Textual analysis[ edit ] The inter-relationship between various significant ancient manuscripts of the Old Testament some identified by their siglum.
LXX here denotes the original septuagint. Modern scholarship holds that the Septuagint was written during the 3rd through 1st centuries BCE.
But nearly all attempts at dating specific books, with the exception of the Pentateuch early- to mid-3rd century BCE , are tentative and without consensus. These three, to varying degrees, are more literal renderings of their contemporary Hebrew scriptures as compared to the Old Greek the original Septuagint. Modern scholars consider one or more of the 'three' to be totally new Greek versions of the Hebrew Bible.
Much of this work was lost, but several compilations of the fragments are available. In the first column was the contemporary Hebrew, in the second a Greek transliteration of it, then the newer Greek versions each in their own columns.
Origen also kept a column for the Old Greek the Septuagint , which included readings from all the Greek versions into a critical apparatus with diacritical marks indicating to which version each line Gr. Perhaps the voluminous Hexapla was never copied in its entirety, but Origen's combined text "the fifth column" was copied frequently, eventually without the editing marks, and the older uncombined text of the Septuagint was neglected. Thus this combined text became the first major Christian recension of the Septuagint, often called the Hexaplar recension.
In the century following Origen, two other major recensions were identified by Jerome , who attributed these to Lucian Lucianic or Antiochene recension and Hesychius Hesychian or Alexandrian recension. Relatively complete manuscripts of the Septuagint postdate the Hexaplar recension and include the Codex Vaticanus from the 4th century CE and the Codex Alexandrinus of the 5th century. These are indeed the oldest surviving nearly complete manuscripts of the Old Testament in any language; the oldest extant complete Hebrew texts date some years later, from the first half of the 10th century.
The various Jewish and later Christian revisions and recensions are largely responsible for the divergence of the codices. Differences with the Latin Vulgate and the Masoretic text[ edit ] The sources of the many differences between the Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate and the Masoretic Text have long been discussed by scholars. Following the Renaissance , a common opinion among some humanists was that the Septuagint translators bungled the translation from the Hebrew and that the Septuagint became more corrupt with time.
The most widely accepted view today is that the Septuagint provides a reasonably accurate record of an early Hebrew textual variant that differed from the ancestor of the Masoretic text as well as those of the Latin Vulgate, where both of the latter seem to have a more similar textual heritage.
This view is supported by comparisons with Biblical texts found at the Essene settlement at Qumran the Dead Sea Scrolls. For example, Genesis 4: Likewise, Genesis 4: There is only one noticeable difference in that chapter, at 4: Genesis 4: If you offer correctly but do not divide correctly, have you not sinned? Be still; his recourse is to you, and you will rule over him. Is it not so that if you improve, it will be forgiven you?
If you do not improve, however, at the entrance, sin is lying, and to you is its longing, but you can rule over it. If thou do well, shalt thou not receive? This instance illustrates the complexity of assessing differences between the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text as well as the Vulgate.
Despite the striking divergence of meaning here between the Septuagint and later texts, nearly identical consonantal Hebrew source texts can be reconstructed. The readily apparent semantic differences result from alternative strategies for interpreting the difficult verse and relate to differences in vowelization and punctuation of the consonantal text.
The differences between the Septuagint and the MT thus fall into four categories. Evidence of this can be found throughout the Old Testament. Most obvious are major differences in Jeremiah and Job, where the Septuagint is much shorter and chapters appear in different order than in the MT, and Esther where almost one third of the verses in the Septuagint text have no parallel in the MT.
A more subtle example may be found in Isaiah The MT reads " The same verse in the Septuagint reads according to the translation of Brenton "and speak not to us in the Jewish tongue: This difference is very minor and does not affect the meaning of the verse.
Scholars at one time had used discrepancies such as this to claim that the Septuagint was a poor translation of the Hebrew original. In fact this verse is found in Qumran 1QIsaa where the Hebrew word "haanashim" the men is found in place of "haam" the people.
This discovery, and others like it, showed that even seemingly minor differences of translation could be the result of variant Hebrew source texts. Differences in interpretation stemming from the same Hebrew text. A good example is Genesis 4. Differences as a result of idiomatic translation issues i. For example, in Psalm The Septuagint reads "To God are the mighty ones of the earth. This consists of a stable text and numerous and distinctive agreements with the Masoretic Text.
These are the manuscripts which have distinctive affinities with the Greek Bible. In addition to these manuscripts, several others share distinctive individual readings with the Septuagint, although they do not fall in this category. The Qumran "Living Bible": These are the manuscripts which, according to Tov, were copied in accordance with the "Qumran practice" i. These are DSS manuscripts which reflect the textual form found in the Samaritan Pentateuch, although the Samaritan Bible itself is later and contains information not found in these earlier scrolls, e.
God's holy mountain at Shechem rather than Jerusalem. This is a category which shows no consistent alignment with any of the other four text-types. For example, Bastiaan Van Elderen compares three variations of Deuteronomy
The various Jewish and later Christian Job dating informatique and recensions are largely responsible for the divergence of the codices, Job dating informatique. Modern scholars consider one or more of the 'three' to be totally new Greek versions of the Hebrew Bible. Origen also kept a column for the Old Greek the Septuagintwhich included readings from all the Greek versions into a critical apparatus with diacritical marks indicating to which version each line Gr. Job dating informatique good example is Genesis 4. Despite the striking divergence of meaning here between the Septuagint and later texts, nearly identical consonantal Hebrew source texts can be reconstructed. For example, Job dating informatique, Bastiaan Van Elderen compares three variations of Deuteronomy God's holy mountain at Shechem rather than Jerusalem. This consists of a stable text and numerous and distinctive agreements with the Masoretic Text. Much of this work was lost, but several compilations of the fragments are available. The most widely accepted view today is that the Septuagint provides a reasonably accurate record of an early Hebrew textual variant that differed from the ancestor of the Masoretic text as well as those of the Latin Vulgate, where both of the latter seem to have a more similar textual heritage.
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