EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE AND ITS LIMITS. The Use of the Septuagint in Retracing the Redaction History of the Hebrew Bible (original) (raw)
Related papers
Evidence of Editing: Growth and Change of Texts in the Hebrew Bible
Series: SBL Resources for Biblical Study 75 (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2014); x + 255 pages.
Evidence of Editing lays out the case for substantial and frequent editorial activity within the Hebrew Bible. The authors show how editors omitted, expanded, rewrote, and compiled both smaller and larger phrases and passages to address religious and political change. Features: • Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic examples of editorial activity • Clear explanations of the distinctions between textual, literary, and redaction criticism • Fifteen chapters attesting to continual editorial activity in the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings
Background The topic of this study is the revision of ancient sources according to the Masoretic text (MT). From our vantage point such a revision sounds like a logical concept since the developments of the past 2000 years have made us accustomed to the idea that MT is the central Scripture text. However, this was not always the case, and the assumption of revisional tendencies cannot automatically be assumed across the board. Each source needs to be analyzed separately, and what is true for the realm of one Greek translation does not necessarily apply to other Greek translations, or to Aramaic translations, and definitely not for Hebrew texts. For example, adaptation of biblical quotations to MT in rabbinic sources is less frequent than one might think. Penkower claims that quotations deviating from MT 1 in the manuscripts of the rabbinic literature or the traditional Jewish commentators were not often changed in manuscripts, 2 while they were in printed editions. 3 The discussion will first lead us to the revision of ancient translations, especially the Septuagint (LXX), and then to the main topic, revision of Hebrew manuscripts.
In several Scripture books, the Masoretic Text (MT) displays a substantial number of major differences when compared with the LXX and, to a lesser degree, with several Qumran scrolls and the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP). The other ancient versions were translated from Hebrew texts close to MT. The present analysis is limited to variations bearing on literary analysis, usually found in groups of variants. A difference involving one or two words, and sometimes an isolated case of a single verse, is considered a small difference, while a discrepancy involving a whole section or chapter indicates a substantial difference, often relevant to literary criticism. However, a group of seemingly unrelated small differences might also display a common pattern, pointing to a more extensive phenomenon. This pertains to many small theological changes in the MT of Samuel, short renderings in the LXX translation of Ezekiel, etc. Who created these various types of differences between ancient texts? In very broad terms, authors and editors who were involved in the composition of the texts, inserted changes that we characterize today as large differences often bearing on literary criticism. At a later stage, scribes who copied the completed compositions inserted many smaller changes and also made mistakes while copying. However, the distinction between these two levels is unclear at both ends, since early copyists considered themselves petty collaborators in the creation process of Scripture, while authors and editors were also copyists. While readings found in ancient Hebrew manuscripts provide stable evidence, there are many problems on the slippery road of evaluating the ancient versions, especially the LXX. One of these is that what appears to one scholar to be a safely reconstructed Hebrew variant text is for another one a specimen of a translator's tendentious rendering. Literary analysis of the Hebrew Bible is only interested in evidence of the first type, since it sheds light on the background of the different Hebrew texts that were once circulating. The translator's tendentious changes are also interesting, but at a different level, that of Scripture exegesis. Since a specific rendering either represents a greatly deviating Hebrew text or it displays the translator's exegesis, one wonders how are we to differentiate between the two. For almost every variation in the LXX, one finds opposite views expressed, and there are only very few objective criteria for evaluating these variations. Probably the best criteria relate to external Hebrew evidence supporting the
My intention here is to address two desiderata for scholarship. To focus the discussion I shall survey the evidence for two phantom texts which have been hypothesized within Jewish reception history: (§1) the Egyptian recension, condemned by pseudo-Aristeas in the second century BCE; (§2) the Palestinian κοίνη, known to Origen of Alexandria (185–254 CE). These two texts are elusive entities that may or may not have existed in the form in which scholars imagine them; they remain interesting, nevertheless, for the questions they raise, each inviting us to re-consider commonly held assumptions about textual transmission.