretic Text of the Old Testament even when quotations of the Old Testament in the New Testament follow the Greek LXX against the Masoretic Text. The Catholic Douay Rheims version follows the Latin Vulgate which was translated from a Hebrew text that is much older than any copies of the Masoretic Text.
It is important to note that extant copies of the Hebrew Masoretic Text date to about 1000 AD at the earliest. This is about 600 years later than the earliest copies of the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate. Also, the Masoretic Text is the product of non-Christian Jewish scholarship long after the New Testament was written, and after the controversies between the Jews and early Christians who used these verses to prove who Jesus was. Also, the New Testament authors’ quotations of the Old Testament favor the readings in the Septuagint over the Masoretic Text readings, especially in significant Christological texts, as this one appears to be. This illustrates that the Masoretic Text has anti-Christian bias contained in it.
For example, Psalm 22:16 in the Septuagint reads “they pierced my hands and my feet,” a clear reference to the association of that Psalm with Jesus’ crucifixion in the New Testament. But the Masoretic Text has “like a lion, they are at my hands and my feet.” Again, Psalm 40:6-8 is quoted in Heb. 10:5-9 and has the clause “a body you have prepared for Me” which agrees with the Septuagint. But the Masoretic Text of Psalm 40 has “mine ears hast Thou opened.” If the Masoretic Text is correct here, then the author of Hebrews could not be inspired by God because the LXX reading he quoted is critical to the point he made about Jesus.
These facts should cast some suspicion on the reading in Daniel 3:25 that the fourth man in the fiery furnace was “like a son of the gods.” This is because this particular verse was used by the early Christians to prove that the Son of God existed before His birth in Bethlehem. In the Greek Septuagint it reads “the form of the fourth was like the Son of God.”
The Septuagint was translated into Greek from a much older Hebrew/Aramaic copy of Daniel than what is found in the Masoretic Text. And there is much evidence that this older Hebrew/Aramaic text read exactly as the LXX has rendered it, “the Son of God.” The Aramaic Peshitta is a very early translation of the Hebrew Bible (predating the Masoretic Text by at least 500 years). Certain portions of Daniel were written in Aramaic originally rather than in Hebrew. This was because that was the language of the Babylonians where Daniel was a captive. Nebuchadnezzar’s statement in Daniel 3:25 is in Aramaic even in the Hebrew Masoretic Text. Therefore, it would need no translation at all in the Aramaic Peshitta. This is also evidence that the earlier copies of Daniel had the singular “Son of God” and not “a son of the gods.”
Again, the Latin Vulgate was the translation made by Jerome in the 4th century, and it translates a Hebrew/Aramaic text for its Old Testament that was much older than the Masoretic Text. The 4th cent. Latin Vulgate has “et species quarti similis filio Dei” (“and the appearance of the fourth is like the Son of God”).
The early Christian writers long before the Masoretic Text was edited by unbelieving Jews consistently quoted this verse as proof of the Son’s preexistence and His activity as the Angel of Yahweh. For example, here is a quote from Irenaeus (2nd cent.): “Now this is the Son of God, as the Scripture represents Nebuchadnezzar the king as having said, ‘Did not we cast three men bound into the furnace? and, lo, I do see four walking in the midst of the fire, and the fourth is like the Son of God’.” (Against Heresies, Bk. V, ch. v:2).
Finally, the context of Dan. 3 shows that Nebuchadnezzar believed the “fourth” person in the furnace was the “Angel” of Yahweh. Just before Nebuchadnezzar condemned Daniel’s three friends to the furnace, they said to the king: “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king.” (v. 17). Then, after Nebuchadnezzar saw this deliverance by the fourth person in the fiery furnace, he said this: “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, who has sent His Angel and delivered His servants who put their trust in Him, violating the king’s command, and yielded up their bodies so as not to serve or worship any god except their own God.” (v. 28). It is therefore absurd to suppose that Nebuchadnezzar thought the fourth person in the furnace was “a son of the (pagan) gods.”
Those who insist on following the Masoretic Text reading here claim that Nebuchadnezzar could not possibly know anything about “the Son of God.” Yet, Daniel was Nebuchadnezzar’s chief adviser. There is every reason to believe that he had educated Nebuchadnezzar concerning Israel’s history, and had read to him the Torah, Judges, Psalms, Proverbs, and previous prophets. The “Angel of Yahweh” and the “Son of God” appear in these writings. Assuming Nebuchadnezzar’s familiarity with the Hebrew writings through Daniel, it would be very easy for him to make the connection between the “Angel of Yahweh” who appeared to Moses in the flaming bush and rescued Israel from Pharaoh, and the “Angel” of “the Most High God” who was the fourth person in the flames of the furnace and who rescued these three from Nebuchadnezzar.
So called ‘Biblical’ Unitarians put all their marbles in the Masoretic Text reading of this passage, against all of the evidence to the contrary, simply because their theology cannot allow the Son to have preexisted.