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

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.

“And David’s sons were priests”: Translating Perceived Discrepancies

Second Samuel 8.18 mentions that David’s sons were priests. This statement has puzzled translators for a long time. How could David’s sons be priests, since they were of the tribe of Judah and not descendants of Aaron? It may be tempting to follow KJV or NIV or other influential translations and say that they were “chief rulers” or “royal advisors.” But this will take us away from the Hebrew text. To say that in 2 Sam 8.18 we should translate “priests” because we translate from the Hebrew and this is what the Hebrew says, so that other renderings are incorrect, is a valid response. But how could the statement in 2 Sam 8.18 and its context be explained more satisfactorily? And how can translation teams be advised when David’s sons are not priests in their drafted translation of this verse?

The Double Text of Jeremiah Revisited

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.

Contested Theologies in the Book of Jeremiah

The book of Jeremiah testifies to disputes about theologies on various levels. Comparison of the Hebrew text and the version of the Septuagint shows large differences regarding the manner in which they speak of God. These differences suggest that the Greek translation tried to evade unusual, challenging, or provocative aspects attributed to God by mitigating or omitting them. The opposition between YHWH, with Jeremiah on his side, and the people together with their leaders shapes the main conflict within the book. The latter wish a “comfortable” relationship without liability, whereas God and his prophet require an exclusive liaison and determination. In some passages, Jeremiah has views which differ from those of YHWH. These texts illustrate that even a prophet has to “learn,” to open himself to God’s broader horizons and distinct plans. (d) Some features of the theological message of the book of Jeremiah are unique and set it apart from all other scrolls of the Bible. Jeremiah thus conveys a particular, independent view of YHWH, which sometimes stands in contrast to Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and other writings, although sharing the same belief in the one and only God. (e) The theological struggles within the book of Jeremiah find a continuation in the conflict of contemporary interpretations. Instead of explaining the various positions with diachronic considerations, it seems sounder to understand the rich variety of theologies therein as due to the different characters, altered situations and circumstances, and to the development of the individuals within the course of history.

Revisiting the Bible Translation of Robert Morrison and William Milne

The article revisits the collaborative project of two early missionaries to China, Robert Morrison and William Milne, who overcame the ‘practical impossibility’ of translating the Protestant Bible into Chinese in 1823. The issues of the doctrinal constraints, the influence of the contemporary English translations, faithfulness to the Hebrew text and cultural sensitivity to the target language will be raised with reference to concrete examples cited from their joint translation version. The creation account of Genesis and passages on the rendering of the biblical ‘sea monsters’ into Chinese will be selected for focused study in order to show how Morrison and Milne were influenced by the KJV but at times departed from it in their reading of the original Hebrew text. Furthermore, it is also noted that they have shown a certain degree of sensitivity to the Chinese cultural context in their choice of terminology in translating the biblical text into Chinese.

The Damascus Document

The Damascus Document is an ancient Hebrew text that is one of the longest, oldest, and most important of the ancient scrolls found near Khirbet (ruins of) Qumran, usually referred to collectively as the Dead Sea Scrolls for the proximity of the Qumran settlement and eleven nearby caves to the Dead Sea. Its oldest parts originate in the mid- to late second century BCE. While the earliest discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls occurred in 1947, the Qumran Damascus Document fragments were discovered in 1952 (but not published in full until 1996), mainly in what is designated as Qumran Cave Four (some ten manuscripts altogether). However, it is unique in that two manuscripts (MS A and MS B) containing parts and variations of the same text were discovered much earlier, in 1896 (and published in 1910), among the discarded texts of the Cairo Geniza, the latter being written in the tenth-eleventh centuries CE. Together, the manuscripts of the Damascus Document, both ancient and medieval, are an invaluable source for understanding many aspects of ancient Jewish (and before that Israelite) history, theology, sectarian ideology, eschatology, liturgy, law, communal leadership, canon formation, and practice. Central to the structure of the overall text, is the intersection of law, both what we would call “biblical” (or biblically derived) and “communal,” and narrative/historical admonitions, perhaps modeled after a similar division the biblical book of Deuteronomy. A suitable characterization of the Damascus Document, to which we will repeatedly return, could be “bringing the Messiah through law.” Because of the longevity of its discovery, translation, publication, and debated interpretation, there is a long history of modern scholarship devoted to this ancient text.

On the Vorlage, Tendenz, and Scribal Negligence of AT Esth 1:10–15

In this article, a section of the Alpha-Text Esther story (1:10–15) is brought to the foreground to reveal the hitherto unrecognized hints that point to the Hebrew Vorlage, the literary Tendenz, and the scribal negligence unparalleled in either the Septuagint or the Masoretic text. All these literary phenomena suggest that the Alpha-Text and the Masoretic text versions reflect two variant archetypes of a Hebrew text, but this does not mean that both archetypes cannot overlap at places. When the archetypes do overlap, some of the unique readings in the Alpha-Text actually reflect later exegeses or misunderstandings that are dependent on the readings preserved in both the Masoretic text and the Septuagint. The later exegeses in particular help locate the Sitz im Leben of Alpha-Text Esth 1:10–15 in the Hasmonean period and thereafter when the Jewish-gentile relationship is strained.

Lot’s Wife is Still Standing: In Search of the Pillar of Salt

This article explores how readers search for Lot’s wife at the shore of the Dead Sea and how they use the pillar of salt as a destination, as a symbol, and as a lasting memorial. Whether Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt that travelers to the Dead Sea can visit today is not relevant for this analysis. Spanning many centuries, this reception history of Lot’s wife argues that readers use her for their own interests to address their own cultural concerns. Three chronological areas are addressed for a broad-sweeping coverage of some trends and traditions about Lot’s wife. While the Hebrew text remains ambivalent about memorializing Lot’s wife, Hellenistic Jewish and early Christian sources reveal a concern to remember Lot’s wife in terms of God’s final judgments. The article then turns to medieval Christian travel narratives and maps that use Lot’s wife to mark the borders of Christendom, with pilgrims seeking her amid Crusades-era concerns. Finally, modern sources are discussed that deal with Lot’s wife in terms of symbolizing sexual trauma, deviance, and danger. Gender theory and queer theory are utilized in the article as secondary ideological lenses through which to engage reception history. What results is a complex picture regarding how people use Lot’s wife to negotiate boundaries, engage biblical myth, and further their own agendas.

A Rhetorical Solution to a Text-critical Problem in Psalm 69

The final word in Ps 69:27 presents a text-critical problem for interpreters: the MT reads יספרו, »they talked about«, but the LXX/Syr. reflect a Hebrew Vorlage that read יספיו or יספו, »they added to«. This article argues that the variants emerged due to the challenge of translating word play across languages. The reconciliation of the resulting readings does not require the choice of one interpretation over the other; instead, the »original« Hebrew text of Ps 69:27b meant both »to tell« and »to add«, a meaning that underscores a major themes and rhetorical strategy of the larger psalm.

“Jacob’s Blessing” (Gen 49:1–28) in Targumic Interpretation

Genesis 49 shows the scene that takes place at the deathbed of the patriarch Jacob. In the face of his upcoming death, Jacob calls on all of his sons that they may listen to and accept his words of valediction. The patriarch addresses each of them individually. This piece of text serves an example of the biblical poetry in which metaphors play an important role. In the Hebrew text there are words and phrases that raise many doubts and questions. Not only contemporary translators and biblical scholars contend with these difficulties, but ancient and medieval commentators did as well. The Aramaic Targums testify to the early Jewish exegesis and interpretation of Gen 49. This article presents the paraphrase and discusses a few selected verses of the Aramaic version of Torah (Tg. Onq., Tg. Neof., Frg. Tg(s)., Tg. Ps.-J.). Based on the above examples, the development of principal Jewish views on eschatology (49:1-2) and of Messianic expectations in context of Jacob’s blessing of the tribe of Judah (49:8-12) is portrayed. The last part of this article comprises the rendering and the meaning of the Targumic animal metaphors based on the examples of Issachar (49:14-15) and of Benjamin (49:27) that significantly differ from the Hebrew text.