4.26 Textual History of Joshua (THB 1c 3.1) (original) (raw)
Related papers
4.25 Literary and Textual History of Joshua 2
Wolfgang Kraus, Michaël N. van der Meer, and Martin Meiser, eds., XV Congress of the International for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, Munich, 2013, SBLSCS 64 (Atlanta: SBL, 2016), 565-591
Ever since Samuel Holmes identified the recurring pluses in MT-Joshua 2 as elements of a re-edition of the Hebrew book of Joshua, scholars have studied the quantitative variants between the MT and LXX of Joshua in light of the presumed process of literary editing of biblical books evidenced by the oldest textual witnesses. Whereas the extant Qumran scrolls for this chapter (i.c. 4QJosh b and XJosh) do not lend support for such a thesis, the character of the Greek translation is more ambiguous and judged as either witness to the process of reformulation of the book or rather straightforward rendering and hence witness to a deviating, shorter Hebrew Vorlage. In this paper I will readdress this issue in the light of a literary-critical analysis of the book in its own right. Joshua 2 contains the well-known story of the spies at Rahab's house at Jericho, their oath to let her and her family life when the Israelites conquer the city and it tells the spies' safe escape from the city. As in so many other chapters in the book of Joshua, the extant Hebrew and Greek texts differ at many relatively small instances. 1 A synopsis of the two versions makes this clear: 2 1 See the discussion of Joshua 1, 5:2-12; 8:1-29 and 8:30-35 in Michaël N. van der Meer, Formation and Reformulation. I have used the following conventions: where the Hebrew text of MT lacks an equivalent in LXX, I have marked such a minus in the Greek text by means of three hyphens for each missing Hebrew lexeme. Where the Greek text is longer than or different from MT, I have marked such variant by means of italics. The Hebrew and Greek texts are divided in (single) clauses.
4.31 The Reception History of Joshua in the Septuagint and Contemporary Documents
Michaël N. van der Meer, "The Reception History of Joshua in the Septuagint and Contemporary Documents," in Die Septuaginta-Geschichte, Wirkung, Relevanz, ed. Martin Meiser, Michaela Geiger, Siegfried Kreuzer, Marcus Sigismund, WUNT 405 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 431-463, 2018
In this paper the reception of the book of Joshua as reflected in the Old Greek version is placed within the context of contemporary interpretations of the figure and book of Joshua in the Persian, Ptolemaic, Seleucid, Hasmonean, Julio-Claudan and Flavian periods. Attention is given to passages in Ben Sira, Eupolemos, 1 and 2 Maccabees, the Qumran Joshua Apocryphon, 4QTestimonia, the Testaments of Moses, Philo, Acts, Hebrews, 2 Baruch, 4 Ezra, Sibylline Oracles, Josephus and Pseudo-Philo. Particularly the latter two rewritten versions show interesting parallels and contrasts with the Old Greek version of Joshua, when it comes to the role of warfare and attitude to foreign powers. It is argued that a historical and contextual approach instead of an inner-biblical approach to reception history helps to explain the early reception history and even late redaction history of that biblical book.
This book offers a critical examination of recent theories concerning the growth of biblical literature in the light of the oldest textual witnesses (the Qumran biblical scrolls and the Septuagint). On the basis of a fresh examination of a selection of passages in the book of Joshua, it is shown that these witnesses do not reflect a stage in the literary formation of the book prior to the standardised (Masoretic) text, but a reinterpretation and reformulation of its contents. The study presents a new literary-critical solution to the intricate problems of Joshua 8 and a detailed exegesis of the Greek version of Joshua 1 and 5. Of special interest for Qumran scholars is the new reconstruction of 4QJoshua-a.
The Four Deaths of Joshua: Why the Septuagint is Pivotal for the Study of Joshua 24
Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel, 2017
The article reconstructs the textual growth of the death and burial accounts of Joshua (Josh 24:28–31, Judg 2:6–9) in the light of documented evidence preserved in the LXX and the MT. It is argued that LXX Josh 24:28–31 generally preserves the earliest extant version from which the others have been edited to various new contexts. The article then discusses some implications of this reconstruction for literary and redaction criticism of Josh 24. Since redaction critics often neglect the LXX as a witness to an earlier Hebrew text, untenable conclusions have been advanced about the compositional history of Josh 24.