How different are Septuagint and New Testament greek?

[patrick457]

Second, when Pope Damasus I became a patron of St. Jerome, Damasus commissioned Jerome to compile a complete bible into Latin. Although much of the NT already existed in “un-bound” sections often referred to as the Vetus Latina, he took Damasus’s commission to heart by beginning an entirely new translation to be compiled into one NT volume.

Actually, it’s more complicated than that, since while we often think that St. Jerome translated/revised a Latin translation of the whole Bible, in reality a good deal of Vulgate Old Testament and the gospels are the only ones we can be reasonably certain were his work.

What Pope Damasus ordered Jerome to do was to revise the Old Latin (Vetus Latina) text of the four gospels from the best Greek texts available to him, while at the same time giving the seemingly contradictory command to stay as close to the existing Latin versions as possible. By the time Damasus died in 384 Jerome had thoroughly completed this task, together with a more cursory revision from the Septuagint of the Old Latin text of the Psalms in the Roman Psalter (now lost). How much of the rest of the New Testament he then revised is difficult to judge, but it would seem that either little of his work survived in the Vulgate text we have today or he did a very hasty job: the Vulgate of the Acts and Epistles is not too different from the old Latin versions.

Jerome eventually left Rome for good in 385 due to growing friction between him and the Roman clergy and headed off eastward accompanied by his brother Paulinianus and several friends, and followed a little later by the noblewoman Paula (a close acquaintance of Jerome and part of the reason why Jerome left Rome in the first place: Jerome’s enemies insinuated that Jerome and Paula were very close, which would be at odds with his denunciations of clerical indulgence and advocacy of self-denial) and her daughter Eustochium, who had resolved to end their days in the Holy Land. For a period of three years Jerome visited Jerusalem, Bethlehem, the Galilee, and Egypt. By 386 he was back in Israel, and spent the remainder of his life in a hermit’s cell near Bethlehem, surrounded by a few friends, both men and women (including Paula and Eustochium), to whom he acted as priestly guide and teacher. Amply provided by Paula with the means of livelihood and of increasing his collection of books, he led a life of incessant activity in literary production. Jerome first embarked on another revision of the Psalms, translated from the revised Septuagint column of Origen’s Hexapla, which later came to be called the Gallican version. He would similarly produce revisions of Job and Song of Songs (both of which still survive) and of Chronicles and the Solomonic books (which are lost).

Jerome’s true love, however, was Hebrew. By 390 he dropped the revision of the Old Latin according to the Hexapla, and began translating from the Hebrew instead. Thus it was that for the next fifteen years (390-405) Jerome dedicated himself to translating and revising the books of the Old Testament protocanon and a few besides, from Hebrew. The first to be translated was Samuel-Kings, and its lengthy prologue serves as a kind of programmatic statement for Jerome’s intentions and goals in this project. This, along with yet another version of the Psalms (iuxta Hebraicum) was completed in 392. This was followed by the Prophets and Job (394), Ezra-Nehemiah (394-395), and Chronicles (395). The Solomonic books (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs) he managed to complete within three days in the autumn of 398. From late 398 to late 404 or 405, the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Ruth and Esther were completed.

There is some disagreement as to the actual quality of Jerome’s knowledge of Hebrew: his extensive use of exegetical material written in Greek, as well as his seeming use of the Aquiline and Theodotiontic columns of the Hexapla, along with the somewhat paraphrastic style in which he translated makes it difficult to determine exactly how direct the conversion of Hebrew to Latin was. One camp suggests that Jerome may have been almost wholly dependent on Greek material for his interpretation of the Hebrew. Others, on the other hand, thinks that there is in some cases evidence that Jerome’s knowledge of Hebrew exceeds that of his exegetes, implying a direct understanding of the Hebrew text. As Jerome completed his translations of each book, he recorded his observations and comments in an extensive correspondence with friends and scholars; and these letters were subsequently collected and appended as prologues to the Vulgate text for those books where they survived.

This translation from the Hebrew was largely undertaken at the request of friends and at no official pressure (as his revision of the gospels and Psalms at Damasus’ orders was). Indeed, Jerome actually asked one friend not to publicize his translation. Still, his work leaked into public view, causing massive controversy. Jerome complained in a letter that his new version was initially disliked by Christians who were familiar with the phrasing of the old translations. He was even accused of slighting the Septuagint (which was up to this time the standard text for Christians through its various versions and translations), which in the eyes of St. Augustine and other Christians was equally inspired with the Hebrew original.

Sometime between 405 and 407 Jerome also translated Tobit and Judith, though not with the same care given his other translations: he only had access to the two works through versions/paraphrases in Aramaic - a language he was not proficient in. (It may seem kind of rather odd, since Hebrew and Aramaic are both Northwest Semitic languages and thus are closely related to one another, but IMHO it’s kinda like knowing English but not knowing Low German - both are classified as Ingvaeonic BTW. ) To circumvent this problem he had these translated into Hebrew first, and then made his own (rather free) Latin paraphrase from this translated text. So in effect, what we have in this case is the translation of a translation of a (possible) translation.

Certain books, such as Baruch, Sirach, Wisdom, Prayer of Manasses, 1-2 Maccabees, 3-4 (1-2) Esdras, the Epistle to the Laodiceans and perhaps the rest of the NT, are likely to be either Vetus Latina translations either revised by somebody else or totally unrevised that were appended later to Jerome’s translation to complete the set, as it were. To be more specific, Wisdom, Sirach, Maccabees, and 3-4 Esdras were old Latin versions, while Baruch, Prayer of Manasseh, and Laodiceans were the work of later, unknown revisers. Outside of the gospels, the reviser or revisers of the other NT books are completely unknown, but the methodology was essentially similar to Jerome in his early stage: revision of the old Latin text according to the Greek. It is likely that the letter of Paul (including Hebrews) were revised in a body by a single editor, also unknown; the preface of which group would seem to indicate this. Whether the other books were revised by several people or an individual is not known.

Out of all these books, Baruch is a very interesting case. Even after he apparently deferred to majority opinion regarding the canonicity of six of the seven disputed (by Protestants) deuterocanonicals, Jerome - the champion of Hebraica veritas that he is - continued to have some personal reservations regarding Baruch “which is neither read nor found among the Hebrews,” though he realized full well that he would he attacked for his opinion. Consequently, a Vulgate version of Baruch is not commonly found before the 9th century, and is present only in a minority of manuscripts before the 13th century. In his Prologue to Jeremiah he says:

Besides this, the order of visions, which is entirely confused among the Greeks and Latins, we have corrected to the original truth. And the Book of Baruch, his scribe, which is neither read nor found among the Hebrews, we have omitted, standing ready, because of these things, for all the curses from the envious, to whom it is necessary for me to respond through a separate short work. And I suffer this because you request it. Otherwise, for the benefit of the wicked, it was more proper to set a limit for their rage by my silence, rather than any new things written to provoke daily the insanity of the jealous.

 

[patrick457]

Finally - and this is the most difficult - Jerome receives (in my opinion) a “bad rap” as far as his initial view that the OT should have reflected the Hebrew bible vs. the Septuagint. The Council of Jamnia played a role, as did the African councils at the time Jerome was working.

Actually, it is kind of doubtful whether a late-1st century ‘council’ in Jamnia (aka Yavneh) which discussed the canonicity of certain books at all. That was in essence just a 19th century hypothesis.

Sometime before Jerusalem fell, Rabbi Johanan ben-Zakkai established an academy at Yavneh which proceeded to function like a Sanhedrin between the period between the Jewish revolts of AD 70-132. He was then succeeded by Rabbi Gamaliel II. Somewhere between AD 80 and AD 117 Gamaliel was deposed for a time, at which Eleazar ben-Azariah was installed as the next head of the academy. According to the Mishnah, at the day of Eleazar’s installation, the sages ruled that both Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes “make the hands unclean” (i.e. are sacred). The same passage goes on to state that “all the Holy Scriptures render the hands unclean,” and so it is clear that the point at issue was whether the two books ranked among other authoritative Writings. This passage is then followed by a series of enactments introduced by the phrase “on that day” (Mishnah, Yadaim 3.5-4.4). Because of the use of this stock formula, later tradition (Talmud, tractate Berakhoth 28a) assumed that every ruling prefixed by the phrase were indeed made on the same occasion. This is where Heinrich Graetz got the idea of a ‘Council of Jamnia’ which among other things, passed a ruling on the Jewish scriptural canon. But even if we grant that something similar to it did exist, it should not be interpreted in the same way as Christian use of the term ‘council’, Nicaea- or even Vatican II-style.

Admittedly, the term ‘council’ has the disadvantage of making people assume official action taken at specific meetings held at specific dates, which most likely was not the case. On the contrary, it would seem that the deliberations at Yavneh were closer to the character of a school, academy, or court. All that the story about the Songs of Songs and Ecclesiastes tell us was that there was some debate about the exact status of these books. In fact, it would seem that the dispute were not terminated by the decisions at Yavneh: even as late as the late 2nd century, Rabbi Meir (circa 135-170), famous as one of the greatest of the Tannaim of the fourth generation, was disputing the idea that Ecclesiastes defiled the hands. There is thus no evidence that the status of other Writings was debated, or that a final decision was reached in Yavneh. (Some would even argue that the matter was only definitively settled a few centuries later.)

Still, the Jamnia hypothesis admits of a looser definition; hence, many of those who continue to accept the hypothesis now define the term as a loose (and unsatisfactory) one, more of a convenient catch-all symbol designating the decisions that the schools that gathered at Yavneh had reached, which could represent the crystallization of long processes that occurred in early Judaism. In any case, it is even doubtful whether the actions of the academy at Yavneh were official decisions; there was probably no body in Judaism that functioned in an ‘official’ capacity post-AD 70.

as Jerome’s Vulgate (which no longer exists) contains the Hebrew OT as well as the deuteros.

Fun fact: the Vulgate was not originally known as the ‘Vulgate’: St. Jerome never gave his translation works a formal name. So for subsequent centuries, when people wanted to refer to the collection they used very general expressions like codices nostri (‘our codices’) or editio nostra (‘our edition’).

In fact, the term versio vulgata (a calque from Greek koine ekdosis) - which BTW did not mean ‘vulgar’ tongue (i.e. common speech) but means the ‘common’, ‘current’ or ‘ordinarily used’ text - which would be applied later to the collection originally denoted something else: the Greek Septuagint - or to be more precise, that edition of the Septuagint and Theodotion in common use among Christians (what we would call the ‘Greek Vulgate’), which would later be extended to mean the form in which the Septuagint was at first known to the West, the Vetus Latina translations. Jerome himself used the phrase to denote the Septuagint: “Hoc iuxta Septuaginta interpretes diximus, quorum editio toto orbe vulgata est” (Comm. in Isa. 65.20; ibid. 30.22) Elsewhere he actually gives the Greek words (of the Septuagint) as found in editione vulgata (Comm. in Osee 7.13). This is also the sense that his contemporary Augustine understood and used the phrase (De Civitate Dei, 16.10): “Fiunt itaque anni a diluvio usque ad Abraham mlxxii, secundum vulgatam editionem hoc est interpretum septuaginta.” This term, vulgata editio, having acquired the meaning of the current or ordinarily used text of Septuagint, was once again extended to mean a corrupt or uncorrected text as opposed to the standard emended Septuagint version of Origen’s Hexapla, and in this sense is used by Jerome as synonymous with antiqua or vetus editio (‘old edition’).

The phrase editio vulgata was still at times reserved for the Septuagint or the old Latin versions of the Septuagint down to the Middle Ages. However, as Jerome’s translations began to supplant the old Latin translations (and increasingly became the ‘commonly-used version’ in the West), the phrase was applied to it as well. Friar Roger Bacon (c. 1220-1292) was apparently the first, in the 13th century, to apply the term vulgata with the similar meaning that we do today - though he also used it to refer to the Septuagint/Vetus Latina, as per traditional usage - and this became classic through its acceptance by the Council of Trent (“vetus et vulgata editio”). Only then did the Vulgate become officially labeled as editio vulgata, and the name stuck.

 

[patrick457]

P.S. - I have found that when one uses the term “Septuagint”, it could mean two things: (1) a list of OT books determined by Orthodoxy as inspired, or (2) one of the 70+ original Greek compositions commission by Ptolemy. No. 2 will necessarily be No. 1 - but No. 1 does not necessarily have to be No. 2.

Fun fact number 2: the text of the Septuagint used today by the Greek Churches isn’t the ‘original’ one.

And as mentioned, the legend (first recounted in the Letter of Aristeas and subsequently parroted as fact by generations of Jewish and Christian writers afterward) notes that a Greek translation of Jewish Scriptures was first made during the reign of Ptolemy II. This is half-true: the Torah/Pentateuch portion of the Septuagint does seem to date from the 3rd century BC, although when and where the other books were translated is unclear. And again, as translation work progressed gradually, and new books were added to the collection, the compass of the Greek ‘Bible’ came to be somewhat indefinite.

 

[Salvatore123]

patrick,

In a thread I started two years ago about what might be considered the most accurate bible today, I humbly suggested the following, considering the scholarship and resources the Vatican has, toward producing “the most accurate” bible possible:

*"I believe that with the Dead Sea Scrolls, along with the relatively recent discoveries of the Codices such as Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, we now have both the technology AND the means to do what St. Jerome did in his day: produce a bible translation looking at “original languages” that date from not only St. Jerome’s time, but even before, as with the Dead Sea Scrolls.

I wonder how many people realize that with the Codex Sinaiticus, we have a handwritten - well over 1600 years old - manuscript that contains the Christian Bible in Greek, including the oldest known COMPLETE copy of the New Testament - written in the same language scholars believe the NT was originally written in: GREEK! (except for a minority of scholars who believe that Matthew was originally written in Aramaic and then later translated into Greek).

If I had found such a thing, I would have taken it, along with the Dea Sea Scrolls, published a bible in both Latin and English, and “dared” anyone to find fault with such a publication in terms of accuracy (provided that my translators had no agenda other than accuracy in the translation)."*

Some people participating in the thread thought the Vatican’s “resources” could be better used in doing something else . . . I humbly begged to differ.

What could possibly be MORE important (not merely AS important) than producing a bible of the caliber that one could pick up two volumes (I think that to include footnotes to refer to legitimate textual differences between scholars would be necessary, and thus take up space so as to make one volume unwieldy) and say, knowing: “I have, in my hands, the most accurate rendering of the Holy Bible today, based on the latest scholarship and done with an aim in reproducing what the original writers wrote vs. what someone might want a verse to say to match one’s theology.”

I believe that such a Bible would zoom to the best seller list of bibles.

It is a FACT that protestants produce more quality (paper, covers, etc.) bibles than Catholic bible houses. Why is this - I have no idea . . .

 

[patrick457]

It is a FACT that protestants produce more quality (paper, covers, etc.) bibles than Catholic bible houses. Why is this - I have no idea . . .

I’d like to answer this first.

Let’s be honest: Protestants have been historically more active in Bible publishing than Catholics were. In fact, the modern business traces its origins from the zeal of different evangelical groups of the early modern era. Evangelicals of the time held a so-called ‘Puritanic biblicist’ view of the Bible, deriving from a very hardline interpretation of Sola Scriptura, which touted it as the panacea for each and every personal and social ill and a divine manual giving answers to all of life’s questions. The logical conclusion then is that the Bible - usually taken to mean only the ‘pure’ text with no note or comment whatsoever; hey, Scripture interprets itself, doesn’t it? - must get into the hands of as many people as possible. This ideal is what started groups like the Gideons and various Bible societies, all of whom were dedicated to saving modern society by printing and distributing Bibles for everyone.

 

[patrick457]

patrick,

In a thread I started two years ago about what might be considered the most accurate bible today, I humbly suggested the following, considering the scholarship and resources the Vatican has, toward producing “the most accurate” bible possible:

*"I believe that with the Dead Sea Scrolls, along with the relatively recent discoveries of the Codices such as Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, we now have both the technology AND the means to do what St. Jerome did in his day: produce a bible translation looking at “original languages” that date from not only St. Jerome’s time, but even before, as with the Dead Sea Scrolls.

I wonder how many people realize that with the Codex Sinaiticus, we have a handwritten - well over 1600 years old - manuscript that contains the Christian Bible in Greek, including the oldest known COMPLETE copy of the New Testament - written in the same language scholars believe the NT was originally written in: GREEK! (except for a minority of scholars who believe that Matthew was originally written in Aramaic and then later translated into Greek).

If I had found such a thing, I would have taken it, along with the Dea Sea Scrolls, published a bible in both Latin and English, and “dared” anyone to find fault with such a publication in terms of accuracy (provided that my translators had no agenda other than accuracy in the translation)."*

Some people participating in the thread thought the Vatican’s “resources” could be better used in doing something else . . . I humbly begged to differ.

What could possibly be MORE important (not merely AS important) than producing a bible of the caliber that one could pick up two volumes (I think that to include footnotes to refer to legitimate textual differences between scholars would be necessary, and thus take up space so as to make one volume unwieldy) and say, knowing: “I have, in my hands, the most accurate rendering of the Holy Bible today, based on the latest scholarship and done with an aim in reproducing what the original writers wrote vs. what someone might want a verse to say to match one’s theology.”

I believe that such a Bible would zoom to the best seller list of bibles.

Yep, that’d be the ideal Bible there. But I think we need to take account of the fact that there were originally different text-types floating around. We often assume that there is one original text, out of which sprung different versions, but it would seem that the reverse could also hold true: there were a lot of textual families in circulation for as long as anyone could remember before one was chosen out of many as the ‘standard’ text (the Masoretic text for the Hebrew OT, the Byzantine text for the NT).

I mean, the biblical fragments found in Qumran fall into different categories: the great majority seems to be the ancestor of our modern Masoretic text (Proto-Masoretic), while the rest either represent the Hebrew text underlying the Septuagint or agree with the Samaritan text or belong to a so-called ‘Qumran style’ (characterized by a unique orthography and a freer approach to the text) or do not fit into any of the aforementioned categories. And for the NT, you have the Alexandrian, Byzantine, Caesarean and Western text-types. So there’s the question of which text to follow or whether one should follow an eclectic approach (as is now commonly done).

 

[Dave_Noonan]

If I learn the latter wil I be able to read the former?

If you learn Koine Greek you will be able to read parts of the Septuagint, but books like the Maccabees are going to be extremely difficult. Since you’re going to all this trouble, better to study Attic Greek and then you will be able to read the New Testament, The Septuagint and various other Greek sources (such as Josephus).

 

[Dave_Noonan]

There is some disagreement as to the actual quality of Jerome’s knowledge of Hebrew: his extensive use of exegetical material written in Greek, as well as his seeming use of the Aquiline and Theodotiontic columns of the Hexapla, along with the somewhat paraphrastic style in which he translated makes it difficult to determine exactly how direct the conversion of Hebrew to Latin was. One camp suggests that Jerome may have been almost wholly dependent on Greek material for his interpretation of the Hebrew. Others, on the other hand, thinks that there is in some cases evidence that Jerome’s knowledge of Hebrew exceeds that of his exegetes, implying a direct understanding of the Hebrew text. As Jerome completed his translations of each book, he recorded his observations and comments in an extensive correspondence with friends and scholars; and these letters were subsequently collected and appended as prologues to the Vulgate text for those books where they survived.

This translation from the Hebrew was largely undertaken at the request of friends and at no official pressure (as his revision of the gospels and Psalms at Damasus’ orders was). Indeed, Jerome actually asked one friend not to publicize his translation. Still, his work leaked into public view, causing massive controversy. Jerome complained in a letter that his new version was initially disliked by Christians who were familiar with the phrasing of the old translations. He was even accused of slighting the Septuagint (which was up to this time the standard text for Christians through its various versions and translations), which in the eyes of St. Augustine and other Christians was equally inspired with the Hebrew original.

When I first took a serious look at the Vulgate I assumed that Jerome had no idea what he was doing in terms of translating Hebrew (for example his rendition of מות תמתון as morte moriemini in Genesis 3:4 or גן for paradisum elsewhere in Genesis 3). But then someone pointed out to me that these mistranslations already existed in the Septuagint and Jerome was simply carrying them forward. So, as is almost always the case, the situation is more complicated than it first appears.

Of utmost interest in this regard is Jerome’s Hebrew Questions on Genesis where he walks through a variety of his translation decisions in Genesis and explains how he arrives at his translation. Unfortunately, I don’t think equivalent notes exist for any of his other works, except comments in his letters, as you have observed. But here it’s fairly easy to see how much Hebrew he knows and what his methodology is.

The bottom line is that Jerome seemed to know Hebrew quite well and was also knowledgeable about a variety of midrashic interpretive traditions, which is also interesting. However, despite his knowledge of Hebrew, where his Hebrew and his Greek text conflict (at least in Genesis), Jerome often simply defers to the Greek text–even though he knows that the Greek is a poor translation. I’m assuming, as you have implied, that he probably didn’t want to rock to the boat too much in terms of favoring what would seem to his readers to be “new” Hebrew readings over the more traditional Septuagint, or for people like Augustine, the Vetus Latina.

But I think it’s really somewhat inaccurate to say that the Vulgate is a translation of the Hebrew Bible. I think it’s more often closer to an improved translation of the Septuagint into Latin, with some occasional text-critical corrections based on the Hebrew text or certain midrashic traditions.

I highly, highly recommend the book: amazon.com/Jeromes-Questions-Genesis-Christian-Studies/dp/0198263503/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1342932711&sr=8-4&keywords=Jerome+Genesis

 

[Salvatore123]

After receiving several emails, I realized that I made a statement that I took for granted that most already knew:

Jerome’s “Latin Vulgate” is lost - and it was lost long before the Duoay Rheims.

Many people think that the Catholics in France relied on the Latin Vulgate to produce the DR, as the LV that was written, word for word, by Jerome.

Scholars now acknowledge that because of copying errors, or just plain “loss” due to the passage of time, the “last” of the LV books as written by Jerome probably made its appearance between 600-800 AD. From that point forward, the copying/translations changed what St. Jerome had originally written.

 

[chosen_people]

The Septuagint is the OLD TESTAMENT in Greek - not the New Testament.

If you can understand Koine Greek that was spoken from around 300 BC to 300 AD), you would probably be able to interpret some words, but not many.

The Septuagint, the Rabbi’s translation of the Hebrew to Greek, was only of the Torah or the five books of Moses. Christians often mistakenly refer to the Septuagint regarding this translation by the Rabbi’s as also being a translation of the Prophets. Secondly, the Torah is held in Jewish tradition to have been dictated from God to Moses. There are no “versions” of the Torah. A Torah scroll with even a single letter wrong may not be used. When the mass in-gathering of Jews occurred following the Jews regaining their independence over their homeland, Torah scrolls from Jewish communities around the world, many isolated, were gathered together. There were no textual differences in any of the Torah scrolls except for a single letter in scrolls from a single isolated Yemenite community, which had no effect on the textual meaning and was immediately corrected. Thirdly, the Rabbi’s feared the possibility that their translation of the Torah into Greek could be tampered with. Therefore 15 key passages of the Septuagint translation were placed in the Talmud, Tractate Megilla 9a-9b, so that the Septuagint could always be compared to the original translation of these passages. In the current version of the Septuagint, Christian translators have altered the translation of thirteen of the fifteen passages that the Rabbi’s placed into the Talmud.In other words, Christian translators have falsified the Rabbi’s original Septuagint translation of the Torah and it cannot be relied upon for linguistic proof.

 

[Salvatore123]

chosen people,

I would never presume to know more about the Jewish faith than a Jewish person.

But if you are saying that the collection of books called the Septuagint originally consisted of only the Torah, I can say definitively that is absolutely incorrect.

When Jesus and the Apostles spoke/taught, their method/manner of speaking has been confirmed by prominent linguists as having a Septuagint vs. Masoretic text origin.

The Septuagint comprises the entire OT recognized as inspired by the Orthodox Church, as well as the Catholic Church - minus just a few books.

Because of the tremendous gains Christianity was making into the Jewish communities, the Jewish OT was NOT definitively “canonized” until well after the death of Christ.

The other “problem” I have with what you said about the OT is that you say that:

“the Torah is held in Jewish tradition to have been dictated from God to Moses. There are no “versions” of the Torah.”

While even Christians do not necessarily disagree that God spoke to Moses, and is generally thought of as the “author” of the first five books of the OT, we know that the original manuscripts - if they truly existed - that Moses wrote down have been long lost.

The most authoritative “version” of the OT is the Allepo Codex, and it dates from around 1000 AD. It is kept in Israel in a very protected “vault”. It is, however, missing the Torah.

Unless someone has the Torah that we can carbon date (or use some other method) that goes back thousands of years before the birth of Christ, then EVERY OT text, including that of the Torah, will necessarily be a transmission from one Jewish scribe/elder/rabbi to another.

Finally, although the Jews believe that Moses wrote the entire Torah, what is their explanation for Moses writing about and describing his own death before he died? That part is NOT written in the first person - it is written as though someone else described what happened to Moses near the end of his life.

With respect,

Sam

 

[patrick457]

After receiving several emails, I realized that I made a statement that I took for granted that most already knew:

Jerome’s “Latin Vulgate” is lost - and it was lost long before the Duoay Rheims.

Many people think that the Catholics in France relied on the Latin Vulgate to produce the DR, as the LV that was written, word for word, by Jerome.

Scholars now acknowledge that because of copying errors, or just plain “loss” due to the passage of time, the “last” of the LV books as written by Jerome probably made its appearance between 600-800 AD. From that point forward, the copying/translations changed what St. Jerome had originally written.

Actually I should say that the situation with the Vulgate is similar to the Greek and Hebrew OT and the NT: there were at first many different textual versions before attempts at standardization (the first ones during the Carolingian period) were made, ranging from the Italian (usually acclaimed to be the best) to the Spanish to the French (often considered to be the worst version). Simply put, there were ‘Vulgates’ before the Vulgate.

 

[patrick457]

The Septuagint, the Rabbi’s translation of the Hebrew to Greek, was only of the Torah or the five books of Moses. Christians often mistakenly refer to the Septuagint regarding this translation by the Rabbi’s as also being a translation of the Prophets. Secondly, the Torah is held in Jewish tradition to have been dictated from God to Moses. There are no “versions” of the Torah. A Torah scroll with even a single letter wrong may not be used. When the mass in-gathering of Jews occurred following the Jews regaining their independence over their homeland, Torah scrolls from Jewish communities around the world, many isolated, were gathered together. There were no textual differences in any of the Torah scrolls except for a single letter in scrolls from a single isolated Yemenite community, which had no effect on the textual meaning and was immediately corrected. Thirdly, the Rabbi’s feared the possibility that their translation of the Torah into Greek could be tampered with. Therefore 15 key passages of the Septuagint translation were placed in the Talmud, Tractate Megilla 9a-9b, so that the Septuagint could always be compared to the original translation of these passages. In the current version of the Septuagint, Christian translators have altered the translation of thirteen of the fifteen passages that the Rabbi’s placed into the Talmud.In other words, Christian translators have falsified the Rabbi’s original Septuagint translation of the Torah and it cannot be relied upon for linguistic proof.

Actually, if there is anything the DSS tell us, it is that there was still no uniformity in the Biblical text during the 1st century, and scribal copying of the text could still go loose. On the contrary many text-types are attested by the biblical fragments: the proto-Masoretic (the ancestor of our Masoretic text), the proto-Greek (the Hebrew text underlying the Septuagint - yes, it is a different textual version from the Masoretic), the proto-Samaritan (which agrees with the modern Samaritan Torah), the so-called ‘Qumran text’ (which difference lies mostly in the spellings of words and a freer, paraphrased approach to the text), and finally, non-aligned texts which do not fit into any of the above categories or which represent a combination of any of the aforementioned versions. It was only when the proto-Masoretic was chosen out of all these families as the single standard that we see a more careful, scrupulous approach to the text.

And you’re quite right: as I mentioned earlier the Christian Septuagint is just a recension of the original (usually given the term Old Greek). There are actually different Christian recensions of the LXX: the most famous is Origen’s Hexaplar recension - the result of his ‘correcting’ the Septuagint with the current Hebrew text. (Christians don’t even use all of the Septuagint anyway: for one the Greek Daniel is actually Theodotion’s translation.)

 

[josephback]

Btw, I have the Rahlfs Septuagint with morphological data in pdf format on my pc. Want me to upload it? I’m pretty sure it’s legal.

I think I’ll just get a Septiuagint when the time comes. Even if it’s technically legal I don’t think it’d be good. Right now I have a Nestle-Aland New Testament, and that satisfies things for now.

 

[Jerry-Jet]

I’m against any Greek text that modernist historical criticism translators support!

Any translator that translates the Greek word Prosopon as Presence doesn’t know what they’re talking about!

 

[patrick457]

I’m against any Greek text that modernist historical criticism translators support!

Any translator that translates the Greek word Prosopon as Presence doesn’t know what they’re talking about!

And which text is that?

 

[Jerry-Jet]

2 Corinthians 2:10–the Litmus test for Protestant bias.

 

[Mystophilus]

If I learn the latter wil I be able to read the former?

Short answer: yes.

Longer answer: much as with learning any other language, a greater facility with the language in general results in a greater ability to understand individual variations. There are differences in style between passages of the LXX and of the NT, but there are also differences between different passages within each, especially in the LXX, since it was translated over the span of a couple of centuries.

As for the language in general, however, I really mean the Koine dialect rather than the whole of Greek. Personally, I would not suggest starting with Attic, Ionic, or Homeric Greek as a basis for learning biblical Koine. A rough parallel would be reading Shakespeare or Chaucer as an aid to understanding modern American slang. Some Hebrew would actually be of more use, since quite a few Koine usages, both lexical and grammatical, are the result of Hebrew speakers trying to replicate their expressions through Greek. Quite a bit of Koine is rather non-Greek.

Once you are familiar with Koine, stepping back to Attic is not terribly difficult, Ionic not much more so, and Homeric manageable with a bit of concentrated effort.

There are plenty of courses in biblical Greek, and a reasonable familiarity with Koine is quite attainable, provided that you are sufficiently patient and committed.