Translation of Jonah (Greek Septuagint)

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I just finished a translation of the book of Jonah. My main format is the Greek Septuagint and I have given the most important variant readings from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Aramaic Peshitta, Latin Vulgate, and Masoretic Text. Feel free to use it any way you chose, it is a very literal translation, and I feel it is very reliable for study purposes. I plan on adding commentary from the Fathers and Doctors of the Church soon.

Jonah: Septuagint Translation 1/30/06

1:1And the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amathi, saying,

1:2”Arise, and go to Nineveh the great city, and preach in it, for the crying of its wickedness has ascended up to me.”

1:3And Jonah arose to escape into Tharsis from the face of the Lord. And he went down into Joppa, and found a ship going to Tharsis. And he gave his money, and *ascended into it, to sail with them to Tharsis from the face of the Lord.

1:4And the Lord raised up a wind upon the sea, and there came great waves on the sea, and the ship was in danger of being crushed.

1:5And the sailors were afraid, and cried everyone to his god, and they cast out the baggage that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it from them. But Jonah went down into the interior of the ship, *and went to sleep, and snored.

1:6And the navigator came to him, and said to him, “What, you are snoring? Get up, and call upon your God, so that God may bring us safely through, and we shall never perish.”

1:7And each one said to his fellow man, “Come let us cast lots, and we may know for whose sake this evil is upon us.” And they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah.

1:8And they said to him, “Tell us *what your trade is. And where you have come from, and from what region and from what kind of people are you?”

1:9And he said to them, *“I am a slave of the Lord, and I worship the Lord God of Heaven, the One Who made the sea and the dry land.”

1:10And the men were terrified with great fear, and said to him, “What is this that you have done?” since the men knew that he was fleeing from the face of the Lord, because he told them.

1:11And they said to him, “What will we do to you, so that the sea will die down for us?” because the sea went on and lifted swells all the more.

1:12And Jonah said to them, “Lift me up, and throw me into the sea, and the sea will die down for you. Because I know that because of me this great swell is upon you.”

1:13And the men *pressed on to turn around towards the land, and they were not able, for the sea went on and it lifted up upon them all the more.

1:14And they cried out to the Lord, and said, *“By no means O Lord! You should not destroy us because of the soul of this man. And let it not be permitted against us the blood of the just. For you, O Lord, in what manner you desire, you do.”

1:15And they took Jonah, and they cast him into the sea, and the sea stopped from its fury.

1:3The Hebrew and Latin both read ‘descended.’

1:5The Hebrew and Aramaic, and Latin read ‘and he was sound asleep’.

1:8The Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin read ‘for whose cause this evil is upon us’.

1:9The Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin read ‘I am a Hebrew; and I worship the Lord the God of Heaven, who has made the sea and the dry land.’

1:13The Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin read ‘rowed’.

1:14The Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin read ‘We beseech you’.
 
2:1And the Lord commanded a great *whale to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights.

2:2And Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the whale.

2:3And he said, “I have cried in my affliction to the Lord my God, and He has heard me. From the belly of Hades you have heard the cry of my voice.

2:4You have thrown me into the depths of the heart of the sea, and *rivers encircled me; all your *billows and your waves have passed upon me.”

2:5And I said, “I have been driven away from your eyes. Surely I will *again look to your holy temple.

2:6Water encompassed me to the soul. The lowest abyss enclosed me*. My head went down into a division of mountains.

2:7I descended into the earth, in which its bars hold forever. And *let my life ascend from corruption, O Lord my God.

2:8In the leaving of my soul from me, I remembered the Lord. And may my prayer come to you, into your holy temple.

2:9Those guarding vanities and false things have abandoned their mercy.

2:10But I, with a voice of praise and confession, will sacrifice to you. All that I have vowed to you I will deliver to the Lord of my salvation.

2:11And from the Lord it was commanded to the whale, and it *cast Jonah out upon the dry land.

2:1The Greek word KETOS is ‘whale’. The Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin read ‘fish’.

2:4Rivers:Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin read ‘flood’. Billows: The Latin uses the word ‘gurgites’, which means any type of rough or dangerous water, including whirlpools, strong current, etc.

2:5Greek literally means ‘I shall proceed’.

2:6The Greek and Aramaic have similar readings. The Hebrew reads, ‘seaweed was clinging to my head’. The Latin reads ‘the ocean has covered my head’.

2:7The Hebrew and Aramaic use past present tense ‘you have raised’. The Latin uses a future tense ‘you will raise up’.

2:11The Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin read ‘vomited’.
 
3:1And the word of the Lord came the second time, saying,

3:2”Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and preach in it according to the message *before, which I spoke to you”

3:3And Jonah arose, and he went into Nineveh as the Lord had spoken. And Nineveh was a great city to God, of a three days journey.

3:4And Jonah began to proceed into the city, as of day one. And he preached and said, “Yet *three days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed.”

3:5And the men of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from their greatest to the least.

3:6And the word came to the king of Nineveh and he rose up from his throne, and he removed his robe from himself, and put on sackcloth, and sat upon ashes.

3:7And it was proclaimed and spoken in Nineveh from the king, and from his chief men, saying, “Do not let the people, and the cattle, and the oxen, and the sheep, taste nor eat * anything, and do not let them drink water.”

3:8And the people and the cattle put on sackcloth, and cried out earnestly * to God. And *they each turned from their evil way, and from the iniquity in their hands, saying,

3:9”Who knows if God will change His mind and turn from the anger of His rage, so that we shall never perish.”

3:10And God saw their works, and that they turned from their evil ways: and God changed His mind over the wickedness in which He spoke of doing to them, and He did not do it.

3:2’before’: Not found in the Masoretic Text, Aramaic, or Latin. But is in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

3:4The Septuagint has ‘three days’ while the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin has ‘forty days’.

3:7’anything’ is not in the Greek, but it is in the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin. I added it for clarity.

3:8’to God’ The Dead Sea Scrolls manuscript MurXII reads ‘over God’. ‘they each turned from’ The Dead Sea Scrolls manuscript 8HevXIIgr reads ‘let him turn each from his evil way’.
 
4:1And Jonah was grieved with great sorrow, and was troubled.

4:2And he prayed to the Lord, and he said, “O Lord, was these not my words when I was still in my land? Therefore, I anticipated to escape into Tharsis because I knew that you are merciful and compassionate, and one who repents over wickedness.

4:3And now, *Master, O Lord, take my soul from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!”

4:4And the Lord said to Jonah, “*Are you grieved very much?”

4:5And Jonah went forth from the city and sat down *before the city. And he made for himself there a tent, and he sat down underneath it, until where he can fully see what would become of the city.

4:6And the Lord God commanded a *gourd, and it ascended above the head of Jonah to be a shadow above his head, to shade him from his hurting; and Jonah rejoiced over the gourd with great joy.

4:7And God commanded a worm early in the morning the next day; and it struck down the gourd, and it dried it up.

4:8And it came to be at the same time the rising of the sun, and God commanded a hot wind to burn; and the sun struck down upon the head of Jonah. And he became discouraged, and lost hope for his soul, and said, “Better for me to die than live.”

4:9And *God said to Jonah, “Are you grieved very much over the gourd?” And he said, “I am grieved very much, even to death.”

4:10And the Lord said, “You indeed spared for the gourd, for which you suffered no hardship over it, nor made it grow; which it came up during night, and during night it perished.

4:11But shall I not spare for Nineveh, the great city, in which dwells in it more than a hundred and twenty-thousand people, who do not know their right from their left, and much cattle?”

4:3Master: not in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Latin.

**4:4Are you grieved very much: Aramaic Peshitta agrees with the Septuagint. Dead Sea Scrolls reads ‘Is it good for you to be angry’ Masoretic Text reads ‘Is anger rightly kindled in you’ Latin Vulgate reads ‘Do you think you have reason to be angry’ **

4:5The Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin add ‘on the east side’.

4:6The Septuagint and Aramaic Peshitta has ‘gourd’ while the Hebrew and Latin Vulgate has ‘ivy’.

4:9The Aramaic reads ‘Lord God’.
 
Thanks for sharing this copland. I’m looking forward to perusing it when I get a chance.
 
copland: what text w/critical apparatus are you using? It looks very good. (Publisher, date, cost?)
 
tjmiller,

Thanks! I used the Vaticanus LXX as my main format that I translated from. I used a text of the Dead Sea Scrolls called the “The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible” which has the variant readings found in the scrolls. And I used the standard Masoretic Text used for the Hebrew Bible. I used the Aramaic Peshitta OT. And I used the Biblia Sacra Vulgata for my Latin readings. I have gotten some photocopies of the ancient manuscripts also, which I have found online and plus purchased, I collect them.
I plan on collecting more variant readings as additional reference, readings from other LXX manuscripts such as the Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, etc. I have already collected the variant readings from the Latin manuscripts other than the Vulgate, but I have yet to get everything in order.

I there are any questions or comments feel free to ask!
 
tjmiller,

By the way, I rounded those variants mayself by consulting the texts. I am glad you appreciate my work.
 
copland, this is extremely impressive work!

A long-time fan of textual analyses, I consider myself very fortunate just to have a photostat of Codex Vaticanus.

Would you please tell us more about your collection? Give a bibliography of sorts? How have you accomplished this?
 
tjmiller,

Thanks again for your kind words! I also love the world of textual criticism. I have studied it for a number of years now.

As far as manuscripts and texts, I have photocopies of Codex Sinaiticus, Bezae (Greek and Old Latin), and the Great Isaiah Scroll DSS, and transcripts of Usserianus 2 (Latin Gospels), Aramaic Curatonian, Aramaic Sinaitic, Aramaic Peshitta, Codex Vaticanus, and a few others.

I also have the Hebrew Masoretic Text, Latin Vulgate, Greek Septuagint, and an English translation of the Biblical and no-biblical Dead Sea Scrolls.

I also have a collection of of Reuben Swanson’s critical editions of the NT whcih lines over 40 of the most important Greek manuscripts in horizontal lines where all you have do is just glance and get all the minute variant readings all at once, priceless!!

I also have the Nestle Aland 27th edition that has a great critical format, and the Textus Receptus ‘Received Text’ Greek NT.

I have alot of other stuff too that pertains to ancient texts. Plus I have a couple of different collections of the Early Church Fathers, one from the American Catholic Press and another from Phillip Schaff. And many other things that I have collected. I ahve a library at my house and at my work.
 
copland, I am SO jealous of you, I think I need to go to Confession right now.

Is there a form of Textual Greed?

Could you tell us a bit about how you built this most enviable library?
 
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