COP

3020
Old Testament I

Hebrew versus Greek Text

 Hebrew versus Greek Text
Objectives

•  Appreciation of the difficulties of
defining “A Text”
•  The Hebrew Text
•  The Greek Text
•  The Latin Text
•  Is there a role still for the Septuagint?
 How do you know that you have the
right text?
•  What does it mean to be a people of a
“book”?
•  How much variation is acceptable and to
whom?
•  The Nuances of a translated text!
The Hebrew Text
 Let’s start with the Hebrew Text
•  THERE ARE TWO TRADITIONAL HEBREW TEXTS: PRE-
MASORETIC (WITH NO VOWELS) AND MASORETIC (WITH
VOWELS).
•  The Pre-Masoretic includes Qumran (texts written between
250 b.c.e. and 68 c.e.), Masada (before 73 c.e.), and Wadi
Murabba’at (around the time of second Jewish revolt, 132–35
c.e.), among others.
•  The second period of text transmission, from the destruction of
the Second Temple until the eighth century c.e., is
characterized by a higher degree of textual consistency due
primarily to the end of the Second Temple and major socio-
religious changes succeeding this event.
 HOW DO YOU READ A TEXT
WITHOUT VOWELS

•  - In English, we could easily read many
sentences that lacked vowels, as “Kng Dvd
klld tht wckd prsn, th Phlstn Glth.”
•  But if the sentence had “Kng Dvd klld th mn,”
•  should we read “man” or “men”?
•  If we see “Kng Dvd lvd,”
•  does it mean “lived” or “loved”?
 HOW DID THEY MANAGE THE
CONSISTENCY OVER THE YEARS?

•  Oral/Written Society
•  The Temple had professional “correctors” or
“revisers” (maggihim). The Talmud makes reference
to the work of those correctors when it urges,
“When you teach your son, teach him from a
corrected scroll (sepher muggah)” (b. Pesah. 112a);
or “My son, be careful, because your work is the
work of heaven; should you omit (even) one letter
or add (even) one letter, the whole world would be
destroyed” (b. Sot. 20a).
 THE MASORETIC TEXT (8TH CENT-
MIDDLE AGES)

•  THE ORIGIN OF THE WORD MASORAH
•  The Masoretic Text. The terms "Masorah" and
"Masoretic" stem from a comment by Rabbi
Akiva when he explained that scribal tradition
was a fence around the Law (m. Abot 3: 14).
The Hebrew word "tradition" is the Hebrew
word masorah, hence the use of the adjective
"Masoretic" in the expression "Masoretic
text."
 This is how accurate it gets!
•  Since its beginnings, mainstream Judaism has considered MT the
original, unaltered, text of the Bible. Yet such a belief is
challenged by the historical fact that vowels were added later
during the rabbinic period. As a response to this criticism, the
defenders of MT’s internal unity argue that the late addition of
the vowels by the Masoretes relied on an accurate oral
transmission.
•  The Masoretes may be divided into several groups. Soferim, the
scribes, are the ones who copied the consonantal text; the
naqdanim, “pointers,” were responsible for vocalization, namely,
by creating and inserting the vowel-signs within the consonantal
writing; and bale ha-massorah, “masters of the Masorah” (the
Masoretes), the ones who gathered all necessary information in
the Masoretic apparatus.
 This is how accurate it gets!
•  “The ancients were called soferim because they counted
every letter in the Torah. They said that the waw in gḥwn
(Lev 11:42) is the middle consonant in the Torah, drš drš
(Lev 10:16) the middle word and whtglḥ (Lev 13:33) the
middle verse” (b. Qidd. 30a).
•  The oldest preserved MT manuscript is the Codex Cairensis
(895 c.e.) that comprises only the Prophets. The Aleppo
Codex (three-fourths of this manuscript have been kept),
dated to ca. 925 c.e., was published in a facsimile edition by
Moshe H. Goshen-Gottstein (Jerusalem, 1976).
•  - The first printed complete text of the Jewish Bible
appeared in 1488 in Soncino (close to Milan).
 The Hebrew Text
•  CHAPTER DIVISIONS: FOR MOST PART THE DIVISIONS
IN THE OT MT WERE LITURGICAL
•  The current division into chapters was introduced in
1214 by Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury.
•  Other Hebrew Texts include The Samaritan Pentateuch
(SP) which represents a popular or vulgar text (i.e., a
text used by the public at large). There are
approximately 6,000 differences between the SP and
the MT, but most of these are superficial, reflecting
changes only in orthography (spelling).
•  The SP probably represents one of most ancient
versions of the Hebrew Pentateuch.
The Greek Text
 The Greek text
•  Several Greek Translations existed: LXX, and in the
second century AD the Greek translations of Aquila,
Symmachus, and Theodotian.
•  LXX: The Greek name found in Christian manuscripts
from the fourth century on is kata tous
hebdomēkonta, “according to the seventy.” The
common siglum for this Greek translation is the
Roman numeral for seventy, LXX.
 THE ORIGIN OF THE LEGEND
•  LETTER OF ARISTEAS TO PHILOCRATES (HAS BEEN DEBATED
THAT IT IS LATER THAN THE PROPOSED 3RD CENTURY BC)
•  According to the Letter of Aristeas, Demetrius Phalereus, king
Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–47 b.c.e.) librarian in Alexandria,
requested Eleazer, the high priest of the Temple in Jerusalem, to
provide skilled translators along with the Torah scrolls to be
dispatched to Alexandria. Aristeas, the purported author of the
letter, was one of the king’s emissaries sent to Jerusalem. High
priest Eleazer selected six men from each of the twelve tribes,
and sent all seventy-two translators along with a large escort and
various gifts to Alexandria.
•  Afterward, the translators were moved to the island of Pharos
connected by a causeway to Alexandria. There, the Jewish sages
worked seventy-two days on the first Greek translation of the
Law.
 THE LEGEND IS MORE SOLIDIFIED
•  the Letter of Aristeas underscores its authority by
telling the readers that the Hebrew scrolls were
brought from the Temple of Jerusalem, the high
priest himself was involved in the process, and sages
representing the whole confederation of the
Israelite tribes living in the homeland were used as
translators. Remarkably, the whole episode of
making of this translation is compared with the
giving of the Law on Mount Sinai.
 THE LEGEND GOT BIGGER WITH PHILO
(INSPIRATION ACCORDING TO THE JEWSIH
TRADITION)

•  Philo added the legendary detail of how the Jewish
translators, though working separately, managed to
come up with exactly the same literal rendition due to
divine dictation. He also asserted that the Greek
translation, as its Hebrew original, was inspired by God:
“They, as inspired men, prophesied, not one saying one
thing and another, but every one of them employed the
same nouns and verbs, as if some unseen prompter had
suggested all their language to them” (Life of Moses
2.37).
 COPIES AND COMPARISONS OF LXX

•  COPIES OF LXX ARE DATED BACK TO THE SECOND
CENTURY BC, INCLUDING THE DSS (WIDE SPREAD)
•  - AFTER THIRD CENTURIES ALL LXX COPIES ARE
CHRISTIAN (YOU CAN TELL BY THE USE OF KYRIOS
INSTEAD OF YHWH
•  - THE TENSION BETWEEN THE LXX AND OTHER
GREEK TRANSLATIONS (THEODOTION, AQUILA,
SYMMACHUS), COMPARED WITH OTHER HEBREW
TEXTS SUCH AS THE SAMARITAN AND THE PESHITTA
 WAS THE LXX ALL UNIFORM
•  At the beginning of Christian era, the Dead Sea
Scrolls show a certain textual fluidity concerning the
Hebrew text,
•  Attempts were made within Judaism itself to
accommodate the LXX to the ongoing changes
undergone by the Hebrew text.
•  The last sign of the LXX’s influence in the Jewish
sphere may be detected in its central position in
Josephus’s work toward the end of the first century
c.e.
 Issues with the LXX
•  The most striking differences between the Greek
translation and the Hebrew Bible include the Greek
additions to the books of Esther and Daniel. There are six
additions to the Book of Esther while the Prayer of
Azariah and the Three Young Men, the Story of Susana,
and the Story of Bel and the Dragon are adjoined to
Daniel.
•  The LXX and the MT include the fact that the Greek text
of Jeremiah is one-eighth shorter than the MT, the
Greek text of Job is one-sixth shorter, and a number of
differences exist between the Hebrew and Greek texts of
Samuel– Kings and in Proverbs.
 Issues with the LXX
•  The phenomenon of quoting verses from another
passage for explanatory purposes is quite common in
the LXX. The LXX quotes Jer 9: 23 after 1 Sam 2: 10,
includes Exod 19: 5– 6 at Exod 23: 22, and adds Deut 5:
14 after Exod 20: 10.
•  The LXX of Jeremiah exhibits a sequence of chapters
different from the MT. Also, the numbering of the
psalms is different.
•  There exists a significant variation in the translation
from quite literal to very free translation (Daniel),
almost to a point that the LXX translation had to be
replaced at a later date (an influence attributed to
Origen).
 Issues with the LXX
•  THE MAIN QUESTION IN LXX RESEARCH IS WHETHER
THE LXX REPRESENTS EARLIER MANUSCRIPTS THAT
WERE MORE FLUID THAN THE MT OR PROT-MT OR
WHETHER THE LXX WAS MODIFIED DURING THE
TRANSLATION (REDACTION DIFFERENCE).
•  WHY ARE THERE DIFFERENCES IN THE TEXT: The local-
text theory maintains that the variant manuscripts can
be explained by noting that biblical manuscripts were
copied in three locations: one in Babylon, one in Egypt,
and one in Palestine. Generally speaking the MT derives
from the Babylonian recension, the LXX from the
Egyptian, and the SP from the Palestine.
 Issues with the LXX
•  Based on the ongoing analysis of Qumran texts (Hebrew
and Greek) dating to the third century b.c.e .– first
century c.e., the current consensus is that the text of the
Septuagint either reflects a Hebrew/Aramaic Vorlage
different from the one mirrored by the MT, or is the
product of various editorial interventions introduced by
the Greek translators, or that it was simply changed by
scribal mistakes piled up during the transmission. Or the
Septuagint could be the product of all three of these
factors combined.
Pentiuc, Eugen J. (Page 93). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
 Issues with the LXX
One thing seems clear, however. The Hebrew
manuscripts used for the Septuagint could have not
been sent to Alexandria by a high priest (Eleazer)
along with other sages as mentioned in the Letter of
Aristeas for the mere reason that a high priest would
have promoted a text of the MT family connected to
the Temple circles.

Pentiuc, Eugen (Page 94). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
 NOT A UNIFIED TRANSLATION

•  Rather than being the work of one single author, done
in a limited period of time, and in one location, the
LXX spanned over more than two centuries, involved
many translators working independently, and was not
accomplished entirely in Alexandria.
•  As a historical fact, the Law (Pentateuch) was
translated in Alexandria around mid-third century
b.c.e. and the rest of the Jewish Scriptures were
rendered during the following two hundred.
•  As for the translation itself, this was in some cases
literal (e.g., the Pentateuch) and in others quite free
(e.g., Daniel, Job).
 LXX: The interpretational differences
•  THERE HAD TO BE SOME INTERPRETATIONAL
DIFFERENCE DUE TO THE AMBIGUITY OF THE HEBREW
TEXT (CONSONANTAL TEXT)
•  Every translation is more or less an interpretation of the
primary text. Thus LXX value is twofold, as a translation
and interpretation.
•  THERE IS DEFINITELY A DIFFERENCE IN TEXT: ATTEMPTS
TO HARMONIZE THE GREEK TRANSLATIONS: ORIGEN’S
HEXAPLA (A.D. 245)
•  Origen was among the few to recognize the textual and
literary difficulties surrounding the Greek translation of
“the Seventy.
 COPIES AND COMPARISONS OF LXX
(Origen Hexapla)
• 
For primary apologetic reasons writes Origen “But why
should I enumerate all the instances I collected with so
much labor, to prove that the difference between our
copies and those of the Jews did not escape me? In
Jeremiah I noticed many instances, and indeed in that
book I found much transposition and variation in the
readings of the prophecies. Again, in Genesis, the words,
“God saw that it was good,” when the firmament was
made, are not found in the Hebrew [Gen 1:8], and there is
no small dispute among them about this.”
Letter to Julius Africanus
 THE EARLY CHURCH AND THE
RECEPTION OF THE LXX
•  LXX WAS NOT THE SCRIPTURE OF JESUS AND THE
IMMEDIATE DISCIPLES BUT RATHER THE EARLY CHURCH
•  WHICH TEXT IS THE NEW TEST QUOTING FROM?
•  The New Testament used both the LXX and Jewish
recensions (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion) in quoting
the Jewish Bible.
•  Regarding the use of LXX by the New Testament writings,
the closest quotations appear in the Gospel of John, Luke-
Acts, and the catholic epistles. Many of the non-LXX
quotations are closer to MT and this situation
•  It is commonly accepted that Matthew and Paul quoted
extensively from proto-Theodotion and other revisions of
the LXX
 THE EARLY CHURCH AND THE
RECEPTION OF THE LXX
- THE EARLY CHURCH ADOPTED THE INSPIRED CHARACTER
OF THE LXX
•  hence, the emphasis on the inspired character of the
Septuagint and indirectly on its soteriological authority. As
the inspired and only widely utilized text in the early
Christian Church, the Septuagint became for many church
fathers and teachers more reliable than the Hebrew text.
In their view, the Septuagint enjoyed such a high position
because it was a praeparatio evangelica, a providential act
hereby God prepared the Gentiles to receive Jesus of
Nazareth as their Lord and Savior. In addition, there was
also the claim that the Septuagint matches quite well the
New Testament, culturally, linguistically, and religiously.
 The Church Fathers & the LXX
•  JUSTIN MARTYR WAS THE FIRST CHURCH FATHER TO
MENTION THE LXX USING THE LEGEND
•  - IRENAEUS Similarly to Justin, Irenaeus (Against
Heresies 3.21.2; see Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History
5.8.11–15) defends the inerrancy of the Septuagint
text when compared with other Jewish versions.
According to Irenaeus, the Septuagint preserved the
messianic prophecies much better than the other
versions. Irenaeus follows Philo’s claim that the
Septuagint is inspired because the translators worked
separately and yet produced exactly the same
translation.
 The Church Fathers & the LXX
•  According to Irenaeus, “The apostles, who are
older than the new translators Theodotion and
Aquila, and also their followers, preached the
words of the prophets just as they are contained
in the translation of the elders. Thus is the same
Spirit of God who spoke through the prophets of
the coming of the Lord, who properly translated
through the elders what was really prophesied,
and who preached the fulfillment of the promise
through the apostles” (Against Heresies 3.21.3;
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.8.15).32
 The Church Fathers & the LXX
•  SIMILARLY CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA
•  - EPIPHANIUS OF SALAMIS: THE LEGEND IS
COMPLETELY: THE TRANSLATORS LOCKED UP
INDIVIDUALLY UNTIL THEY EMERGE WITH THE
IDENTICAL TEXT
•  - CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
•  - JEROME WAS THE MAIN ANTAGONIST.
 Current Scholarship for LXX
•  Scholars are now realizing that the text used as the
Vorlage for the LXX translation was much closer to
the proto-Masoretic text than was previously
assumed.
•  The alleged differences between the Greek texts and
the Masoretic texts should be attributed more to
translation issues than to an alleged non-Masoretic
text as the basis for the Greek translation.
The Latin Text
 The Latin Old Testament
•  Jerome’s own translation of the Hebrew Old
Testament was accomplished between 390
and 405 c.e. The name of his translation,
Vulgate (Vulgata), comes from Latin adjective
vulgatus, “commonly known, in general
circulation,” hence a “popular” rendition of
the Bible. Jerome’s Hebrew source is generally
close to the MT’s Vorlage.
 The Latin Old Testament
Jerome’s pertinent remark suggesting two possible
reasons for the popularity of the Septuagint: “The
Septuagint has rightly kept its place in the churches,
either because it is the first of all the versions in time,
made before the coming of Christ, or else because it
has been used by the apostles (only however in places
where it does not disagree with the Hebrews)”
(Letter 57: To Pammachius on the Best Method of
Translating)
 JEROME VIEW ON THE SUPERIORITY
OF THE HEBREW
• 
“The Hebrew Scriptures are used by apostolic men.... Our Lord and
Savior himself whenever he refers to the Scriptures, takes his
quotations from the Hebrew; as in the instance of the words, “He
that believes on me, as the Scripture said, out of his belly shall
flow rivers of living water” [John 7:38; a quote from Prov 18:4 or
Isa 58:11] and in the words used on the cross itself, “Eli, Eli, lama
sabachthani,” which is by interpretation “My God, my God, why
have you forsaken me?” not, as it is given by the Septuagint, “My
God, my God, look upon me, why have you forsaken me?” and
many similar cases. I do not say this in order to aim a blow at the
seventy translators; but I assert that the apostles of Christ bare
[Sic] an authority superior to theirs. Wherever the Seventy agree
with the Hebrew, the apostles took their quotations from that
translation; but, where they disagree, they set down in Greek
what they had found in the Hebrew.” Apology against Refinus
2.34110
 The Debate over the Vulgate
•  THIS WAS A SOUR SPOT BETWEEN JEROME AND
AUGUSTINE WHO CONSIDERED THE LXX INSPIRED
(AUGUSTINE WAS ALSO CONCERNED OF SPLIT
BETWEEN THE GREEK AND THE WEST LATIN
CHURCHES)
•  - THE VULGATE BECAME THE OFFICIAL
•  The Vulgate was established as the standard Latin
Bible by the eighth or ninth century.
•  However, it was not until the Council of Trent—on
April 8, 1546, to be exact—that Jerome’s work was
officially recognized as the authoritative version of the
Roman Catholic Church
 The role of the Septuagint as a
translation!
•  The Richness of the textual studies
•  The Studies of the Intertestamental
period
•  The incorporation of the Bible in
Liturgical prayers
•  The role of the “extra” books in the early
Church
 Hebrew versus Greek Text

•  Appreciation of the difficulties of
defining “A Text”
•  The Hebrew Text
•  The Greek Text
•  The Latin Text
•  Is there a role still for the Septuagint?