Kaige and ‘Theodotion’

Author(s):  
Siegfried Kreuzer

This chapter examines the so-called Kaige and Kaige-Theodotion text of the Septuagint tradition. The Kaige Recension is a revision of the generally somewhat more freely translated original Septuagint (Old Greek) towards the now (late second-/early first-century bce) relevant form of the Hebrew text, the so-called proto-Masoretic text that at least started in the first century bce. The identification of the Kaige Recension also solved the problem that Theodotionic readings had been identified in writings from the first century ce, i.e. long before the traditional dating of the translator Theodotion in the late second century ce. However, there remains the question of a meaningful relationship between ‘Kaige’ and Theodotion.

Author(s):  
Lawrence H. Schiffman

This chapter argues that the Writings was an evolving collection of scripture used in a wide variety of ways by the Dead Sea Scrolls community at Qumran (second century bce to first century ce). Though the Hebrew word Ketuvim (Writings) does not occur in the Scroll material, all but one (Esther) of the books contained therein are found. The plentiful and varied textual evidence at Qumran, and occasionally other Judean desert sites, is presented with special attention to the number of biblical and other manuscripts and place found; textual comparisons with the biblical Masoretic text and others (e.g., Septuagint); citations; and other interpretive uses in sectarian documents. The importance of the books in the Writings for the life of the late postexilic community of Qumran and the nature of the Dead Sea Scrolls biblical collection are, together, a constant focus of the study.


2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-78
Author(s):  
Kristin De Troyer

The texts of papyrus Schøyen MS 2648 (a Joshua codex) and MS 2649 (a Leviticus codex) belong to the Old Greek text tradition of the books of Joshua and Leviticus. But both codices attest not purely to the Old Greek text, but to an already slightly altered text. The Old Greek text of the two codices was already revised towards a Hebrew text, most often the Masoretic text. The two papyri are thus not witnesses for the Old Greek text as it left the hands of the first translators, but for an Old Greek text that was beginning to be revised towards the Hebrew text.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
James Frohlich ◽  
Henk de Waard

Abstract Jeremiah 52 largely parallels 2 Kgs 25, and Jer 40–43 contains various sentences that are also found in 2 Kgs 25:22–26. The present article compares these parallel texts, in order to determine the relationship between the Masoretic text of Jeremiah and the book’s Old Greek translation. It concludes that this relationship is complex, but that the agreements between the Greek text of Jeremiah and the Hebrew text of Kings support the view that the Old Greek of Jeremiah reflects an early Hebrew version of the book.


1994 ◽  
Vol 87 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Horace G. Lunt ◽  
Moshe Taube

Fifty years ago, Charles C. Torrey, writing about Esther, asked on the pages of this journal, “Why is there no Greek translation of the Hebrew text? Every other book of the Hebrew Bible, whatever its nature, has its faithful rendering (at least one, often several) in Greek. For the canonical Esther, on the contrary, no such version is extant, nor is there evidence that one ever existed.” It is common knowledge that the extant Greek versions of Esther, both the longer Septuagint text and the shorter A-text, are textually distant from the Hebrew Masoretic version. Indeed, the distance is so great that when a passage in the Complutensian edition (5:1–2) does correspond to the Masoretic text, Robert Hanhart confidently labels it as “newly translated.” His characterization seems justified in this case; the two verses required a new translation because the original Septuagint text had been removed, along with the apocryphal addition D, and put at the end of the book in accordance with the Latin tradition. Hanhart correctly states, “It is improbable that such an intervention, which sacrifices the inner coherence of the Greek text to the benefit of the Masoretic text, belongs to old Greek tradition,” indicating “a scholarly re-working according to the Masoretic text in the period of the Renaissance”; his confidence, however, rests on the fact that scholarly literature contains nothing about a Greek Esther that resembles the Masoretic text.


2012 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Herrie F. Van Rooy

Lamentations at Qumran: A second edition? The four Qumran manuscripts of Lamentations presented the Hebrew text of the book from a period of about one hundred years before the standardisation of the Hebrew consonantal text. These manuscripts were studied to answer the question whether they, or one or more of them, presented a different edition of the Hebrew text than the one preserved in the Masoretic Text. The current consensus is that the Masoretic Text was well preserved and that the ancient versions, the Septuagint, Targum, Peshitta and Vulgate, were translated from Hebrew texts close to the Masoretic tradition. The four manuscripts were firstly described in this article. They all dated from the last part of the first century BCE. They were then studied in detail with regard to the variants they contain, their agreement with the Masoretic Text and the ancient versions. Only a few parts of 3QLam and 5QLamb had been preserved. These sections agreed mostly with the Masoretic Text, but no definite conclusions could be made on account of their bad state of preservation. 4QLama agreed frequently with the Masoretic Text where one or more of the versions disagreed from it. 4QLam did not agree often with the Masoretic Text when it differed from the ancient versions, but frequently went its own way. These manuscripts contained a number of variants pointing to a different edition of the book. The most important variants occurred in Lamentations 1:7, 13, 14 and 16. The different order of verses 16 and 17 against the Masoretic Text was also important in this regard. This manuscript pointed to a different textual tradition than the one occurring in the Masoretic Text.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 288-332
Author(s):  
B. E. Bruning

Exodus 35–40, a text-critical and literary-historical crux, reports the construction of the Tabernacle in two forms, neither of which conforms exactly to the instructions for the Tabernacle that Moses receives in chapters 25–31. The two surviving forms of the construction report differ in both the length and the order of their reports: the shorter form of chapters 35–40, now attested only by the Old Greek (OG) translation of Exodus, and the longer, attested in all known Hebrew manuscripts. The most dramatic difference appears in the two forms of chapters 36–39, the manufacture of the Tabernacle’s components; but a similar pattern is also evident in the two forms of Exodus 40, where the assembly of the Tabernacle is related. In light of the evidence of textual pluriformity of scriptural books in the later Second-Temple claim and increasing scholarly confidence in the testimony of OG translators and its use, many now argue that literary edition, not translation, accounts for the diverging forms of Exodus 35–40. Further examination of Exodus 35–40 in light of this claim remains a desideratum. The present article examines Exodus 40 in its two forms, the shorter in OG and the longer in the Masoretic Text (MT) and the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP), as a means of exploring the implications of the claim that OG and MT (etc.) represent variant literary editions of Hebrew texts of Exodus 35–40. Not only does a shorter Hebrew text of Exodus 40 appear to be both the Vorlage of OG and the basis of a revised, expanded edition now attested in MT and SP, but it also suggests an even earlier form of Exodus 40, part of which is now incorporated into Leviticus 8. Recognition of this multi-stage development of Exodus 40 suggests that an already composite, pre-pentateuchal Tabernacle Account (now found in Exodus–Numbers) stands before the Pentateuch represented by the MT especially in Exodus–Numbers. If so, scholarly accounts of both the composition and the transmission of the Pentateuch – or rather, its composition-and-transmission history – are due significant revision, beginning with reassessment of the textual evidence of the Tabernacle chapters in OG Exodus.


Author(s):  
Sara M. Koenig

The biblical texts about Bathsheba have notorious gaps, even by the laconic standards of Hebrew narrative. Post-biblical receptions of the story flesh out the terse chapters of 2 Samuel 11–12 and 1 Kings 1–2, ascribing feelings and motives to Bathsheba and David that are not contained in the Hebrew text. This essay examines the intersection of reception history and feminist biblical scholarship by considering eleven novels about Bathsheba from the twentieth and twenty-first century. These novels expand Bathsheba’s character beyond the text, but in fairly gender stereotypical ways, such that feminist readers of the novels may be left wanting more.


1959 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. P. Owen

The Second Coming (otherwise called the Parousia)1 of Christ constituted a serious problem for the apostolic Church. One of the earliest of Paul's Epistles (1 Thessalonians) shows how quickly his converts became discouraged when some of their number died before the Lord's appearing. In reply Paul repeats his promise that the Lord will soon return, although in his second epistle he has to give a reminder that Antichrist must first make a final bid for power (1 Thess. 4.15–18, 2 Thess. 2). Similarly the author of Hebrews, writing to a disillusioned and apathetic group of Christians some decades later in the first century, recalls the words of Habakkuk that ‘the Lord will come and not be slow’ (10.37). Finally 2 Peter, the latest book of the New Testament (written, perhaps, as late as the middle of the second century), continues to offer the hope of an imminent Parousia to be accompanied by the world's destruction and renewal (ch. 3). If Christians are tempted to despair they must remember that the word of prophets and Apostles is sure (v. 2) and that with God ‘a thousand years are as one day’ (v. 8).


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 91
Author(s):  
Lydia Lee

The biblical prophecy in Ezekiel 28:11–19 records a dirge against the king from Tyre. While the Hebrew Masoretic Text (MT) identifies the monarch as a cherub, the Greek Septuagint (LXX) distinguishes the royal from the cherub. Scholarly debates arise as to which edition represents the more original version of the prophecy. This article aims to contribute to the debates by adopting a text-critical approach to the two variant literary editions of the dirge, comparing and analyzing their differences, while incorporating insights gleaned from the extra-biblical literature originating from the ancient Near East, Second Temple Period, and Late Antiquity. The study reaches the conclusion that the current MT, with its presentation of a fluid boundary between the mortal and divine, likely builds on a more ancient interpretation of the Tyrian king. On the other hand, while the Hebrew Vorlage of LXX Ezekiel 28:12b–15 resembles the Hebrew text of the MT, the Greek translator modifies the text via literary allusions and syntactical rearrangement, so that the final result represents a later reception that suppresses any hints at the divinity of the Tyrian ruler. The result will contribute to our understanding of the historical development of the ancient Israelite religion.


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