Three Books of Daniel: Plurality and Fluidity among the Ancient Versions

2017 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-153
Author(s):  
Anathea Portier-Young
Keyword(s):  
Interfaith Dialogue ◽  
Folk Tale ◽  
Masoretic Text ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Book Of Daniel ◽  
Old Greek

This essay demonstrates that the book of Daniel is not a fixed but fluid text, a collection of traditions that developed over centuries and locations. The three major extant ancient versions of Daniel, represented by the Hebrew/Aramaic Masoretic Text and the “Old Greek” and “Revised Greek” translations, together participate in a complex dance of genres as they move between legend, folk-tale, prayer and song, vision and apocalypse, novella and saint’s life. A greater appreciation of this multiplicity and fluidity complicates our understanding of biblical texts in ways that can enrich interpretation and interfaith dialogue.

The Old Greek translation of Daniel iv-vi and the formation of the Book of Daniel

2005 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 304-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Timothy McLay
Keyword(s):  
Original Version ◽  
Greek Version ◽  
Greek Translation ◽  
Masoretic Text ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
Book Of Daniel ◽  
Old Greek

AbstractThe content of the Old Greek translation of Daniel iv-vi is significantly different compared to the so-called Theodotion version and the Masoretic Text. In addition, the best witness to the Old Greek version (papyrus 967) has an alternative order for the chapters: chapters vii and viii intervene between iv and v. The proposals by J. Lust and O. Munnich that 967 preserves a more original version of the content and order of the chapters for the Vorlage of Daniel are critiqued. Additional linguistic evidence that supports the theory that the Old Greek translation of chapters iv-vi circulated together independently is also provided. Finally, a hypothesis for the growth and stages of the book of Daniel that includes an explanation for the origins of the Greek versions is outlined.

“Darius Son of Ahasuerus, King of the Persians”: Textuality and Chronology in Jacob of Edessa’s Book of Daniel

Textus ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-104
Author(s):  
Bradley J. Marsh
Keyword(s):  
Conscious Effort ◽  
Book Of Daniel ◽  
Old Greek

Abstract This article explores the textual witness of Jacob of Edessa’s revision of Daniel. Jacob’s is an aggregate and mixed text, one that combined both Syriac and Greek biblical traditions. Yet perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Jacob’s Daniel is his conscious effort to include not only “Theodotion” but also Old Greek traditions. This article focuses on his witness to the latter, which is demonstrated at both the micro- and macrotextual levels. Special attention is also paid to the chronological presentation of the Daniel cycle Jacob’s version transmits, particularly the unique location of ch. 9. It is argued that Jacob adopted this chapter order from a lost OG manuscript whose text had previously been altered, perhaps under the influence of Porphyry.

scholarly journals SYNTACTIC VARIATION IN MASORETIC HEBREW, THE OBJECT CLAUSE RECONSIDERED

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 961-971
Author(s):  
Martijn Naaijer ◽  
Dirk Roorda
Keyword(s):  
Personal Pronoun ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Syntactic Variation ◽  
Masoretic Text ◽  
Biblical Texts

In this article we reinvestigate the variation in Masoretic Hebrew of two linguistic features related to the object clause that have diachronic relevance according to various scholars. These features are the order of subject personal pronoun and nominal predicate in certain object clauses, and the variation between כי and אשר introducing the object clause. We do this by using tools provided by the SHEBANQ project. By examining as many cases as possible throughout the Masoretic Text instead of only a few exemplary cases, we analyse the extent of variation in these syntactic constructions and their relevance for linguistic dating of biblical texts.

From Leviticus to Joshua: The Old Greek Text in Light of Two Septuagint Manuscripts from the Schøyen Collection

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-78
Author(s):  
Kristin De Troyer
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Greek Text ◽  
Masoretic Text ◽  
Old Greek

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.

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.

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.

scholarly journals Dining in the lions� den � Bel and the dragon, verses 28�42 (Old Greek/Theodotion)

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph J. De Bruyn
Keyword(s):  
Reciprocal Relationship ◽  
New Developments ◽  
Spatial Framework ◽  
The Third ◽  
Space Body ◽  
Language Studies ◽  
Book Of Daniel ◽  
Old Greek ◽  
The Way

This article is part of a series of articles written on Bel and the dragon. This series of articles is an investigation into the Greek editor/author�s use of body, space, narrative and genre in creating a new reality regarding the Jewish deity. A spatial framework is used to specifically examine the third episode of Bel and the dragon, entitled Dining in the lions� den. It is suggested that the third episode of Bel and the dragon should be read in a reciprocal relationship with not only Bel and the dragon but also the larger book of Daniel. Firstly, such an analysis indicates that the smaller episode is part of a larger clash of deities. Secondly, it shows that the editor/ author utilises the episode to recreate a new cosmology. In this new cosmology, the God of Israel is an almighty deity whilst other deities are revealed as false and not real living gods. In his own way, the editor/author contributes to the way in which Jews regarded their God within the reality of the diaspora.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The aim with this article was to analyse Daniel 14 by means of new insights from developments in language studies. Until now, scholars tended to repeat each other in their analysis of Daniel 14. No attention was given to space, body or other aspects of new developments in the field of language. This article challenges the repetitive research previously done on Daniel 14.

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