Departing Horeb
The Masoretic Hebrew vs. The Septuagint (Part 1)
September 29, 2014 · Eric Jobe
Let’s face it, in the Orthodox Church, the Masoretes and their Masoretic text of the Hebrew Old
Testament have gotten a bad name. It is argued almost universally that Orthodox Christians
ought to use the Septuagint Old Testament, because (1) It represents a translation of an older
Hebrew text, (2) It includes books not found in the Masoretic text, (3) the Apostles used the
Septuagint, and (4) the Masoretic text is corrupt due to changes that were made in the text in
order to obscure Messianic prophecy. After all, why would you follow a medieval Jewish text
when you could follow a Greek text preserved by Christians from the beginning? These are
rather strong claims to make, so it is incumbent upon us to investigate if they are true and to what
degree they may or may not be accurate. In order to do this, I will write a series of posts
investigating these claims in order to paint an accurate picture of what the Masoretic text and the
Septuagint really are. This could take some time, so bear with me as I gradually unfold this
rather complex issue.
The Masoretic Text
To begin with, let’s look at what the so-called Masoretic text actually is. To speak about the
Masoretic text, we are referring to a particularly important point in the transmission history of
the Hebrew Bible. For centuries, the Hebrew Bible had been continuously hand-copied by
Jewish scribes with the utmost meticulousness and care requiring professionalism which
is beyond imagination. It ultimately fell to specially trained scribal schools to do this
monumental task, and one of these schools was known as the Masoretes or the ‫בעלי המסורה‬baˤǝlē
ham-massōrā, “the masters of transmission.” In fact, the noun ‫ מסורה‬massōrā, from which we get
the word Masorete, means something like “transmission” or even “tradition.” Perhaps the most
important thing to realize is that these men were operating within a very strict scribal tradition,
perhaps the strictest tradition the world has ever seen.
The Masoretes themselves were comprised of scribes from the 6th-10th centuries CE, which
culminated in two family lineages, the ben Asher family and the ben Naphtali family, who
produced more or less standardized Hebrew texts. While the received Masoretic text in use today
does not follow either one or the other completely, they nevertheless comprised the foundation of
what would become the standard Hebrew Bible.
What made this standardization possible were two things:
(1) The Masoretes invented a system of vocalization, punctuation, and cantillation marks for the
consonantal Hebrew text. Like Arabic, Hebrew has always been written without vowels, so that
the earliest manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, those found in the Dead Sea Scrolls (more on that
later), are without vowels. This inevitably leads to ambiguities and uncertainties when reading
the text, as a particular consonantal word can be read in a variety of ways depending on where
one might place the vowels. The Masoretes invented a system of vocalization, known today as
the Tiberian system of vocalization, which followed with extreme exactitude the pronunciation
of Hebrew that they had received in their tradition. This system of vocalization was incredibly
precise, noting, for example the difference between a short vowel /a/, a long vowel /ɑ/, and the
half short vowel /ă/, and the half short vowel /ɔ̆/. Vowels were indicated using a system of dots,
bars, and other marks placed around the consonants known as niqqūd “pointing.” In addition,
this system of pointing indicated an elaborate scheme of punctuation as well as a system for
noting cantillation for chanting the text in the synagogue.
(2) The Masoretes kept meticulous notes about the Hebrew text in the margins of the
manuscripts. There are two of these margins, the large and the small, known respectively as the
Masorah Magna and the Masorah Parva. These margins noted, for example the number of times
a particular word occurred in the entire Hebrew Bible. For example, if a word occurred only
once in the Hebrew Bible, the Masoretes would place a circle over the word and note in the
margin‫ ◌ֹל‬, which is an Aramaic abbreviation for ‫ לא אית‬or ‫לית‬lā ˀīṯ or lēṯ meaning “there is not
(any more of this word).” Also, the Masoretes even kept track of the number of words and letters
in a particular book. At the end of a book or a large section, they would note, for example, ‫סכום‬
‫“ התיבות של תורה תשעה ושבעה אלף ושמונה מאות וחמשים וששה‬The sum of the words in the Torah is
97,856,” or ‫“ סכום האותיות של תורה ארבעה מאות אלף ותשע מאות וארבעים וחמשה‬The sum of the letters
in the Torah is 400,945.” This system of accounting assured that not “one jot or tiddle” would be
left out.
So the Masoretes were only one link in the chain of a long tradition of the transmission of the
Hebrew Bible. They themselves did not change the consonantal text, but only noted it and
described it with the kind of precision that we would normally associate with computers. As
such, the so-called Masoretic Text existed long before the Masoretes, going back as far as the
Dead Sea Scrolls, a text we will call the Proto-Masoretic Text.
Multiple Recensions
The Dead Sea Scrolls serve for us as a snapshot in time of the Hebrew Bible. From the myriad of
biblical manuscripts discovered among the Scrolls in the caves surrounding Khirbet Qumran, we
find that there was not just one type of Hebrew Bible in circulation from the 3rd century BCE to
the 1st century CE, but there were in fact several. This is a basic fact that we have to deal with –
there is not just one Hebrew Bible, nor is there just one Greek Bible. There were several of each,
all circulating at the same time, and they competed with one another among various Jewish sects.
The Proto-Masoretic text was just one of these recensions of the Hebrew Bible, and the Hebrew
text that became the basis for the Greek Septuagint was another. Let’s explore this idea a little
further.
We might have the rather simplistic idea that each book of the Hebrew Bible came in to
existence at one time, and that each book existed as a complete whole from the time of its
composition. Unfortunately, this is just not the case, for we have ample evidence that biblical
books circulated in more or less a state of flux. For example, we have copies of the Psalter from
Cave 11 at Qumran that show a very different order than either the Masoretic or Septuagint
Psalters and include non-canonical psalms, the so called Psalms 152-155, which were only
known previously from the Syriac tradition. The Book of Jeremiah was written down at various
times. A core section of the book, chapters 1-25, comprising the early prophetic oracles of
Jeremiah, was composed then destroyed (Jer. 36). Jeremiah’s secretary, Baruch, re-wrote that
section as well as additional material, including the Oracles against the Nations, which is
variously placed at the end of the book in the Masoretic text, but after chapter 25 in the
Septuagint. The Septuagint edition is also about 1/8 shorter, indicating that some of the Jeremiah
material had not been included in that recension. The multiplicity in versions of a particular book
show that the state of the book was in flux, but it is difficult to determine which is earlier or
“more original.” One might think that the Proto-Septuagint version of Jeremiah was an earlier or
more original text, but this is not necessarily the case. The Masoretic “additions” could have
circulated independently for some time concurrent with the Proto-Septuagint text. In other
words, these additions could be just as ancient as the Proto-Septuagint text itself, but because of
the lack of manuscript evidence, we cannot know for sure. In fact, it becomes apparent that the
very notion of an “original” text does not exist, because it is impossible to point to any particular
point in the development of a book and say that it is “original.”
There were other recensions in addition to the Proto-Masoretic and Proto-Septuagint texts, such
as the Proto-Samaritan Pentateuch, and a text unique to the cache of manuscripts found in the
caves surrounding Qumran. Emanuel Tov summarizes the contents of the Dead Sea Scrolls
biblical manuscripts with the following percentage breakdown:†
Qumran-specific texts – 20%
Proto-Masoretic texts – 35%
Proto-Samaritan texts – 5%
Proto-Septuagint texts – 5%
Non-Aligned texts – 35%
This breakdown notes texts that specifically show some variation toward one or another
recension. If there is no distinction, a text falls into the non-aligned category. As you can see,
among the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Proto-Masoretic text was by far the most popular aligned text,
accounting for some 35% of manuscripts. Proto-Septuagint texts account for only 5%. It’s
apparent from this picture that, at least in Palestine, the Proto-Masoretic text was gaining
superiority, even among sectarian groups, and eventually it won out over the others within the
post-70 CE Jewish community.
The Nature of the Masoretic Text
In spite of the fact that the Proto-Masoretic text was the most popular or the most well-respected
recension of the Hebrew Bible in Palestine, we cannot see it as being pristine or error free. In
fact, the Masoretes themselves noted where certain errors had crept into the consonantal text.
Instead of correcting the errors themselves, they left the errors in the text, but noted the
correction in the marginal Masorah. This practice gives us two readings for a given instance, the
‫ כתיב‬kǝṯīḇ (often written ktiv) “written” and ‫ קריא‬qǝrēˀ (often written qre) “spoken.”
The actual text of the Masoretic Hebrew Bible comes from a number of medieval manuscripts,
notably the Aleppo Codex, dated to the 10th century CE, which comprises most of the Hebrew
Bible with the exception of the Torah, part of the Minor Prophets, and a great number of the
Writings. The critical edition of the Masoretic text in use by scholars today is a reproduction of
the Leningrad Codex, dated to 1008 or 1009 CE. All variants found in other manuscripts of the
Masoretic text and any other recension from the Dead Sea Scrolls is collated against the text
found in this codex.
Aside from the Masoretic edition of Jeremiah discussed above, the only other major identifying
mark of the Masoretic text is a corrupt version of the book of 1 Samuel. When I use the term
“corrupt,” I mean only that the consonantal text had experienced a number of errors in the
transmission process very early on. These errors occurred well before the time of Christ, and
resulted in at least three different versions of the Book of 1 Samuel, the Proto-Masoretic, the
Proto-Septuagint, and a unique version found within the Dead Sea Scrolls. There is much to say
about this specific issue, and I will deal with it in full in a subsequent post.
What to Take Away
There are a number of things to take away from this cursory look at the Masoretic text:
(1) There were multiple versions of the Hebrew Bible circulating at the same time. They
represent “snapshots” of the various stages of the development of the Hebrew Bible that were
taking place even up to the time of Our Lord. The Masoretic text was one of these recensions,
even the most popular, though it was not the only one. Furthermore, determining what is earlier
or more “original” is often fraught with difficulty if not being impossible altogether without
more evidence.
(2) While the Masoretic text itself represents the culmination of a tradition of textual
transmission in the Middle Ages, the text itself is much older, going back to the time of the
Second Temple. In this respect, it is very likely that Our Lord would have known and used the
Proto-Masoretic text.
(3) The Masoretic text was meticulously kept, literally down to the letter. Along with the
antiquity of the Proto-Masoretic text, it is wrong to claim that the Jews changed the text of their
Bible in order to obscure certain Messianic prophecies. Such an accusation is libelous, since
there is absolutely no evidence for it. In fact, as I will demonstrate in a subsequent post, there are
instances where the Septuagint itself obscures Messianic prophecy! Most of the distinctive
readings found in the Masoretic text were introduced long before the Masoretes took stylus to
parchment, even being found in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
(4) The Masoretic text is a very good and faithful text of the Hebrew Bible, though it is not
perfect. Specifically in the case of 1 Samuel, particular care must be exercised to determine what
is the best reading of that book.
(5) For Orthodox Christians, the Masoretic Hebrew Bible may be used as a valuable tool for
understanding the text of the Old Testament. Along with the Septuagint, it stands as a parallel
witness to the Old Testament, which was never confined to one particular recension or another.
The priority of the Septuagint over the Masoretic Hebrew ought to be determined on a case-bycase basis, and even when the Masoretic text can be determined to be more original or an earlier
text, the Septuagint may be preferred for reading in church simply because of its place within the
Christian tradition, and because the distinctive features of the Septuagint have become important
within Orthodox theology, liturgy, and even iconography (e.g. the “Angel of Great Council”).
(6) The preference for the Septuagint in the Orthodox Church cannot be said to be on account of
the poor state of the Masoretic text or that the Septuagint is always or even the majority of the
time an earlier or more original text. This simply cannot be demonstrated from the facts.
In the next post, we will examine the history and nature of the Septuagint and the phenomenon of
Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible in general.
†Tov, Emanuel. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. 2nd Rev. Ed. Fortress Press:
Minneapolis, 2001., 114-117.
1. Adam says:
September 29, 2014 at 10:40 am
Very interesting information, multiple version of Hebrew and Greek, each book did not
exist “as a complete whole from the time of its composition.” Looking forward to more.
Reply
2. Kim says:
September 29, 2014 at 11:25 am
Thank you for this study. I am not capable of fleshing all this out for myself, but it is very
important to me that there are people who can and will and will share it with the likes of
me on lowly non-academic sources such as Facebook and personal blogs.
Reply
3. Louis says:
September 29, 2014 at 7:05 pm
Dear Eric,
Thank you very much for this article. This is a very intriguing read for me and I am eager
to read your additional posts on the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint. My undergraduate
degree was in Biblical Studies, so I took both Biblical Hebrew as well as Koine Greek
classes. Although I haven’t retained much from those classes, I love learning about
Biblical textual criticism, both Old and New Testaments.
Thank you once again for sharing your knowledge about the Hebrew Bible.
Regards,
Louis.
Reply
4. John Michaels says:
September 30, 2014 at 5:05 pm
Why does Mr. Jobe use the abbreviations BCE/CE, instead of BC/AD in references to
dates in his articles?
Reply
1.
Eric Jobe says:
September 30, 2014 at 5:20 pm
Because this has become the standard practice in professional writing. I don’t
think God will be offended if I follow standard academic and literary conventions.
Reply
5. John Michaels says:
September 30, 2014 at 9:15 pm
God being offended… Is it God’s desire for us to conform to the standards of this world,
or are we called to bear a higher standard as a witness, especially in the market place of
ideas that is the world where you say BCE/CE is now the standard.
Reply
1.
Eric Jobe says:
September 30, 2014 at 9:17 pm
I don’t think using BC/AD is necessarily being a “witness.” Being respectful to
people of other faiths might be, though.
Reply
6. John Michaels says:
October 1, 2014 at 9:15 am
Mr. Jobe, how is referencing the year of our Lord’s birth disrespectful? Who exactly is
being disrespected?
Reply
1.
Eric Jobe says:
October 1, 2014 at 10:00 am
If I force such conventions upon non-Christians, it can be disrespectful. I for one
do not want to use Islamic or Jewish conventions for dating historical events, so
why should I require them to use a Christian convention? Nevertheless, I am
closing this discussion, since I feel that there is little usefulness in it.
Reply
1. Joe says:
November 16, 2015 at 4:50 pm
Eric,
Please help me out here. Why use the Masoretic text when ALL the old
testament quotes in the Greek gospels contradict it but correlate to the
Septuagint. I cannot comprehend why Jerome adopted the Hebrew and
discarded the Septuagint when every single quotation from the New
Testament conflicts or a completely contradicts it, i.e. Exodus 1:5 and Act
7:14, plus 4 more pages of these discrepancies.
I have been into textual criticism for 6 months now and have discovered
that every single bible translation out there, 200 plus use the Masoretic.
It’s like a bad joke! see the irony?
Rabbinical Judaism believes the Aleppo codex Torah is the direct word of
God even though the Jews did not adopt the ashuri script until 500 B.C.
which ezra transliterated the Paleo from what was originally Assyrian.
with all humility, help
Reply
1.
Eric Jobe says:
November 24, 2015 at 6:19 pm
“Why use the Masoretic text when ALL the old testament quotes
in the Greek gospels contradict it but correlate to the Septuagint.”
Ummm, this is not even close to being correct. In fact, many
quotes reflect alignment with recensions of the LXX which correct
toward the MT. Some NT quotes are even done from memory and
do not conform to any text.
The script issue is, well, a non-issue. The Hebrew square script
was borrowed from Aramaic long before the time of Christ, and is
present in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The paleo-Hebrew script is also
present in the Dead Sea Scrolls, but otherwise is only attested in
inscriptions on stone and pottery. It has no bearing on the
legitimacy of anything regarding the Bible. I’m not really sure
what your problem is here.
Reply
1. Joe says:
December 28, 2015 at 2:04 pm
Please forgive my digression but I have been frustrated in
getting to a certain point on why is the Masoretic Text
exalted with such authority that it has literally replaced the
text type for the Old Testament in 99% of Bible
translations. The only extant copy is the Aleppo and
Leningrad codex, there is no evidence of the manuscripts or
scrolls that the masoretes used to copy and correct from.
I have several pages of NT ->Masoretic Text quote
discrepancies which I cannot get beyond. I can post them
here if you wish but I did not want to clutter up your blog.
My point on the script is that around the 5th century B.C. ,
Ezra transliterated the Paleo Hebrew to the Asuri script.
Some of my Jewish orthodox brothers believe that the
existing Masoretic text is what Moses had which is not
true. They give the Text full authority which bases every
letter of every word exact from the time of Moses. We
know this is not true and that Bible code, Kabbalah, etc…
could never work because the text has been changing since
the beginning.
I believe all scripture is important but do not understand
why Jerome dismissed, then the Reformers rejected the
Septuagint which seems to clearly support it’s usage by the
early Messianic Jews and confirmed veracity in the DSS.
I am reading Emanuel Tov’s books on Textual Criticism
(Awesome!) which also brings up translator issues on
dismissing the Septuagint. In the following video, Tov also
states theological motives for translation, one case was
when it came to the term “Sons of God”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB5YFkJL_Aw
I’ve been learning Hebrew and reading through the Biblia
Hebraica to ensure that the English was translated correctly
in some of the modern bibles. I have found dependencies
and in one case in the Stone Edition where instead of
translating “Bene-Ha-Elohim” to “Son’s of God”, Genesis
6:2, they translate it to “Judges.”, what’s up with that?
Take for example Exodus 1:5 and Acts 7:14 which Stephan
states that the loins of Jacob produced 75 souls yet the
Masoretic text states 70. The Septuagint written over 1200
years before the Masoretic text supports Act 7:14 with 75.
My humble question is, are Christians and Jews using the
wrong text type for the Old Testament “Tanahk” when we
have extant versions of older texts dating back over 700
years. It just seems to me that Talmudic Rabbinical
Judaism, a sixth century creation subjectively corrected the
text to correspond with its practices.
Every quote is from memory including the Torah.
According to orthodox Judaism, the Oral Torah is what
keeps the integrity of scripture. This defies logic since there
are so many variations of Torah and it took the masoretes
over 400 years to correct it to their view.
I think that the Masoretic text needs correction using what
we have today in MSS and the DSS. The Septuagint would
be a great resource to use in these corrections since when I
match up the dependencies, the Septuagint usually supports
the accurate outcome. Until then, how can we be exegetical
about scripture when the source is in question?
I thank you for your Patience and I appreciate your access,
a novice in textual criticism…
2. Joe says:
December 29, 2015 at 12:06 pm
Eric,
I read through your informative blog and kind of get the
gist of some of the perspectives I have been looking for. No
need to answer my previous blog since I found most of the
answers on your other postings.
I do recommend viewing Emanuel Tov’s youtube video
lecture to everyone, especially at timeline 32:32.
I realize that this debate has been going on for millennium,
but now we have Google and the DSS which assist in
development and qualifications of materials.
thanks,
7. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 1, 2014 at 8:26 pm
I believe the Church teaches that the standard texts of the Old Testament are found in the
LXX and the Peshitta, and to a lesser extent the Vulgate. When it comes to variations
within the LXX tradition, I think you would have to give preference to those textual
traditions which are most commonly used.
This does not mean that we should ignore the Hebrew text, but since the Hebrew text is
not the text that the Church has preserved, it is of lesser authority when it differs with
those texts that the Church has preserved. However, when the Hebrew Text clearly
matches those texts, then there is no reason why our translations and interpretations
should not follow it as closely as possible.
But it is also true that the Fathers often note when the Hebrew text differs from the LXX,
and then often offer an interpretation of that text too, as having some significance.
Reply
1.
Eric Jobe says:
October 1, 2014 at 10:49 pm
Fr. John, you’ll notice that I did not state that the Hebrew should be preferred in
the Church over the LXX. I even stated that the LXX may be preferred for the
sake of tradition. I only argue that the MT is not as bad as is often made out to be,
and that it is an important witness to the text of the OT.
Reply
1. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 1, 2014 at 11:02 pm
I think every priest should have at least a year of Hebrew, so that they can
engage the Hebrew Text, but the fact that the Hebrew text was preserved
by a group of people who rejected Christ and so had some incentives to
read and edit the text in a way that undercuts the Christian message means
that when the two texts diverge, caution in treating the Hebrew text is in
order. However, when the texts agree, as they do, more often then not, the
Hebrew text should be studied as the original form of the text in question.
Reply
1.
Eric Jobe says:
October 1, 2014 at 11:09 pm
Unless you can demonstrate in the Hebrew text through actual
textual evidence where the Jews edited their biblical texts in such a
way, you are being libelous. There is no reason to speak in such a
way. It is not only libelous but injurious and beneath the dignity of
a Christian. The LXX is not always the original form of the text,
but my argument, which I will bear out in the next several posts, is
that it does not have to be in order to be the text of the Christian
Church.
Reply
1. Michael Coleman says:
October 2, 2014 at 5:51 pm
Eric,
Your statement to Fr John is a bit harsh, lacking charity and
respect due a priest.
It is not libelous at all to state what used to be an
uncontroverted fact: the Fathers stated that the post-AD-70
Jews altered, in some cases, the Hebrew text out of antiChristian malice. Were the Holy Fathers then libelous? Did
they utter things injurious and beneath the dignity of a
Christian?
An excessive devotion to one particular critical school can
color one’s perspective out of proportion.
2.
Eric Jobe says:
October 2, 2014 at 5:57 pm
Just because the Fathers did something a long time ago
doesn’t mean that it is necessarily right or should be
repeated today. And yes, if they accused the Jews of doing
so without any textual evidence, it is libelous. You can’t
just say such things about an entire ethnicity and religion
without evidence! If I was too harsh toward Fr. John, then I
apologize. If I was angry, it is only because I remarked in
my post that it is wrong to do such things, and then he did it
anyway.
3. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 2, 2014 at 7:36 pm
Eric, what I actually said was that the Jews had an incentive
to read and edit the text in ways that undercut the Christian
message. As you well know, the Hebrew text was
originally written without punctuation, spacing between
words, and without vowel points, and so the Jews that
added vowel points, spacing, and punctuation were editing
the text… and if a text was capable of being read in more
than one way, they did in fact have an incentive to opt for
editing in a way that supported their position and undercut
ours. And as Michael pointed out, many Fathers stated that
the Jews did edit things out or make changes that were
done out of malice. I was simply pointing out that even
without intentionally changing the meaning of the text,
when they added vowel points, spaces between words, and
punctuation, their anti-Christian bias could have been a
factor. And more importantly, the fact that this editing of
the text occurred outside of the Church means that we have
less reason to believe that the Holy Spirit was guiding those
editors to accurately preserve the text. Whereas we can and
do believe that God has preserved the text within the
Church.
4.
Eric Jobe says:
October 2, 2014 at 7:39 pm
Can you provide evidence of this? Did the Fathers provide
evidence of this can be corroborated by modern philology?
Please show me the evidence rather than just saying that
they had motive. That doesn’t hold up, and neither does the
Fathers’ claim unless you can provide evidence.
5.
Eric Jobe says:
October 2, 2014 at 7:44 pm
I will also say that, as a scholar, I cannot operate on the
basis of suspicion of mal-incentive on the part of the Jews
without any evidence. That sort of thing has no place in the
academy, and I cannot maintain my integrity while
entertaining such ideas. It boarders on bigotry, and it could
be very, very damaging to my career. I cannot and will not
stand for it. Any further comments of that nature on this
blog from anyone will no longer be approved. If you have
such ideas, you must provide detailed evidence for it.
6. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 2, 2014 at 8:43 pm
Eric, I think it is entirely reasonable that Orthodox
Christians would consider texts preserved within the
Church by Christians to be more reliable than texts
preserved outside of the Church by those who rejected
Christ without any hard evidence beyond those two
contrasting differences.
But for some specific examples, see:
http://theorthodoxlife.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/masoretic
-text-vs-original-hebrew/
7.
Eric Jobe says:
October 2, 2014 at 9:18 pm
There are multiple problems with that link you provided,
but I don’t wish to engage them here. It is not reasonable
for Christians of any stripe to suspect that the Jews would
have altered their texts without direct evidence. The link
you provided gives no such evidence. Such suspicion is not
reasonable. Now, having said that, you would notice in
reading my post that I said nothing in regard to the Church
or the LXX. In fact, I said that the LXX could in fact be
preferred in the Church regardless of what the MT says. I
have many more things to say in this regard in further
posts, so I respectfully ask you to withhold further
comment until I post additional material.
8. Patrick Henry Reardon says:
October 2, 2014 at 9:44 pm
It is refreshing to find an Orthodox scholar expressing, with considerable clarity, what I
believe to represent the consensus of textual scholarship on these questions.
I confess to a regret that there are still Orthodox Christians who imagine that one textual
tradition is “more reliable” than the other, or who accuse the Jews of falsifying the Sacred
Scriptures.
It is useful to remember that we don’t have a single Jewish manuscript of the LXX. All of
them were copied by Christians, who—notoriously—felt free to alter the Sacred Text for
any of a number of reasons. If anyone is in doubt on this latter point, all he has to do is
consult the apparatus critici of any edition of the New Testament.
On the other hand, Jewish copyists were far more careful to copy the text they had in
front of them. In later additions to this blog, perhaps, some attention may be given to the
Vulgate, which overwhelmingly supports the integrity of the Masoretic text.
I have always agreed with Saint Augustine’s view that the Sacred Text in both traditions
are divinely inspired.
Nor have I been able to shake the suspicion that Orthodox opposition to the Masoretic
Text smacks—more than a little—of anti-Semitism.
Reply
1. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 2, 2014 at 11:42 pm
This may reflect the consensus of academia. It is not the consensus found in the
writings of the Fathers and the saints.
Also, I recall St. Augustine gave St. Jerome a hard time about his translation of
the vulgate from the Hebrew text as it existed in that time, but if you compare the
vulgate with the masoretic text, you see that the masoretic text continued to
change. The careful scribal tradition you describe certainly came into being at
some point in the process, but there is no evidence that it existed between the time
of Christ and about the 7th century.
And I am not sure what you mean here, when you say:
“It is useful to remember that we don’t have a single Jewish manuscript of the
LXX. All of them were copied by Christians, who—notoriously—felt free to alter
the Sacred Text for any of a number of reasons. If anyone is in doubt on this latter
point, all he has to do is consult the apparatus critici of any edition of the New
Testament.”
The fact that you have a wide degree of texts of the Greek New Testament to
review, from a wide range of times and geographic locations is due to the fact that
Christian scribes did not consistently destroy old manuscripts, as Jewish Scribes
did. That is why, apart from the dead sea scrolls, he have almost no Hebrew texts
older than the 10th century, whereas we have complete manuscripts of the New
Testament from the 4th Century, portions going back to the second and third
century, and fragments from the first.
If you destroyed every manuscript that was older than the 10th century of the New
Testament Greek Text, you would have a highly uniform text… and even as it is,
the vast majority of Greek NT manuscripts are reflect a consistent textual tradition
that has few significant variations.
And the claim that this is antisemitic insults the fathers of the Church, and is
belied by the fact that although the Peshitta is not as widely used in the Orthodox
Church, simply because Greek is more widely known than Syriac), it has been
regarded as of equal authority to the Septuagint, and Syriac is a Semitic
language… the language of Christ Himself.
My Hebrew is rusty, but I took two years of it in college, and I have said that I
think every Orthodox clergyman would do well to study it for at least a year…
because for one thing, simply knowing how Hebrew works, gives you a much
better idea of how to understand the Old Testament. But as an Orthodox
Christian, I don’t believe it is possible to defend the idea that the Church
considers the Masoretic text to be as reliable as the Septuagint or the Peshitta. If
someone wishes to dispute that, please cite the saints and fathers of the Church
that taught such a thing.
Reply
9. Patrick Henry Reardon says:
October 3, 2014 at 2:55 pm
You appeal to the Peshitta to defend the LXX? Since the Peshitta was translated from the
LXX, that takes brass.
One hardly knows what to make of the assertion, “If you destroyed every manuscript that
was older than the 10th century of the New Testament Greek Text, you would have a
highly uniform text… and even as it is, the vast majority of Greek NT manuscripts are
reflect a consistent textual tradition that has few significant variations.”
That is simply ridiculous. You don’t even have that for St. Luke’s Gospel, much less the
rest of the NT.
One also observes the challenge: “I don’t believe it is possible to defend the idea that the
Church considers the Masoretic text to be as reliable as the Septuagint or the Peshitta. If
someone wishes to dispute that, please cite the saints and fathers of the Church that
taught such a thing.”
Well, since none of the ancient Fathers could possibly have been familiar with the
Masoretic Text, this is not a very reasonable proposition.
The very word “reliable” is the problem.
If, by reliable, one means “closest to the original,” then one is making a truly Protestant
argument. The Orthodox Church has never appealed to an “original text.” And they great
freedom they displayed in the manuscripts of the New Testament amply demonstrates
that the very notion was unknown to them.
What I object to mostly is the ascription of mendacious motives to the Hebrew copyists. I
do not care who makes this claim, it is an abject calumny for which there is not the
slightest shred of evidence. Truth to tell, I find this (uniquely Eastern Orthodox) notion
even more objectionable than that of the Protestants. It really impossible for me to
imagine a Jewish copyist deliberately altering the Sacred Text, once the Hebrew
Scriptures had reached canonical status. Moreover, the publication of the Dead Sea
Scrolls, since the 1950s, demonstrates how faithfully the Jewish scribes transmitted the
Bible through the centuries.
You appeal to the Fathers, do you? To a Church Father you will go.
St. Augustine perceived clearly very point I have in mind to make. In Augustine’s view
there is no need for us to choose between the Hebrew and Greek versions of the Old
Testament, because each of these two textual sources represents God’s revelation at a
particular point in history. That is to say, Augustine accepts both readings, ascribing the
prophetic Spirit, not only to the original authors of Holy Scripture, but also to those
translators who gave us the Greek version of the Bible.
Augustine claimed a prophetic freedom for those translators. “It is to be believed,” he
wrote, “that they were moved by the divine Spirit to say something differently, not by
their gift as translators, but exercising the freedom of those that prophesy” (divino Spiritu
. . . prophetantium libertate aliter dicere). This, said Augustine, is what the Apostles
implicitly taught when they quoted the Old Testament in Greek (The City of God 15.14).
The reason for the canonical authority of the Septuagint, according to Augustine, was the
divine inspiration of those responsible for it: “For the same Spirit who was in the
prophets when they spoke these things was also in the seventy men when they translated
them, so that assuredly they could also say something else, just as if the prophet himself
had said both, because it would be the same Spirit who said both; and could say the same
thing differently, so that, although the words were not the same, yet the same meaning
should shine forth to those of good understanding; and could omit or add something, so
that even by this it might be shown that there was in that work not human bondage, which
the translator owed to the words, but rather divine power (divinam potius potestatem),
which filled and ruled the mind of the translator.”
Since both the original authors and their canonical translators were guided by the same
Holy Spirit, Augustine argued, it was not necessary that both sources said exactly the
same thing: “If, then, as it behooves us, we behold nothing else in these Scriptures than
what the Spirit of God has spoken through men, if anything is in the Hebrew copies and
is not in the version of the Seventy, the Spirit of God did not choose to say it through
them, but only through the prophets. But whatever is in the Septuagint and not in the
Hebrew copies, the same Spirit chose rather to say through the latter, thus showing that
both were prophets” (18.43).
Finally, I hope the host of this blog site will permit me to quote from the introduction to
my commentary on Genesis, published by the owner of this site:
“This canonical text has been handed on to us by the apostolic churches chiefly in the
Greek form, the Septuagint. This is the text of authority in the Church.
“This affirmation does not mean, however, that the Greek text
necessarily represents an “original” text better than the traditional
Hebrew manuscripts preserved by the Jews. Often enough it may, but
that is not what we mean when we speak of the canonical authority
of the Greek. In our affirmation of the Septuagint’s canonical authority, it is obvious that we Orthodox Christians do not limit divine
revelation to an original text or “autograph” composed by the biblical author himself.
“We cannot logically affirm the canonicity of the
Septuagint except by postulating the Holy Spirit’s guidance of the
entire development of the biblical material throughout the centuries
that link the prophets with the apostles. After all, no reasonable
Christian will claim divine inspiration for Isaiah’s Greek translators and simultaneously
deny that inspiration to Isaiah himself!
“Thus, in a given passage, we are not obliged to choose between
the inherited Hebrew and Greek readings. It is quite legitimate to
accept both, each of them representing a different stage in the development of the biblical tradition. This approach, which I think both
reasonable and respectful, will be taken in the present book, where
both the Christian and Jewish copies of Genesis are consulted.
“The Septuagint’s canonicity is not absolute. It is rooted in
the respect commonly shown for this version in the New Testament,
but its historical application has been far from rigid. The tradition
of the Christian biblical manuscripts shows, rather, a considerable
diversity in textual selections. The most notable example, I suppose,
is the Book of Daniel. After Origen, in his famous Hexapla, placed
Theodotion’s translation of Daniel in a parallel column with that of
the Septuagint, Christian copyists compared the two renderings and
decided that they much preferred Theodotion!
“Thus, in spite of the traditional and venerable authority of the
Septuagint in the Church, Theodotion’s translation of Daniel came to
predominate among Christian manuscripts. For instance, his version
was adopted as the Danielic text of the Byzantine liturgical lectionary.
Similarly, Theodotion’s translation of Daniel, not the Septuagint’s,
was the version translated into almost all the other ancient versions
used by the Church: the Peshitta Syriac, both the Boharic and Sahidic
Coptic, the Latin Vulgate, the Ethiopic, the Armenian, the Arabic,
and the Slavonic. (The exceptions are the Syro-Hexaplar and the
Vetus Latina, both translated from the Septuagint.) So great was the
dominance of Theodotion in this respect that the ancient Septuagint
version of Daniel almost disappeared from history, not a single copy
of it being known until the discovery of the Chisianus Codex in 1772.
These plain historical facts should preclude any rigid interpretation
of the Septuagint’s canonical status.”
Reply
1.
Eric Jobe says:
October 3, 2014 at 3:04 pm
This is all very wonderful, Fr. Pat. Thank you for your comments, which align
with my own views exactly. You anticipate much of what I will say in my next
post about the LXX. I do welcome your continued contributions to the comments
on this site.
Reply
2.
Eric Jobe says:
October 3, 2014 at 3:11 pm
I also second Fr. Patrick’s comments about the Peshitta. It is recognized
universally that the Peshitta was translated from the Hebrew MT, and many think
it was a Jewish translation subsequently adopted by the Syriac Church. I myself
wrote my MA thesis on the translation technique of the Peshitta Psalter, and
therein I noted its basic affinity for the MT in spite of its own freedom of
expression and only the occasional alignment with the LXX. The Peshitta is
aware of the LXX but it does not confirm or support it by any rule.
Reply
3. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 3, 2014 at 7:15 pm
Since Eric has corrected the assertion that the Peshitta was translated from the
Peshitta, let me pass on to your claim that it is ridiculous of me to say that“If you
destroyed every manuscript that was older than the 10th century of the New
Testament Greek Text, you would have a highly uniform text… and even as it is,
the vast majority of Greek NT manuscripts are reflect a consistent textual tradition
that has few significant variations” is “simply ridiculous.”
Fr. Patrick, there are basically three families of Greek manuscripts. There is the
Byzantine Text type, which among ancient manuscripts represents about 80% of
the text that have survived. And certainly by the 10th century, it was without
question the predominant text type, and fairly uniform. Then there is the
Alexandrian Text type, which is much smaller in number, and not nearly so
widespread in its use geographically. The number of ancient copies that have
survived are due largely to the climate of Egypt. The text type fell into disuse for
the most part, by the 10th century. Then you have the so-called “Western-Text”,
which is arguably not really a family, but more of a collection of odd-ball
manuscripts that differ with each other as much as they differ with the Byzantine
(aka Majority) Text type. If you waved a wand, and all the manuscripts prior to
the 10th century disappeared, you would have very little that did not relfect the
Byzantine Text Type.
You wrote: “Well, since none of the ancient Fathers could possibly have been
familiar with the Masoretic Text, this is not a very reasonable proposition.”
If you are acknowledging that there is a significant difference between the earlier
Hebrew Manuscripts prior to the Masoretic rescension, then you seem to be
conceding the argument here. By the Masoretic rescension took shape between
the 7th and 10th century, and so in its earlier forms, it would have been around
during the patristic period.
You further wrote: “What I object to mostly is the ascription of mendacious
motives to the Hebrew copyists. I do not care who makes this claim, it is an abject
calumny for which there is not the slightest shred of evidence. Truth to tell, I find
this (uniquely Eastern Orthodox) notion even more objectionable than that of the
Protestants. It really impossible for me to imagine a Jewish copyist deliberately
altering the Sacred Text, once the Hebrew Scriptures had reached canonical
status. Moreover, the publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls, since the 1950s,
demonstrates how faithfully the Jewish scribes transmitted the Bible through the
centuries.”
By adding spaces between words and vowel points, the masoretic editors did alter
the text — that is not a matter that can be disputed. I did not say that they
consciously changed the meaning of the text, but when you have lines of
consonants without vowels, spaces between words, or punctuation, you often run
into instances in which the text could be read in more than one way. I trust the
translators of the Septuagint (who were in the Old Testament Church, and who
lived closer to the time when Hebrew was still a commonly spoken language) to
have done it honestly and accurately more than I would trust those outside the
Church… and one big reason for this is that the grace of the Holy Spirit is present
in the Church, and guides the Church into all truth. We have no such guarantees
for those outside the Church.
Reply
10. Patrick Henry Reardon says:
October 3, 2014 at 4:58 pm
When Eric wrote, “the Peshitta was translated from the Hebrew MT,” this was clearly a
lapsus digiti. (He did not mean to type those last two letters.)
When I wrote, “the Peshitta was translated from the LXX,” that was obviously a lapsus
mentis. (I did not mean to get out of bed today.)
That is to say, he made a scribal error, whereas I had a complete mental breakdown.
Although I have always read Holy Scripture with a sustained attention to the appropriate
critical apparatus, it has been a very long time, about a half-century, since I took Carlo
Martini’s course in Textual Criticism.
For all I know, they may have discovered scores of new manuscripts since my youth.
I appreciate so much, then, the services of this younger scholar, who is manifestly on top
of things.
Reply
1.
Eric Jobe says:
October 3, 2014 at 5:04 pm
You are correct. I mean to say that the Peshitta was translated from a proto-MT
Hebrew source, or else a text resembling what we know to be the MT. To my
knowledge textual critics have not posited a proto-P Hebrew recension analogous
to the proto-LXX Hebrew found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Perhaps if I were
not in the throws of my dissertation, I would consult the relevant sources.
Reply
11. Benedict-Seraphim Healy says:
October 3, 2014 at 8:16 pm
Eric:
I greatly appreciate your initial post here, and look forward to those to come. I also
greatly appreciate the back and forth between my former father confessor, Father Patrick,
and Father John (whose parish I hope to visit if I am visiting Spring again any time soon).
It is useful to me to see revered priests in vigorous discussion yet withal one of respect
and dignity. Thank you, Fathers.
Your posts, Eric, seem to be aligned with Timothy Law’s thoughts in his “When God
Spoke Greek.” I’m re-reading this book with a fellow parishioner (a chapter per week
over coffee). But what seems to be alignment may be a mistaken apprehension on my
part. Can you speak to where you and Law agree/disagree, if there are any major
divergences?
I understand if you would prefer to allude to these things in coming posts.
Reply
1.
Eric Jobe says:
October 3, 2014 at 8:20 pm
Unfortunately, I have not yet had time to read Law, though it is on my list. I
suspect, however, that our views would differ very little if any. What I am
summarizing in these posts is nothing novel or unique to “my views” until it
comes to how to apply them to Orthodoxy, wherein a may have a few things to
say (so stay tuned). I would like to say, however, that I at least try to stay within
the bounds of good scholarship as well as within the confines of Orthodoxy,
though, as you can see from this thread, there are differing opinions of what that
is.
Reply
12. Patrick Henry Reardon says:
October 4, 2014 at 10:33 am
Father John says, “If you are acknowledging that there is a significant difference between
the earlier Hebrew Manuscripts prior to the Masoretic rescension, then you seem to be
conceding the argument here.”
I concede nothing of the sort; indeed, all the evident goes to the contrary.
I was stating a plain fact: Almost none of the Church Fathers could read Hebrew. This is
what makes an appeal to their authority, with respect to the Masoretic Text, a shaky
enterprise.
Reply
1. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 4, 2014 at 3:51 pm
The fathers were certainly aware of differences between the Septuagint and the
Hebrew Text of their time. Sometimes, when the Hebrew text presented an
interesting alternative they would mention it, and give an interpretation of that
alternative reading. When those alternative readings undercut some passage of
particular importance to Christians, they would argue that the Septuagint text was
correct, and the Hebrew text incorrect. St. John Chrysostom and Blessed
Theodoret make mention of Hebrew variants with some regularity.
Reply
1.
Eric Jobe says:
October 4, 2014 at 3:59 pm
I think it is quite certain given our knowledge of the transmission history
of the Hebrew and Greek Bibles that the binary “correct” and “incorrect”
is inadequate. The Fathers were not necessarily in error in their judgment,
just without knowledge that we have today. Rather we should speak of
“early” and “late” or perhaps even “before” and “after.” In other words, to
say that the Hebrew is “incorrect” is itself an “incorrect” statement, for it
is entirely possible and even demonstrable through philology that the LXX
did alter the Hebrew meaning to produce readings de novo according to
the will of the translators. I have thus called the LXX “Old Testament 2.0”
for this reason. It is therefore very unwise for us to simply consign the
Hebrew to being “incorrect” in these cases when other explanations are
possible. We may even let them stand together, which, for example, the
Lucianic recension often did. Cf. Is 9:6. The original LXX only read
“Angel of Great Council,” whereas the Lucianic recension added a fresh
translation of the Hebrew “Wonderful, Councilor, Mighty God, Prince of
Peace, Father of the age to come.” So, in this case, both the LXX and the
MT readings stand side-by-side in the same text. Neither is more “correct”
than the other.
Reply
1. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 4, 2014 at 10:13 pm
When producing a text, like the Orthodox Study Bible, or any
other translation, one has to decide on a particular text. When we
read texts aloud in Church, we cannot read multiple versions… we
have to pick one. And while in many cases we can speak of
alternative translations, there also many cases in which there is a
correct text and an incorrect text. For example, in the book of
Habakkuk, there are a number of places in which the Masoretic
text is simply unintelligible — and every translation into English is
actually using the Septuagint, Peshitta, and/or Vulgate.
And you may be able to make a compelling case that in some
instance or another the Septuagint reading was pulled out of thin
air, but someone else may come behind you and make a
compelling case that your arguments are all wrong. You can’t
prove such a thing, because there no way to prove what the
Hebrew text actually was that the Septuagint was translated from.
Reply
1. Patrick Henry Reardon says:
October 6, 2014 at 5:04 pm
Father John observes, “When producing a text, like the
Orthodox Study Bible, or any other translation, one has to
decide on a particular text. When we read texts aloud in
Church, we cannot read multiple versions… we have to
pick one.”
I hope we all agree on this. And, since the LXX is (on the
whole) the liturgical text inherited in the Church, liturgical
translations are properly based on the LXX.
In the East we have always done this, I believe.
This practice is amply justified by Apostolic and patristic
authority. It neither requires nor implies any judgment on
the inherited Hebrew OT.
The Orthodox Study Bible amply serves that practice, and I
rather hope all the Orthodox jurisdictions will, in due curse,
adopt the OSB for such use in our parishes.
What we must NOT do, in my opinion, is adopt the PC
monstrosity widely used at present in Greek parishes and in
the educational publications of the Greek Archdiocese.
13. Patrick Henry Reardon says:
October 4, 2014 at 10:41 am
Since Father John has not commented on it, I hope we may assume his agreement with
Saint Augustine’s thesis that the Old Testament has come down to us in two authoritative
traditions—Hebrew and Greek—both of them, with respect to Divine Inspiration, of
equal value.
If he does agree with Saint Augustine on this question, then his argument with Eric Jobe
is over.
Reply
1. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 4, 2014 at 3:55 pm
St. Augustine repeatedly expressed his preference for the Septuagint, and so the
quotes you provided not withstanding, they fall short of proving that he
considered the contemporary Hebrew texts of his time to be equally reliable as the
Septuagint.
His idea that at least some of the differences between the Septuagint and the
contemporary Hebrew texts of his time is one I do not believe is found elsewhere
in the writings of the Fathers.
Reply
1. Patrick Henry Reardon says:
October 4, 2014 at 5:22 pm
Father John remarks, “St. Augustine repeatedly expressed his preference
for the Septuagint.”
Surprise!
He knew of the Hebrew readings only from the ongoing publications
Jerome was making until his death in 419. It was a whole new world to
Augustine, and often he did not know what to make of it.
The important point is that Augustine explicitly recognized the Divine
Inspiration of the Hebrew text Jerome was working with. He says so. I
quoted the texts—in Latin. Try to live with it.
Reply
1. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 4, 2014 at 10:33 pm
Even the fathers who did not know Hebrew knew of the major
differences between the Hebrew text and the Septuagint… we
know this is true, because they talk about them. I doubt
Cassiodorus, for example, knew Hebrew, and yet if you look at his
Commentary on Psalm 39[40]:6-8: “Sacrifice and offering thou
wouldest not; but a body hast thou prepared me: whole-burntoffering and sacrifice for sin thou didst not require. Then I said,
Behold, I come: in the volume of the book it is written concerning
me, I desired to do thy will, O my God, and thy law in the midst of
mine heart” (which is quoted verbatim from the Septuagint in
Hebrews 10), and he points out that the Jews neither have
sacrifices any longer, nor do their texts have the statement “a body
hast thou prepared me”, and says that “they are appropriately
silent, speechless at the words which confront them (Explanation
of the Psalms, Vol 1, p. 402).
And St. Augustine also, elsewhere says “Now among translations
themselves the Italian (Itala) is to be preferred to the others, for it
keeps closer to the words without prejudice to clearness of
expression. And to correct the Latin we must use the Greek
versions, among which the authority of the Septuagint is preeminent as far as the Old Testament is concerned…”
http://m.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.v.v.xv.html
In the quote you are focusing on, he is speaking generally, not with
reference to any specific texts in which Jews and Christians might
have tended to argue over. But even if he had plainly stated that the
Hebrew Text of his time was of equal authority to the Septuagint,
that would only prove that one Father was of that opinion. That is
clearly not the opinion found in the Fathers generally.
Reply
1. Patrick Henry Reardon says:
October 5, 2014 at 4:42 pm
Father John says, “Even the fathers who did not know
Hebrew knew of the major differences between the Hebrew
text and the Septuagint… we know this is true, because
they talk about them. I doubt Cassiodorus, for example,
knew Hebrew”
I am so happy that Father John recognizes the authority of
Latin Fathers. That advantage will serve him well as he
grows toward correcting some of his other views.
He is correct about Cassiodorus. Cassiodorus read both the
Vetus Latina (translated from the LXX) and the Vulgate
(translated from Hebrew). THAT comparison between two
Latin versions is how Cassiodorus knew the places where
the Hebrew and the Greek texts differed. (Also, THAT is
the only way Augustine knew. Augustine read no Hebrew
and rather limited Greek. His only Bible was Latin.)
I can hardly believe Father John’s appeal to Cassiodorus to
bolster his preference for the LXX. The mind reels at this
appeal. Cassiodorus established the most prolific
“scriptoria” in the whole Church. Thousands of Latin
manuscripts were copied by his monastic scribes. It is safe
to say that no single man at the time was more responsible
for producing copies of Jerome’s Vulgate, which was
translated from . . . . (drum roll) . . . . Hebrew.
Thanks to Cassiodorus and men like him, the Vulgate
gradually replaced the Vetus Latina in the Western part of
the Church. Thanks to Cassiodorus and his friends, Jerome
became the primary textual authority, against which there
was no appeal. From the mid-fifth century, Jerome’s
Vulgate, because of its direct parentage from Hebrew,
assumed in the minds of Western Christians a precedence
over the Greek tradition rendered in the Vetus Latina.
Western Christians became convinced that one of their
greater advantage over the East was a closer connection to
the Hebrew Bible. One constantly heard of the Hebraica
Veritas to explain the superiority of the Western Church
over the Greeks.
That attitude prevails to this day. The reluctance of many
Eastern Orthodox Christians to recognize the authority of
the traditional Hebrew Text is widely regarded as an
irrational prejudice and a form of sectarian obscurantism.
By way of animadversion, it is instructive reflect that
Psalter is the one OT book where the Vetus Latina
(translated from the LXX and extended in the Gallican
Psalter) was almost universally preferred to Jerome’s
translation of the Hebrew Psalms.
The reason is surely obvious: People do not like to change
the way they pray. When Jerome produced his “Psalmi
secundum Hebraeos” early in the fifth century, some folks
tried to pray it, but it was tough going. The Latin Church
had been praying the Vetus Latina of the Psalms for 300
years, and they simply were not going to change if they
didn’t have to.
Consequently, very few manuscripts of the whole Vulgate
contained Jerome’s translation of the Psalms from Hebrew.
Indeed, I have in front of me at the moment the 1959
Vatican edition of the Vulgate. It does not even contain the
“secundum Hebraeos” but the Gallican Psalter, based on
the LXX. (The new critical edition of the Vulgate does
contain both, on opposing pages.)
I confess to the same weakness with respect to the Psalter.
As a priest, I pray the Canonical Hours each day and,
therefore, pray through the whole Psalter each week. Since
I have prayed the LXX-based Gallican Psalter for my
whole life, I would find it impossible to switch to some
other version. I hope to die with the words of the Vetus
Latina on my lips.
For the rest, I have been reading the Bible in Greek for 60
years, and in Hebrew for fifty. I love both of them. Both of
them are the Word of God. I have never discovered any
theological reason for preferring one to the other.
From the perspective of literary experience, however, there
is simply nothing to compare with reading the Hebrew OT.
I even read the Gospels in a Hebrew translation.
2.
Eric Jobe says:
October 6, 2014 at 7:44 am
My primary area of study is Hebrew poetry, so you can
imagine that I feel the same way about the Hebrew Psalter
as you do about the Vetus Latina. The manner in which the
LXX obscures much of the parallelism is quite jarring to
me. I can’t “pray it” because it is not “beautiful” to me.
3. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 6, 2014 at 6:14 pm
In response to Fr. Patrick, from what I can find, it appears
that Cassiodorus only produced one commentary, and that
is his commentary on the Psalms… and he tracks pretty
close to the Septuagint in everything I have read so far,
though according to the introduction of the English
translation, he at times used Jerome’s translation of the
Hebrew, though more often used either the translation
found in St. Augustine’s commentary, or the Gallican
Psalter. But in any case, Cassiodorus clearly does not think
that the Hebrew text is an inspired alternative in the
instance I cited.
Also, many of the Greek Fathers would also have had some
idea of the content of the Hebrew text from the Jewish
translations of the Hebrew text — and so the claim that the
Fathers rejected the Hebrew version, while being ignorant
of it, is not really true. If St. Augustine was uniquely
ignorant of the context of the Hebrew text, that is all the
more reason why his unique opinions on the matter should
not be held up as a standard.
4. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 6, 2014 at 6:22 pm
Eric, are you speaking of the LXX Psalter in Greek itself,
or a translation? The Jordanville Psalter, which tries to stick
closer to the Slavonic often does obscure the Hebrew
Parallelism, but the Boston Psalter generally does not.
5.
Eric Jobe says:
October 6, 2014 at 6:36 pm
I’m speaking of the LXX itself. For example, Ps. 16 (17) is
a mess. Ps 119(120):5 is another good example. The
Hebrew contains parallelism of two place names, Meshek
and Qedar, ‫אויה לו גרתי משך‬/‫“ שכנתי עם אוהלי קדר‬Woe is me,
for I have sojourned in Meshek / I have dwelt among the
tents of Qedar.” The LXX read ‫ משך‬as a 3ms qal perfect
verb mašāḵ, meaning “to draw out, prolong.” It also read
‫ גרתי‬as a noun with a 1cs pronominal suffix rather than a
1cs qal perfect verb, i.e. “I have prolonged my sojourn”
rather than “I have sojourned in Mesheq.” Now, the new
LXX reading is fine as far as it goes as it can carry
meaning, but it does obscure the poetic parallelism between
the two toponyms and the two 1cs qal perfect verbs.
14. Patrick Henry Reardon says:
October 4, 2014 at 2:55 pm
I rejoice that the Masorites are not being accused, in the correspondence on this blog site,
of deliberate mendacity. This is a genuine step forward in the discussion.
I look forward to more comments on the LXX by Eric Jobe.
This is necessary, because I still detect, in the correspondence on this blog site, the
vestigial suspicion that the introduction of the Masoretic markings seriously altered the
Hebrew Bible familiar to Origen and Jerome.
This is certainly not the case. The MT represents essentially the same Bible from which
Jerome translated the Vulgate. The differences are not significant.
(As a young student, by the way, and at the same time I was studying textual criticism
under Carlo Maria Martini, I visited St. Jerome’s and inspected the large manuscript
room where Jean Gribomont and his team were working on the critical edition of the
Vulgate. There were large tables all around, supporting photostatic copies of hundreds of
manuscripts. It was a heady, nearly unnerving experience for a young man. Someday I
will also tell you about my inspection of Albright’s own annotated copy of Wooley’s
book on Ur. It gives me a rush, even at this late date, to think about it.)
Likewise, one cannot appeal to those Masoretic markings to explain more than a few
minor differences between the MT and the LXX. These difference are too great to be
explained in such a simplistic way.
Finally, the critical apparatus in the common edition of the MT (Kittel) shows nowhere
near the complexity and variety evident in the critical apparatus of the LXX. There are
fewer textual variants in Hebrew than there are in Greek.
That is to say, no textual problems are solved simply by one’s preference for the LXX
over the MT. That preference must still come to grips with the considerable discrepancies
within the manuscripts of the LXX.
I have had to deal with this difficulty on several occasions, such as in my articles
on Tobit
and
and Susanna
Indeed, with respect to Susanna, most Christian copyists preferred Theodotian to the
LXX anyway, forcing Rahlfs to include it.
Reply
1.
Eric Jobe says:
October 4, 2014 at 3:07 pm
Fr. Patrick, in truth, the raison d’etre of this blog is to deal with many of these
issues rather head-on. There will be much scrounging through the Göttingin
apparati, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and various NT manuscripts. Unfortunately, I am
woefully incompetent in Latin studies. I can at least cite what I need to and pick
through a text, but I will defer to others for that material. I am a primarily a
Hebraist, secondarily an Aramaist with competency in multiple dialects, and I
consider myself equally competent in Biblical Greek. I also have some facility in
Ugaritic and Ethiopic Ge’ez. The relationship between the Greek and Hebrew
Bibles is a keen interest of mine, and I will no doubt explore that relationship
throughout the future life of this blog.
Reply
2. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 4, 2014 at 4:07 pm
Kittel’s MT is no longer the standard Hebrew Text — the current standard (unless
something has change recently) is the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. But pointing
out that there are fewer notes in the critical apparatus does not prove much, since
as I pointed out — apart from the Dead Sea Scrolls — the evidence prior to the
10th century has been destroyed.
Most of the significant discrepancies in the Greek NT are found in manuscripts
well prior to the 10th century, and so if Christian’s had adopted similar practices
to that of the Masoretic scribes, we wouldn’t know about most of those
discrepancies.
And as a matter of fact, there significant differences between the Vulgate and the
MT. And usually when such differences exist, the Vulgate is closer to the LXX.
Reply
1.
Eric Jobe says:
October 4, 2014 at 4:43 pm
The Vulgate is based upon the Old Latin, which was translated from the
LXX. St. Jerome edited it toward the Hebrew he had, so the Vulgate will
show alignment with both LXX and proto-MT texts.
Reply
1. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 4, 2014 at 10:35 pm
But obviously St. Jerome edited the Latin texts to make them
match the Hebrew text known to him, and so when there are
significant differences with the MT we have today, there is no
reason to think that the Hebrew text St. Jerome had matched the
MT, but he simply chose to ignore the difference.
Reply
1.
Eric Jobe says:
October 4, 2014 at 10:37 pm
Do you know what Hebrew texts St. Jerome had with him?
Have you compared them in detail with the MT? Unless
you have, your statement there is invalid.
2. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 5, 2014 at 4:41 pm
I can’t think of any other ancient translation of Scripture
that we have nearly as much information about in terms of
who did the translation, and how they approached it than
the Vulgate. We know Jerome considered the Hebrew Text
to be the most reliable, and so given what we do know
about the translator and his approach, it is indeed true that
“…there is no reason to think that the Hebrew text St.
Jerome had matched the MT, but he simply chose to ignore
the difference.” If you wish to deny the accuracy of that
statement, what is the reason or reasons you have that
would lead you to believe that St. Jerome would have
ignored the Hebrew text when it differed with the the Latin
text that he was correcting?
15. Patrick Henry Reardon says:
October 4, 2014 at 3:05 pm
I have no idea why the links to my articles on Tobit and Susanna could not be pasted on
this blog page.
Let me try it again:
touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=12-02-036-f
touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=12-03-041-f
touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=13-05-017-f
Reply
16. Patrick Henry Reardon says:
October 4, 2014 at 3:54 pm
Eric Jobe comments, “I also have some facility in Ugaritic and Ethiopic Ge’ez.”
Well, so much for my dissipated youth. Dahood was on the faculty. I could have done it
if I weren’t so lazy. It’s an ongoing problem.
Reply
17. Patrick Henry Reardon says:
October 4, 2014 at 5:07 pm
Father John mentions, “Kittel’s MT is no longer the standard Hebrew Text — the current
standard (unless something has change recently) is the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia.”
I stand corrected. I have both of them.
Reply
18. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick says:
October 5, 2014 at 8:53 pm
Much of this is far above my pay grade, but I think perhaps it should be clarified what
Eric is not (at least in my understanding) saying, namely, that the LXX and MT are both
“canonical” in the sense that they should be accorded the same liturgical space.
Much has been mentioned about what is more “reliable,” etc., in the comments, but my
question each time has been “Reliable for what purpose?” If the “reliability” is to get to
some “original,” I think that there is an unsolvable problem there. There is simply too
much complexity and lack of manuscripts to be able to know what the “original” might
be, and there is also a lot of problem with the idea of an “original” to begin with — even
if we could miraculously find original manuscripts from the attributed writers and thus
edit our canonical texts, we should likely have to eviscerate much that is well-known and
well-loved for us.
If “reliability” is for the purposes of liturgical usage, well, of course that is something
else. But Eric is not arguing that liturgical usage ought to be this or that.
If “reliability” is for the purposes of exegesis, it seems to me that many different
manuscript traditions are represented even within just patristic exegesis. And even if the
LXX is preferred (which of course makes sense, since it is the canonical liturgical text), it
is not clear to me why an exegesis which takes the MT or even some other manuscript
family into account should be utterly inadmissible so long as the interpretation yields
results that are according to the Orthodox faith.
I am sure that Eric likely intends to get into all this in future posts. Even this post is a
“part 1,” and may there be many more hundreds of other posts on this site exploring all
these issues.
In the end, I don’t think Orthodoxy has anything to fear from textual criticism done by
faithful sons and daughters of the Church. Orthodoxy is the Church. The Scriptures are
the Church’s Scriptures. It is not a betrayal of the faith to explore all that those things
mean, and it certainly cannot be a betrayal simply to ask questions about where our texts
have gone and how they have changed over the centuries of their use.
I would much rather a faithful son of the Church ask these questions and seek for their
answers than cede the ground of this particular discipline to those who do not share our
loyalties, who, by their arguments going unanswered, may serve to draw away the
faithful and the potential faithful.
Reply
1.
Eric Jobe says:
October 6, 2014 at 7:56 am
Thank you, Fr. Andrew. Indeed, I have made no prescriptive statements, only
descriptive. I have noted, for example, that even if the MT were to be preferred on
philological or text-critical grounds in isolated cases, the LXX could still be
preferred for liturgical use. I have at times corrected an Epistle reading toward the
Byzantine Majority text, even though it might or might not have been “original.” I
agree with Fr. Andrew that the concept of an “original text” is a farce, especially
in regard to the OT. One can search for original texts through source criticism
until no text exist at all (Which makes arguments for the LXX Jeremiah, because
it is shorter and therefor earlier, rather silly, since it is demonstrable that various
Jeremiah traditions were circulating in various collected forms at the same time as
there were for Daniel and Enoch). And yes, there will be more to come, so stay
tuned! Though, I am very busy these days, so I may not be able to post as
frequently as the discussion here would benefit from.
Reply
19. Patrick Henry Reardon says:
October 7, 2014 at 7:26 pm
Father John says, “If St. Augustine was uniquely ignorant of the context of the Hebrew
text, that is all the more reason why his unique opinions on the matter should not be held
up as a standard.”
He was not “uniquely ignorant.” He simply did not read Hebrew.
Nor did Chrysostom, nor most of the other Fathers. So it is pointless to quote them as
though they knew anything, or had anything important to say, about this subject.
Also, I am not into “should.”
“Did,” however, is of interest to me.
And there is no doubt that St. Augustine’s view of TWO authoritative versions of the
Bible DID become the standard view in the West.
Nor was the Western respect for the Hebrew text ever, as far as I know, a point of
contention between the East and the West during those centuries when they were still in
communion.
It should not be a point of contention now, unless someone is disposed to be contentious.
Reply
1. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 8, 2014 at 5:57 am
St. John Chrysostom was in fact aware of the differences between the Hebrew and
Greek text, because we was familiar with the Jewish translations of the Hebrew
text into Greek.
And your claim that St. Augustine’s understanding of “two authorized versions”
evidently did not extend to Cassiodorus, as we see in the passage I cited. He
clearly did not think that the Hebrew text of that passage constituted a
legitimately alternative, and inspired text.
And whatever the view of the west may or may not have been — and I am not
inclined to accept your characterization based solely on St. Augustine’s meager
comments that have been cited — that is not the view of the Orthodox Church.
You can look in any number of sources to find that the Septuagint and the Peshitta
are the standard and authoritative texts the Orthodox Church uses (Metropolitan
Kallistos (Ware) and Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfayev) being two examples that
come to mind.
Reply
1. Patrick Henry Reardon says:
October 8, 2014 at 10:59 am
Father John proclaims, “the Septuagint and the Peshitta are the standard
and authoritative texts the Orthodox Church uses.”
Having read all the correspondence on this blog site, I am unable to
discover a single person who challenges that point.
Why, then, all this contention about something no one disagrees with?
Reply
1. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 8, 2014 at 6:45 pm
Then perhaps your answer to this question will clear up the whole
matter. How can you assert that the Hebrew Masoretic is equally,
with the Septuagint, inspired by God… and yet not say that this
text is not equally authoritative?
Reply
1. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 8, 2014 at 6:50 pm
Oops, meant to say: “…and yet not say that this text is
equally authoritative?”
2.
Eric Jobe says:
October 8, 2014 at 10:26 pm
I don’t think a connection can be so easily made between
the notions of inspiration and authoritativeness. Aside from
the usual epistemological problems associated with those
concepts, authoritativeness (different than authority) is
produced within a complex web of historical accidence,
which includes accessibility (which the ancients by-andlarge did not have to the Hebrew text). Just because the
Hebrew was inspired – and is, insofar as it remains Holy
Scripture – does not necessitate that it carry equal authority
within the Church, though it may be used to inform such
authority or it may be granted authority in special cases.
3. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 8, 2014 at 10:32 pm
You state that it is not a necessary conclusion that
something can be equally inspired without being equally
authoritative, but don’t state how this can be so. How is it
possible to affirm that God inspired something, and then to
turn around and say that it nevertheless is not authoritative?
2 Timothy 3:16-17 seems to draw a direct connection
between inspiration, and authority.
4.
Eric Jobe says:
October 8, 2014 at 10:35 pm
I stated exactly how it is so, in that authoritativeness (i.e.
not “authority”) is something that is granted by the Church
at a particular time according to the particulars of historical
accidence. The Hebrew text was most certainly
authoritative at one time, but that authoritativeness was
passed to various translations throughout the Christian
world as it forgot the Hebrew language. The 2 Timothy
passage draws a connection between inspiration and
profitability, but not necessarily authoritativeness, and the
Hebrew text is most certainly still profitable for all the
things listed there.
5. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 9, 2014 at 6:33 am
The Church does not have autonomous powers. The
authority of the Church comes from God. If God has
equally inspired the Masoretic text, then that text is equally
authoritative because it is inspired by God Almighty. When
the Church canonized the Scriptures it did not add
inspiration to them by calling them authoritative. It called
them authoritative, because it recognized those texts as
inspired.
Aside from that, Fr. Patrick has claimed that the western
Church has always recognized that there are two equally
inspired textual traditions (the Septuagint and the Masoretic
text) — and so if we grant, for the sake of argument, that
this is so… unless we are also saying that this was an error
…how can that recognition not mean that the western
Church recognized both textual traditions as equally
authoritative?
I can’t think of any precedent in the history of the Church
for the Church saying that something is inspired by God
Almighty, but not authoritative.
6.
Eric Jobe says:
October 9, 2014 at 8:00 am
So what you’re saying is that the Hebrew Bible as came
into existence from the mouthes and pens of the Prophets
was not inspired, is that right?
7. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 9, 2014 at 6:16 pm
No, I am not saying that the Hebrew Bible as it came into
existence from the mouths and pens of the Prophets was not
inspired, nor has anything I said suggested such a thing.
The problem is that that Masoretic text is not identical to
the Hebrew Bible as it came into existence from the mouths
and pends of the Prophets. If it was, I would agree with
your position on this matter. And the degree to which it
differs from that text, and differs from the Septuagint and
the Peshitta, is the degree to which it is not inspired.
But if I believed that the Masoretic Text was equally
inspired with Septuagint, I would have to also affirm that it
was equally authoritative, because I am unaware of any
basis for separating something being inspired by God and it
being authoritative.
20. Patrick Henry Reardon says:
October 8, 2014 at 9:25 am
Father John comments, “from what I can find, it appears that Cassiodorus only produced
one commentary, and that is his commentary on the Psalms.”
That search somehow missed Cassiodorus’s commentaries on Acts, the Pauline Letters,
and the Book of Revelation.
Maybe Father John means only OT commentaries.
Reply
1. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 8, 2014 at 6:46 pm
I didn’t find any reference to those commentaries, though I have not made an
extensive search for them… but if his commentary on the Psalms is his only
commentary on an Old Testament book, then that would be the only one relevant
to this conversation.
Reply
21. Patrick Henry Reardon says:
October 8, 2014 at 2:00 pm
Eric, permit me, please, to post one further comment relative to the Vulgate:
Jerome, in spite of his phenomenal temper, was no rebel; it was not his intention, in
translating freshly from Hebrew to Latin, to disturb the faith of ordinary believers.
This is one of the reasons why the texts of the Vulgate occasionally support the LXX
against the MT. Jerome simply stuck with the Vetus Latina when altering it might
unnecessarily disturb people.
In translating into Latin, Jerome was reluctant to change too much those passages used
extensively in the divine services. He respected the sensitivities of the faithful by whom
those passages, heard frequently in church, were cherished.
When the Vulgate does agree with the LXX, we should not rashly suppose that this is a
merely textual question. Pastoral concerns also influenced Jerome’s choices on occasion.
This aspect of the matter is easily overlooked by those with a ham-handed approach to
what is, essentially, a historical concern.
I suspect that his pastoral sensitivity may be the reason Jerome got a bit agitated in his
famous controversy with Saint Augustine over what sort of plant covered the head of
Jonah. I doubt it had occurred to Jerome that ordinary Christians could become so picky
about a detail involving no truth of the Faith. He felt he had gone to some lengths not to
offend the faithful, but here they were, calling for his head.
So, when Augustine complained that the folks in North Africa stormed out of church over
the nature of that plant—evidently at Pascha, when the whole Book of Jonah was read—
Jerome became a tad frustrated and got more than slightly sarcastic in his response.
Augustine was caught in the middle. He could not challenge Jerome’s familiarity with the
Hebrew text, nor did he want to trouble the believers in North Africa.
Anyway, Jerome’s pastoral sensitivity will go a long way to explaining why the
correspondences between the Vulgate and the MT are so uneven from book to book.
I am hardly the first person to observe the pastoral nuance and complexity in Jerome’s
style style of translation. Gribomont, for instance, wrote on it decades ago.
Reply
1. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 8, 2014 at 6:48 pm
Are your characterizations of St. Jerome’s approach to translating the Hebrew
based on St. Jerome’s words explaining his approach, or your speculating here?
Reply
1. Patrick Henry Reardon says:
October 9, 2014 at 9:37 am
Father John asks, “Are your characterizations of St. Jerome’s approach to
translating the Hebrew based on St. Jerome’s words explaining his
approach, or your speculating here?”
Neither.
They are based on my reading of the Vulgate since 1947 and my reading
of the Masoretic text since about 1962.
It is not an eccentric understanding of Jerome but a common view. In
support of it, I mentioned Gribomont, the chief editor of the critical edition
of the Vulgate.
I don’t intend to provide an extensive bibliography, but one may want to
consult Gribomont’s comments on the subject in volume 4 of Quasten’s
PATROLOGY.
Try to keep in mind, Father, than on the day you were born I was reading
the Bible in Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, and Latin.
Reply
1. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 9, 2014 at 6:22 pm
Fr. Patrick, I appreciate your years of experience and studies, but
what you say above confirms that you are basing what you said
about St. Jerome’s approach to translation based on speculation,
rather than any hard evidence from the writings of St. Jerome
himself, or any contemporary who might have pointed out that he
fudged on his translation of the Hebrew text, as you suggested.
It is certainly within the realm of possibility that St. Jerome would
have fudge on his translation and opted for the Septuagint reading
out of concern for offending people, but if he was afraid of such
offense, he could have avoided it entirely by sticking with the
Septuagint. The fact that his writings give every evidence that he
considered the Hebrew Text to be better would suggest that when
his translation differed from the Masoretic Text, it is more likely
because the Hebrew Text he had differed from the Masoretic text,
unless, as with the case of Habakkuk in the MT, he ran into
patches in which the Hebrew was unintelligible, and fell back on
the Septuagint because he had no alternative.
Reply
22. Patrick Henry Reardon says:
October 9, 2014 at 4:58 pm
Eric, if you are disposed to receive it, let me make a paternal observation relative to this
blog site.
You are trained in the skills of textual criticism, where the chief danger is that the scholar
may fall asleep from the sheer lack of excitement. In my experience there is not, nor
should there be, the slightest note of animated contention in textual studies.
Over the years I have been personally acquainted with textual critics of the first order—
men such as Jean Gribomont, chief editor of the Vulgate critical edition, and Carlo Maria
Martini and Bruce Metzger, two editors of the critical edition of the NT.
I cannot imagine how any of them would handle the kinds of negative commentary you
have endured since you launched this blog site.
Your major critic is not a textual scholar but an overactive Orthodox polemicist. Relying
on the skills inherent in your academic discipline, I don’t see any way you will ever be
able to address his criticisms, his carping censures in which gall and risibility compete for
prominence. You’re not playing the same game as your critic. He is not adhering to the
rules that are taken for granted in textual studies. Thus, when you step out on the green
and attempt to sink a delicate put, he rushes through a scrimmage line and tackles you.
If this blog site is going to provide the level of service that you are capable of giving it,
something has to change. There should be no place on this site for outdated and illinformed Orthodox apologetics.
Reply
1.
Eric Jobe says:
October 9, 2014 at 5:15 pm
Thank you, Fr. Patrick. I completely agree with your thoughts here, and I have
recently advised another person along the same lines. It is unfortunate that such
polemicists are drowning out the sound of reasoned scholarship in a number of
areas, not just textual criticism. I have let the conversation in this post go to an
extent that I perhaps would not allow it to if I could do it over again, though I feel
that it will serve an illustrative purpose for future posts. While I do not expect
every commenter on this site to be able to dialogue at the same level as you or I, I
do want to establish a standard for dialogue. On the other hand, I do not want to
be unnecessarily censorious. In the future, I will be much more guarded in
approving comments.
Reply
2. Fr. John Whiteford says:
October 9, 2014 at 6:26 pm
Fr. Patrick, if I make an invalid argument, please point out the flaws. If I say
something that is inaccurate, please correct the error. But please refrain from
personal attacks. Prior to your first comment on this post, in which you essentially
suggested I was antisemitic, I had every intention of letting my exchange with
Eric end on this post, when he said to wait for his further posts on the subject…
but I am not inclined to let comments of that sort pass. Let’s please stick to the
issues, rather than making this about personalities.
*EDIT FROM THE MODERATOR* I’m letting this one though on account of
the charge of anti-Semitism. I do think charges of anti-Semitism are not
necessarily ad-hominem if they are backed with evidence. Nevertheless, particular
care should be given to make sure that proper evidence is given. Nevertheless, the
original claim that Fr. John made stating that the Jews had altered their Scriptures
was made without providing evidence, and that position was maintained by Fr.
John even after both I and Fr. Patrick had stated that it was an illegitimate
argument since there is no evidence for it. I will let such an argument stand on its
own merit.
Reply
23.
Eric Jobe says:
October 9, 2014 at 6:27 pm
With these last comments by Fr. John, I am suspending comments on this post. I think we
have all said what we want to say, and everyone has had ample time to respond. I do not
think that there is any benefit to further comments, as we have come to an impasse on our
respective positions.
Reply
24. Pingback: Weekly Reading – October 10, 2014 | Opus Publicum
25. Abel Gaitan says:
October 15, 2014 at 3:56 pm
Thank you for writing this blog and making it available to us. As a person who was raised
a Southern Baptist and then almost converted to Orthodox Judaism ( I was actively
seeking it for 7 years) I have heard from each side. Now that I am coming into Eastern
Orthodoxy I was seeing a lack of biblical scholars on Tanakh, or anyone else for that
matter who could answer some basic questions. I will admit that I bought into the myth
that the “Jews changed it!” and I am glad I can now put that myth to rest and move on. I
got one question for you, how can we be sure that both the MT and LXX are “inspired”?
Or is there even such a thing as inspired scripture?
Reply
1.
Eric Jobe says:
October 18, 2014 at 12:51 pm
The notion of inspiration is difficult to define. 1 Tim. 3:16 only mentions that
inspired scripture is “profitable.” If we go beyond that, to try to pin down exactly
what inspiration entails brings us to several difficulties. I will likely do a full post
about this soon, so I won’t go into details here. I do think inspiration is real,
though I think it must be understood within the broader notion of the presence of
the Spirit within the Church, i.e. the Scripture is inspired insofar as it exists within
the continuous activity of the Spirit in the Church.
Reply
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Happened – Departing Horeb
27. Bob MacDonald says:
November 20, 2014 at 12:10 pm
Thank you for this informative introduction to the texts. I myself am a reader of the MT. I
translate in my own awkward way a little every day. I am continually astonished at the
beauty of the Hebrew and its resonance with my reading and experience of the work of
Jesus in his day.
This past month, I have been working with Isaiah chapters 53 to 55. My summary of this
work (always a work in progress) is here. (BTW, my tradition is Anglican. I began
learning Hebrew seriously at age 60. I have sung as a drone in choir practice in the
Orthodox Church in Patmos.)
I am deeply impressed by the love and care for the text within the Hebrew tradition. I
think that as scribes copy, they, as we are, are in conversation with the Most High.
One example of a correction that can be made to the MT by the LXX and/or the DSS
(and there are many) is the case of Psalm 145(144) which will illustrate the dialogue.
This acrostic, like all the acrostics of Book 5 of the Psalms (111(110), 112(111),
119(118)), is perfect. There is no letter missing. But in the MT, the verse for N is missing
in 145. The LXX Psalm 144 via back translation allows reconstruction, but equally, the
verse is found in Hebrew manuscripts of the DSS. I have rendered it with the necessary N
as:
Note that faithful is ‫ יהוה‬in his words
and merciful in all his deeds
‫נאמן י ְהו ָה בדבריו‬
‫וחסיד בכול מעשיו‬
The tradition silently adds a verse from Amos (5:2)
No more to rise, fallen
is the virgin Israel
cast off on her own ground,
there is no one to raise her up.
This verse from Amos fits the tragic situation of exile and diaspora following the
destruction of Jerusalem and it fits the thought of Psalm 145 in a way that anticipates the
consolation of verse 14 through the repetition of ‘fallen’. It has the necessary nun (N) in
Hebrew and is easily translated for the N required in English. It is part of the Rabbinic
scribal conversation with Hashem.
Note the continuing repetition of ‘all’ in this psalm (17 times). The nun verse and verse
17 act as a frame to highlight the support that is characteristic of ‫ יהוה‬when there is
trouble. The verse from Amos lacks this characteristic ‘all’. The sound of K (all/every =
‫ )כל‬in the psalm is very clear, like a drum beat.
I wonder if you would are aware of the use of the te’amim from the MT. These signs
above and below the text and separate from the nikkudim allow the reconstruction of the
ancient music of the Hebrews. I note particularly the major disjunctive, ^ under a
syllable, that divides most verses in two. It sometimes does not occur, but never occurs
more than once in a verse. The signs predate any chapter and versification, so they show
that the notion of fixed segments of the text is ancient. On my sight I have hundreds of
examples of the reconstructed music. My examples are done by a computer program
which I wrote. It shows me that the ancient scribes were very much aware of the
objective use of signs as a medium of digital communications. The signs are essentially
hand signals and are easily interpreted by a computer applying the right rules.
Reply
1.
Eric Jobe says:
November 20, 2014 at 1:08 pm
Unfortunately, I am not well skilled in reading the cantillation marks or the MT
punctuation beyond the basics. Most of what I read is unvocalized anyway (the
Dead Sea Scrolls), so I have not taken the time yet to delve into that.
Reply
1. Bob MacDonald says:
November 20, 2014 at 1:38 pm
Thank you for your reply and for all your clear posts that I have scanned
this morning. I have heard that there are scrolls in the DSS that have
cantillation marks. I have not seen any examples in my own searching. If
you find any, I would love to hear about them.
I have a brief introduction to the signs as music, based on the work of
Suzanne Haik-Vantoura from the last century, at this address here.
Reply
1.
Eric Jobe says:
November 20, 2014 at 2:32 pm
I’ve never seen any cantillation marks in the DSS.
Reply
28. Bob MacDonald says:
November 20, 2014 at 12:13 pm
I apologize for two amusing aporia in my comment! an extra `should`and sight instead of
site!
Reply
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32. garegin says:
June 12, 2015 at 11:28 pm
is the Jeremiah in the Vulgate longer or shorter (like in the Qurman and the LLX)? Also
how come we have so few ancient Hebrew manuscripts compared with the New
Testament? Is it because we haven’t been looking hard enough.
Jews lived all over the Middle East in the Middle Ages. There should be dozens of
manuscripts in Hebrew from that period.
Reply
33. John Pittaway says:
June 17, 2015 at 12:25 am
Sorry for the late post, but I’m new to this blog and Orthodoxy.
I am very glad to find a lucid explanation of the faithful preservation of the Hebrew text
compared to the Septuagint.
The idea that the Hebrew scribes would intentionally alter the text their holy scripture is
really beyond the pale.
I first got into the research of Hebraic roots reading Alfred Edersheim’s “Life of Jesus
The Messiah”. His appendix on O.T. verses interpreted by the Pharisees are Messianic is
astounding. His references are to Midrash Rabbah in turn reference the Tanakh, i.e. the
Hebrew Holy Scripture. Now, since I am limited to English, I have had to use translations
of Hebrew and Aramaic found in the Soncino Press and Jewish Publication Society. Not
to mention the Art Scroll series on Ruth, Ester, and Genesis.
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34. John Pittaway says:
June 17, 2015 at 12:35 am
I have an exegetic bent and Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon commended the “OSB” and was
clearly less than pleased the “PC”.
I hope that the “OSB” is the Orthodox Study Bible by St. Athanasius Academy of the
Orthodox Theology. My priest recommended it and I have found it fascinating.
What is the “PC” that is in wide use?
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35. Chalaris George says:
November 11, 2015 at 3:46 pm
Hallo, Eric !
I am a Ph.D. candidate in Old Testament Interpretation at the University of Athens. Do
you know if there is a comparative study between the MT and the LXX text of Jeremiah ?
My main interest is in the double translations, that is to say certain verses of the
Masoretic text translated in two (or even three) different ways, following different
vocalization by the LXX translators.
all the best,
GEORGE
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1.
Eric Jobe says:
November 11, 2015 at 3:51 pm
Not that I know of, but I haven’t looked at a bibliography for that area of study in
a while. A quick WorldCat search did not turn up anything comprehensive,
though there are numerous monograph-length studies of individual portions of
Jeremiah. There is a monograph devoted to the translation technique of the
Peshitta of Jeremiah, which I used a bit for my MA thesis. You might start in one
of those volumes for some good bibliographic entries. Otherwise, I would search
through the various anthology volumes collecting LXX papers for bibliographic
info. Something comprehensive would be too long for most studies, so piecing
together various parts might be your best bet.
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36. Norman McIlwain says:
February 11, 2016 at 5:48 am
Hi Eric,
This has been an interesting exchange of views!
I agree with a comment you made with respect to ‘soma’ being the most likely original
LXX reading for Psalm 40:7, as quoted in the NT (Heb.10:5), as testified by extant LXX
copies and Bodmer XXIV. NETS, without LXX evidence, translated according to Rahlf’s
position. However, from a Christian perspective, I would regard the NT support as
decisive.
Patrick Henry Reardon, commenting above, described the Christian scribes who copied
the LXX, as: “Christians, who—notoriously—felt free to alter the Sacred Text for any of
a number of reasons.”
However, I don’t believe this stance met with your disapproval, so I am wondering if it
was simply overlooked or if this is also your own position?
Thanks.
Reply
37. Antoinette Brown says:
March 26, 2016 at 7:03 am
Hello Mr. Eric Jobe
Thank you for this blog I stumbled into this, looking for something else im glad I found
this blog, very happy .My question is after reading all this, please im a bit confused now.
Which is the best Bible to read? Please im trying to teach myself everything about the
Bible would love to go to college and get my studies and degree on Bible teaching but im
probably to old to start and dont have the funds.My joy is teaching the Bible. Please let
me know what is the Best Bible. And, all this information on The LXX, And HeBrew
Bible. I want to know it all. If all of you could help that would be wonderful I dont have
much income in buying all these books, so if there’s another way I would truly appreciate
it. Blessings to all of you,and looking forward to hearing from you, Mr. Jobe. Thank you
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August 6, 2016 at 8:07 pm
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