The Twice-Assembled Tabernacle

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 288-332
Author(s):  
B. E. Bruning
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Similar Pattern ◽  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Masoretic Text ◽  
Multi Stage ◽  
Dramatic Difference ◽  
Stage Development ◽  
Old Greek

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.

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.

scholarly journals The Tyrian King in MT and LXX Ezekiel 28:12b–15

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 91
Author(s):  
Lydia Lee
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Biblical Literature ◽  
Israelite Religion ◽  
Masoretic Text ◽  
Fluid Boundary

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.

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 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.

Kaige and ‘Theodotion’

2021 ◽  
pp. 448-458
Author(s):  
Siegfried Kreuzer
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Masoretic Text ◽  
Meaningful Relationship ◽  
Old Greek

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.

Melchizedek, King of Sodom

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert R. Cargill
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Strategic Changes

This book argues that the biblical figure Melchizedek mentioned in Gen. 14 as the king of Shalem originally appeared in the text as the king of Sodom. Textual evidence is presented to demonstrate that the word סדם‎ (Sodom) was changed to שׁלם‎ (Shalem) in order to avoid depicting the patriarch Abram as receiving a blessing and goods from the king of Sodom, whose city was soon thereafter destroyed for its sinfulness according to the biblical tradition. This change from Sodom to Shalem caused a disjointed narrative in Gen. 14:18–20, which many scholars have wrongly attributed to a later interpolation. This book also provides textual evidence of minor, strategic redactional changes to the Hebrew Bible and the Samaritan Pentateuch that demonstrate the evolving, polemical, sectarian discourse between Jews and Samaritans as they were competing for the superiority of their respective temples and holy mountains. These minor strategic changes to the HB were used as the ideological motivation in the Second Temple Jewish literary tradition for the relocation of Shalem away from the Samaritan religious center at Mt. Gerizim to the Levitical priestly center in Jerusalem. This book also examines how the possible reference to Melchizedek in Ps. 110 may have influenced later Judaism’s understanding of Melchizedek.

Writings in the Dead Sea Scrolls

2018 ◽  
pp. 324-341
Author(s):  
Lawrence H. Schiffman
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Masoretic Text ◽  
Hebrew Word ◽  
The Dead

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.

The Books of Samuel

2021 ◽  
pp. 215-224
Author(s):  
Anneli Aejmelaeus
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Greek Text ◽  
Masoretic Text ◽  
Textual History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Books Of Samuel ◽  
Textual Research

The textual history of the books of Samuel, both in Greek and in Hebrew, is laden with problems that the researcher needs to be acquainted with, whatever the focus of textual research. The Septuagint translation shows a close word-for-word correspondence to its Hebrew Vorlage, however, not without occasional freedom of translation, especially in lexical choices and grammatical forms, as well as erroneous translation due to defective knowledge of Hebrew. The Hebrew Vorlage used by the translator differed at times substantially from the later Masoretic Text, used for comparison during the early textual history of the Septuagint text as well as in research today. Not only is the Masoretic Text corrupted but it underwent editorial changes until the turn of the era. Textual differences caused by both the translator and the editors of the Hebrew text must have occasioned the repeated revisions of the Greek text by Jewish and Christian scribes.

scholarly journals Son-of-God traditions in the Synoptic Gospels: Ferdinand Hahn's diachronic perspective

2001 ◽  
Vol 57 (1/2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yolanda Dreyer
Keyword(s):  
Early Christianity ◽  
Synoptic Gospels ◽  
Son Of God ◽  
Multi Stage ◽  
Stage Development ◽  
Hellenistic Judaism ◽  
Cultural World ◽  
Historical Origins

This study makes use of Ferdinand Hahn's insights (with Son of God as case study) to indicate how the naming of Jesus developed in stages. It is shown that the name Son of God was not used by Jesus. It functioned within the context of the cultic activities of early Christianity, was taken over from the surrounding religious, political and cultural world while its referential meaning shifted in the various layers. Hahn focuses on the multi-stage development of the Jesus tradition from an Aramaic "Judaism", through  a Hellenistic "Judaism" to a Gaeco-Roman stage. First the possible historical origins of the title Son of God are discussed, after which Hahn's view is taken into consideration.

Hannah at Pentecost

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-258
Author(s):  
Reed Carlson
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Psychological State ◽  
Samuel 1 ◽  
Biblical Literature ◽  
Biblical Allusion ◽  
1 Samuel ◽  
Book Of Acts ◽  
Old Greek

This essay argues that Hannah’s story in 1 Samuel 1–2 is an example of a ‘spirit phenomenon’ in the Hebrew Bible. The story displays an uncanny sensitivity to Hannah’s psychological state, which is consistent with how spirit language is used as self-language in biblical literature. Hannah describes herself as a ‘woman of hard spirit’ (1 Sam. 1.15) and engages in a kind of trance, which is disruptive enough to draw the attention of Eli. Through inner-biblical allusion and intentional alterations in the Old Greek and Dead Sea Scroll versions of 1 Samuel, Hannah comes to be associated with other prophetic women in biblical literature. Several Second Temple Jewish interpreters read Hannah as a prophetess and as a practitioner of spirit ecstasy, culminating in Philo’s association of Hannah with Bacchic possession and in Hannah’s experience at Shiloh serving as a model for Pentecost in the book of Acts.

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