The Cup or Qôs? Lost Prayer and Wordplay in Lamentations 4:21–22

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Gard Granerød
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek Translation ◽  
Hebrew Word

Abstract The article discusses the reference to Edom at the end of Lam 4. It makes two proposals. First, it argues that we should understand nearly all of the clauses in Lam 4:21–22 as volitive expressions that convey the speaker’s wishes or prayers. Second, it argues that the Hebrew text of Lam 4:21 contains a wordplay lost in the ancient Greek translation and, thus, lost in the subsequent tradition. When Lam 4:21 uses the Hebrew word כּוֹס (“cup”) together with the syntagma עבר עַל in a context of irony and concerning “Daughter Edom,” כּוֹס alludes to Qôs (קוֹס), the patron god of the Edomites and the Idumaeans. The Septuagint understood the Hebrew text’s volitive expressions as ordinary indicatives. It “quenched” the Hebrew text’s ironic pun and made an unambiguous expression of what originally was ambiguous.

The Double Text of Jeremiah Revisited

2021 ◽  
pp. 113-128
Author(s):  
Alexander Rofé
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Greek Translation ◽  
Masoretic Text ◽  
Book Of Jeremiah ◽  
The Church

From the time of the Church Fathers, it has been recognized that the Greek translation (LXX) of the book of Jeremiah is shorter than the received Hebrew text (MT). Modern assessments of this textual situation have viewed the LXX as between one-eighth and one-sixth shorter than the corresponding Masoretic text of the book of Jeremiah. Since manuscripts have been found at Qumran that seem to confirm the antiquity of the shorter LXX recension, many explanations for this editorial discrepancy have focused on the phenomenon of editorial expansion within the Masoretic tradition. This chapter presents a range of counter-evidence demonstrating that the LXX has been subjected to a sustained process of editorial concision.

Early Jewish Interpretation

2020 ◽  
pp. 103-158
Author(s):  
Michael E. Pregill
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Community ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek Translation ◽  
Golden Calf ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Rapid Changes ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Religious Landscape

This chapter examines the earliest traditions of interpretation of the Golden Calf narrative, found in Jewish literature of the Greco-Roman period; these early retellings of the narrative are deeply colored by apologetic concerns. Major shifts in interpretation can be charted over the course of a few short centuries during this era due to rapid changes in the cultural and religious landscape. While the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, is frank regarding the Israelites’ sin of idolatry, the versions of the Golden Calf episode found in Philo, Pseudo-Philo, and Josephus are concerned to minimize the impact of attacks on the Jewish community and its traditions from gentile outsiders, and so represent the story in ways intended to mitigate the impression of Israel’s idolatry. Early rabbinic exegetes, in contrast, are relatively candid about Israel’s sin with the Calf. However, the emergence of the Christian movement, which entailed the revision of numerous biblical stories, including new understandings of the Calf narrative, induced rabbinic exegetes to approach the Calf narrative with a new sense of circumspection and caution in order to counter rival interpretations that were potentially harmful to the reputation and self-conception of the Jewish community.

Haggai and Zechariah in Greek Psalm Superscriptions

Textus ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-144
Author(s):  
Michael Shepherd
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Greek Text ◽  
Main Body ◽  
Greek Translation ◽  
History Of Interpretation ◽  
Greek Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Do So

Abstract The multiplication of psalm superscriptions in the Greek Psalter vis-à-vis the MT raises a question about whether such additions were prompted by the Hebrew or by the Greek text. The present article attempts to answer this question specifically regarding the addition of the names of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah in LXX-Pss 110; 111; 137; 138; 145–150 (= MT 111; 112; 138; 139; 146–150). The thesis is that these names were added secondarily and exclusively within Greek tradition, but the basis for the decision to do so in each case can be traced back to the main body of the Hebrew psalm behind the Greek translation in one of three ways. Thus, the superscriptions are not only part of the history of interpretation of the Greek Psalter but also part of the history of interpretation of the Hebrew text behind it.

The Use of the Expressions ‘Prophetic Spirit’ and ‘Holy Spirit’ in the Targum and the Dating of the Targums

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-186
Author(s):  
Pere Casanellas
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Similar Relationship ◽  
Hebrew Word

‭Among different expressions used by the targums to translate the Hebrew word meaning ‘spirit’, the terms ‘prophetic spirit’ and ‘Holy Spirit’ stand out. I will try to demonstrate (contra P. Schäfer, ‘Die Termini “Heiliger Geist” und “Geist der Prophetie” in den Targumim und das Verhältnis der Targumim zueinander’, VT 20 (1970), pp. 304–314) that both terms often have a basis in the Hebrew text (namely, the word ‮‮רוח‬‬), that both can have a similar relationship to prophecy and that the expression ‘Holy Spirit’ is as old as ‘prophetic spirit’ or even older. I will also outline the semantic contexts that underlie the use of one or other expression, which has nothing to do with the antiquity of either term.‬

The Text of Jeremiah: Re-Examining the Evidence from Kings

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
James Frohlich ◽  
Henk de Waard
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Greek Text ◽  
Greek Translation ◽  
Masoretic Text ◽  
Hebrew Version ◽  
Old Greek ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Parallel Texts

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.

A Comparative Study of the Synoptic Parallels in I Paraleipomena and I–II Reigns

1969 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Donald Shenkel
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Greek Translation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Books Of Samuel

In composing his history of the monarchy the Chronicler incorporated material from the canonical Books of Samuel and Kings into his text. Although the Hebrew text of Chronicles in these parallel passages is not identical in every respect with the Hebrew text of Samuel and Kings, the correspondence of the two Hebrew texts is very close. Since the Greek translation of Samuel and Kings undoubtedly preceded that of Chronicles, the question arises whether the translator of Chronicles into Greek made use of the Greek translation of Samuel and Kings, and if so, in which text form or recension. The present investigation is confined to a comparative study of the synoptic parallels in the Greek texts of I Paraleipomena and I–II Reigns.

scholarly journals What Do You Do When a Text is Failing? The Letter of Aristeas and the Need for a New Pentateuch

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Borchardt
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Greek Translation ◽  
Conversation Theory ◽  
Paul Grice

This study highlights features of the Letter of Aristeas that reveal how that story conceives of the royal translation project. It will apply the concept of ‘auxiliary texts’ developed by Markus Dubischar based on the conversation theory of Paul Grice in order to show that Aristeas understands the Hebrew Pentateuch as a failing text. It will be shown that because Aristeas both respects the traditions and teachings contained within the Pentateuch, and recognizes the failure of the text outside of a particular context, it sees the translation as necessary for the Pentateuch’s survival. The study will compare the statements related in prologues from Graeco-Roman ‘auxiliary texts’ to statements in the Letter of Aristeas to underline the ways how the Greek translation of the Hebrew text is simultaneously conceived of as a correction of the problems inherent in the Hebrew text tradition, and is not attempting to entirely replace that tradition.

The Slavonic Book of Esther: Translation from Hebrew or Evidence for a Lost Greek Text?

1994 ◽  
Vol 87 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Horace G. Lunt ◽  
Moshe Taube
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Common Knowledge ◽  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Greek Text ◽  
Greek Translation ◽  
Scholarly Literature ◽  
Masoretic Text ◽  
Greek Tradition ◽  
Old Greek

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.

How Not to Use 3 Reigns: A Plea to Scholars of the Books of Kings

2011 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 280-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. M. Law
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Hebrew Text ◽  
The Other ◽  
Greek Translation ◽  
1 Kings

AbstractThe authors of two recent monographs have attempted to discredit the view that the Greek translation of 1 Kings was based on a Hebrew text that differed from the MT. One argues that the translator was responsible, while the other suggests the divergences are the result of inner-Greek revisional activity. While these arguments are not entirely original, they are the latest attempts to challenge the more commonly held view that the Greek translator did in fact translate faithfully from a Hebrew text at odds with the MT. This article assesses these arguments, and concludes with a plea to scholars writing Hebrew Bible commentaries on the books of Kings.

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