Tag: Greek

First Bible of the Church: A Plea for the Septuagint, reviewed

First Bible of the ChurchFor the New Testament authors, the original text, that is, the text they drew on, was primarily the Septuagint. To make up the first part of the Bible which has the New Testament as the other part, the Old Testament in the shape it has in the Septuagint would therefore seem the obvious choice.

—First Bible of the Church: A Plea for the Septuagint, by Mogens Müller (p. 144)

Mogens Müller provocatively asks, “What caused the displacement of the Septuagint? …Today it is an open question whether the Septuagint should be reinstalled as the Old Testament of the Church” (p. 7). First Bible of the Church is part reception history, part biblical theology, and part apologetic work that suggests the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible should be brought (back) into canonical status. It should be “at least part of a canon” (p. 122), if not the better choice than Biblia Hebraica for today’s “original text” of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible.

What follows is a brief summary of the book’s contents, followed by some evaluative comments.

Müller’s Plea

Chapter 1 is the introduction to the book. In it Müller raises the question of just what should qualify as “the original text” of the Old Testament. If we see “what the early church regarded as its Bible” (p. 23), already one has to take the Septuagint seriously. This is not a question Müller addresses exclusively on textual grounds; for him the issue is also a theological one. To wit: In Isaiah 7:14/Matthew 1:23, “the ‘wrong’ text gains a significance of its own by being used” (p. 23).

Chapter 2, “The Jewish Bible at the Time of the New Testament,” looks at the canonization and textual history of the Jewish Bible, including various Greek recensions. Müller makes a key (and helpful) distinction in canonization between “the recognition of a writing as sacred” and “the final fixing of its wording” (p. 32). Evaluating various source materials, and dismissing the idea of an Urtext, the author notes the (accepted) fluidity of the process of textual transmission, where the actual wording in the sacred books only became important some centuries after the books themselves had become part of a canon. The implications of this, of course, are that New Testament writers may not have cared–in the way modernists do–about making sure they were using “the original” Hebrew text when quoting Scripture–if such a thing even ever existed as such.

Nonetheless, as chapter 3 points out, there was a very early historical concern about the authority of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. Would the former be on par with the latter? Müller examines various defenses of the Septuagint (the Law books, specifically): Aristeas, Aristobulus, Philo, and Josephus. Chapter 4, “The Reception of the Septuagint Legend into the Church up to and Including Augustine” continues the historical inquiry into attitudes toward the Septuagint, especially when compared to the Hebrew text it was said to have translated. Justin and Irenaeus (among others) are given as examples of early interpreters who saw the Septuagint translation as inspired. Jerome, Müller suggests:

saw the Biblia Hebraica as the basic text as far as the Old Testament was concerned, and thus he contributed, at least for the Latin-speaking part of Christianity, to bring about the final abandonment of the Septuagint, which had very early come to be acknowledged as the Bible of the Gentile, Christian Church. (p. 86)

Biblia Graeca
Biblia Graeca

Chapters 5 (“Hebraica sive Graeca Veritas?“) calls the Septuagint “a witness to the process of transmitting tradition” (p. 99), a process which Müller sees in ancient Judaism as having “a very creative character” (p. 104). Translation in antiquity included a measure of interpretation. The author’s foray into translation theory gives refreshing context to a world that valued lexical equivalency in translation less than many do today.

Chapter 6 (“Vetus Testamentum in Novo Receptum“) provides a short biblical theology, in which the New Testament is seen primarily as the story of Jesus, who himself fulfills what is written in the Old Testament. Müller notes that it is for this reason that the Hebrew Bible became the Old Testament, and yet its use by New Testament writers solidified its importance and sacredness for Christians. The Old Testament is necessary–“it remains the Holy Writ of the Christian community.” But it is not sufficient–“the Old Testament per se represents a limited epoch in salvation history” (p. 135).

The conclusion calls for the Septuagint to (re-)take its canonical place alongside the New Testament.

Is Müller’s Plea Worth Paying Heed To?

Yes. Readers of this blog and its Septuagint posts will not be surprised by my saying so. Müller makes a good case and generally succeeds in making a compelling plea for the LXX. If readers don’t accept his call to (re-)canonize the Greek OT, they will at least take seriously his petition to take it more seriously (as the NT writers did).

The book is short (some 150 pages) but dense. There is untranslated German and Latin in the footnotes, as one would expect in a scholarly monograph, but the writing is no less engaging for its density. The Greek font used throughout is easy to read, and the Greek is often translated into English.

Müller’s brief biblical theology at the end of the book is excellent. It left me wanting to read more. His notion of fulfillment as a motif that links together the OT and NT was convincing and well-articulated.

I found some typographical errors, as well as a number of sentences that just seemed to have wanted closer editing. This could be in part due to the book’s translation from a Danish manuscript. I was distracted in a few places as a result, but not consistently.

Evangelicals will find a few things they disagree with. For example, Müller cites Wellhausen approvingly to note that “the prophets were not reformers anxious to lead the people back to an original Mosaic religion.” The Law, then, “is not the starting-point but the result of Israel’s spiritual development” (p. 102). This line of reasoning is not essential to following the rest of Müller’s arguments, but his “redactional-critical attitude” (p. 100) does lead to a few assertions that some (including myself) don’t agree with.

Müller’s logic and historical inquiry is generally careful and robust, not to mention more readable than one might expect from a work of this nature. Perhaps it is due to the short length of the book, but there are still some unanswered questions. If “the Septuagint” is to comprise the Old Testament in Christian Bibles (as Müller suggests on p. 144, among other places), which Septuagint should we use? On which codex or codices should we base it? And given that Septuagint manuscripts vary on which books are included, how would we decide which books to place in a reconstituted OT? Simply those books that are now in the Hebrew OT, but in their Greek iterations? What about the Apocrypha?

And yet it appears that Müller’s aim is more to address “whether the Septuagint should be reinstalled as the Old Testament of the Church” (p. 7, my emphasis), not how and by what methodology such a reinstallation would take place. With this aim in mind, Müller’s short yet substantive book offers a compelling plea that deserves the reader’s careful consideration.

You can find First Bible of the Church: A Plea for the Septuagint here at Amazon. Its publisher’s product page is here. Thanks to Bloomsbury for the review copy, given with no expectation as to the content of the review.

Septuagint Studies Soirée #4

Here are a few blog posts from November, regarding the Septuagint, that are worth taking a look at:

New English Translation of the SeptuagintJ.K. Gayle considers the question of whether the Septuagint translator of the Hebrew Song of Songs might have been a woman, then raises some challenges inherent to that view, at least as it is presented by the NETS (see image at left). J.K. also offered insight into the possible motherliness of God and the patriarch Joseph. Suzanne responded here, preferring to talk about “wombly feelings” instead of “motherly” ones. Kurk writes back again, noting some “maternal” language (with help from Greek Isaiah) in the “Our Father.”

T. Michael Law notes further interest in his book When God Spoke Greek.

I’ve just this month learned of a blog called Old School Script, which focuses on linguistics and biblical languages. Check out as much as you can of that site, starting with an October post that I missed last month, “Word Order in Septuagint Judges.” Note also some extended exploration this past month about Paul’s use of the LXX. Said blog also pointed this month to Randall Buth’s thinking about an SBL session on the Greek perfect.

Also, this month Logos Bible Software released (for free) Codex Sinaiticus, including its Septuagint portions.

Did I miss anything? Feel free to leave more November 2013 LXX links of interest in the comments. And in case you didn’t see it, the first Septuagint Studies Soirée is here; the second one is here; the third one is here.

One other thing to note–a reading group of nearly 200 folks on Facebook (and more who are not on Facebook) finished a reading plan last Friday through Greek Isaiah.

Who is Isaiah’s Shepherd of the Sheep? Hebrews Ventures an Answer

The prophet Isaiah
The prophet Isaiah

Reading through Isaiah, I’ve made connections between biblical texts that I never noticed before. I’ve posted about Philippians and Ephesians. Today I saw something in Isaiah 63:11 that seems to have inspired the author of Hebrews.

Isaiah 63:11

English: And the one who brought up from the land the shepherd of the sheep remembered the days of eternity. Where is the one who put his holy spirit in them?

Greek: καὶ ἐμνήσθη ἡμερῶν αἰωνίων ὁ ἀναβιβάσας ἐκ τῆς γῆς τὸν ποιμένα τῶν προβάτων· ποῦ ἐστιν ὁ θεὶς ἐν αὐτοῖς τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον;

Hebrews 13:20

English: And the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ, by the blood of the eternal covenant…

Greek: Ὁ δὲ θεὸς τῆς εἰρήνης, ὁ ἀναγαγὼν ἐκ νεκρῶν τὸν ποιμένα τῶν προβάτων τὸν μέγαν ἐν αἵματι διαθήκης αἰωνίου, τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦν…

Five things to note:

  1. Though Hebrews has “great” in addition to “the shepherd of the sheep,” the latter phrase (τὸν ποιμένα τῶν προβάτων in Greek) is identical in both passages.
  2. The author of Hebrews seems to want to explicitly identify “the shepherd of the sheep” from Isaiah, which he/she does by noting that this “great” shepherd is “our Lord Jesus Christ.”
  3. Did the author of Hebrews intend with “brought up from the dead” to echo Isaiah’s “brought up from the land”? The Greek verbs are different, but both have the ἀνα=up prefix, and both are in participial form.
  4. If Hebrews’s bringing up is meant to evoke Isaiah’s bringing up, is Hebrews taking Isaiah’s exodus motif in Isaiah 63 and holding up Jesus as the leader of the new exodus?
  5. Both passages have “eternity” (αἰώνιος) in view.

I haven’t checked commentaries yet, but after observing the above, I noticed that the critical apparatus (manuscript notes) in the Göttingen edition of the Septuagint notes that Hebrews 13:20 should be consulted.

I plan to see what others have written about this, but for now, the similarities above have me fairly convinced that this was a deliberate reference, and that the author of Hebrews was finding Jesus in Isaiah 63:11.

What is the “Armor of God”? A Brief Reflection

armorEphesians 6:10-11 says, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God….”

This “of” is perhaps best understood to mean, “the armor that God himself wears, that is also available to you.” Isaiah 59:17 talks about the Lord (“Yahweh”) putting on righteousness like a breastplate and a helmet of salvation. Ephesians 6 mentions these same items.

The “armor” we are called to put on, then, is God’s own armor. We “put on” the attributes and characteristics of God. Because of his righteousness, we are called righteous. Because he is a God of peace, we can be at peace and make peace with others. Because of the faithfulness of Jesus, we can have faith.

And, what is more, God-as-Warrior is going on ahead of each of us, wearing that “armor,” fighting spiritual battles before us. As we follow him, we are given his same armor to wear.

Septuagint Studies Soirée #3

v. 1.0 and v. 2.0

Though it was a quiet month in the Septuagint blogosphere, J.K. Gayle turned up the heat with some top-notch posts. Gayle looked at the phrase “ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ” (a “Greek frozen phrase”) in “Aristotle,” “Moses,” and Paul. Gayle writes:

As my son and my daughters grow into adulthood more in this world, I long for English counterpart terms like the Greek ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ and the Hebrew זכר ונקבה. These phrases do not have a default sex for the sex, the gender, of adult human beings the way our English “men and women” and “male and female” do. So I do tend to try to use “boys and girls” even when referring to adults, even though I always have to explain what I mean since the term applies to children not grown ups. I also like “masculine and feminine” since the phrase includes equal counterparts that does not place one over the other.

A section titled, “The Reception of ‘ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ’ in Contemporary Sexist Theology” concludes the post. Read it all here.

Gayle also asked:

When I read Psalm 34 in the Greek (aka the Septuagint’s Psalm 33), I have lots of questions. For example, does the psalmist have a possibly-pregnant female soul?

Brian Davidson reviewed some Hermeneia volumes, including the one on 2 Maccabees by Robert Doran. Michael Bird reviewed T.M. Law’s When God Spoke Greek at Patheos.

And this beauty is now available:

biblia graeca lxx gnt

Jim West took a picture of it here. I reviewed it here.

To help alleviate October’s LXX lacunae–the dearth of Septuagint mirth–you could check out the Greek Isaiah in a Year group. We’re on Facebook here. It’s not too late to join! We’re just 60 chapters in.

Did I miss anything? (It seems I checked at least 70 or 72 blogs.) Feel free to leave more October 2013 LXX links of interest in the comments. And in case you didn’t see it, the first Septuagint Studies Soirée is here; the second one is here.

Greek Isaiah in a Year: Rest of Readings in Facebook

Ottley Isaiah cover

From here on out, I’ll post the readings (each day) for Greek Isaiah in a Year in its Facebook group. We are up to chapter 60, and almost done.

The text will be, as usual, from R.R. Ottley’s Book of Isaiah According to the Septuagint (pictured above). Ottley is here in Logos (reviewed here) and here as a free, downloadable pdf in the public domain. The full reading plan for our group is here (pdf).

See here for more resources and links to texts for Greek Isaiah.

Video Review of Flash Greek iOS App

And now a video review of a solid and versatile iOS app for learning Greek vocabulary. You can adjust the video setting in the bottom right part of the video below to watch in HD and full screen, if you like.

 

Thanks to Danny Zacharias for the app, given to me for the purposes of a review. Find out more about FlαshGrεεk here.

UPDATE: I made the video above using the handy Reflector app. Reflector mirrors your iOS device to a computer, from which you can record. (I added the audio later.)

Greek Isaiah in a Year, Weeks 45 and 46 (Isaiah 55:7-Isaiah 58:9)

Isaiah

We are getting close to the end of Greek Isaiah in a Year. This week and next week cover Isaiah 55:7-Isaiah 58:9.

Below is the text from R.R. Ottley’s Book of Isaiah According to the Septuagint. Ottley is also here in Logos (reviewed here) and here as a free, downloadable pdf in the public domain. The full reading plan for our group is here (pdf).

See here for more resources and links to texts for Greek Isaiah.

Continue reading “Greek Isaiah in a Year, Weeks 45 and 46 (Isaiah 55:7-Isaiah 58:9)” →

The Bible You Would Have Brought to Your 3rd Century Church Service

LXX NA28

Look at that! It’s an all-Greek Bible. Just like the one Jesus carried around! Okay, not quite, but it is very good to see the Greek Septuagint and the Greek New Testament together under one cover. Augustine would be pleased:

For Greek aficionados—a 2-in-1 resource that’s designed specifically for extensive research, textual criticism, and other academic endeavors. Featuring both the Rahlfs-Hanhart Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament) and the 28th edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, this user-friendly tool includes critical apparatus, cross-references, and more. 3216 pages, hardcover from German Bible Society.

What It Looks Like

It’s a mere three pounds (in weight, not price). Amazon lists its dimensions as 7.5 x 5.7 x 2.8 inches.

This impressive edition is two previously published Greek texts put together in one cover. It’s obviously thicker than the Septuagint alone, and just a little bigger in length and width. Here are the two side by side: the Septuagint alone on the right, and its “upgrade” version (with GNT) on the left:

v. 1.0 and v. 2.0
v. 1.0 (at right) and v. 2.0 (at left)

Before receiving the volume, I was concerned that its 3,000+ pages would defeat Alfred Rahlfs’s initial intention to have a Handausgabe (i.e., a manual and portable edition). Indeed, Hanhart’s “Introductory Remarks to the Revised Edition” translate Handausgabe as “pocket-edition,” which this is decidedly not. (It would fit nicely in a purse or man-purse, though.) That said, the addition of the Greek New Testament really does not add a lot of bulk, as Rahlfs-Hanhart was already more than 2,000 pages. Biblia Graeca is still a (fairly) portable edition, though, if not literally pocket-sized. The sewn binding and hard cover appear that they will hold up under regular use. Here are v. 1.0 (LXX only) and v. 2.0 (LXX+GNT) stacked on top of each other:

The Two Stacked Up

You can barely make it out from the above photo, but the LXX/GNT combo comes (wisely) with two ribbon markers. Was it a coincidence that mine were both placed at the beginning of Odes? I think not.

The Greek Typesetting/Font

Rahlfs has not been re-typeset, so its Greek font is not as crisp or readable as that of the New Testament portion. Compare:

Genesis 1:1-5
Genesis 1:1-5, from publisher’s pdf sample

Here now is the Greek in the New Testament portion, which is clear and crisp:

Matt 1.1-6 GNT
Matthew 1:1-6, from publisher’s pdf sample

After reading enough Septuagint, one does get used to the Rahlfs font. It’s not too bad.

Always a concern with Bibles this big is that the requisite thin pages will mean bleed-through of text from the reverse side. This is noticeable to a degree here, but not in a way that negatively affects reading:

Mark 1
Mark 1

Rahlfs-Hanhart (Septuaginta)

The Rahlfs-Hanhart edition is not the go-to for extensive text-critical research that the Göttingen editions are, where they are present (on which, see my posts here and here on using Göttingen). Rahlfs is still useful, though, because it contains an entire Septuagint text, whereas Göttingen (published as individual volumes) does not.

It is probably the best starting place for readers of the Septuagint, even with its deliberately more limited apparatus. It is best thought of as a “semi-critical edition,” as noted here. Rahlfs “reconstructs” the text using, primarily, Codex Vaticanus (B), Codex Sinaiticus (S or א), and Codex Alexandrinus (A), a methodology that the revisor, Robert Hanhart, honors. Here is the apparatus for the first page, covering Genesis 1:1-14. This is a funny case, because of how much of Genesis is missing in B, so Genesis 1-46:28 up through the Greek word ηρωων is just based on A here. The rest (from πολιν in 46:28 to the end, chapter 50) take into account B and A.

Rahlfs Apparatus Gen. 1.1-14

Preceding the actual text and apparatus are Hanhart’s 2005 “Introductory Remarks to the Revised Edition” in German, English, and Greek. Then in German, English, Latin, and Greek follow three more sections: (1) Rahlfs’s “Editor’s Preface,” (2) an illuminating 10-page essay, “History of the Septuagint Text”, and (3) Explanation of Symbols. Everything you need to get started reading the Septuagint (minus the Greek lessons) is here.

Nestle-Aland 28th Edition (Novum Testamentum Graece)

What about the updated NA28? In short:

The long-awaited 28th edition of the Novum Testamentum Graece has now been published. Once again the editors thoroughly examined the critical apparatus and they introduced more than 30 textual changes in the Catholic Letters, reflecting recent comprehensive collations. With the intent to make this book more user-friendly, the editors also revised the introductions and provided more explanations in English. This concise edition of the Greek New Testament, which has now grown to 1,000 pages, will continue to play a leading role in academic teaching and scholarly exegesis.

The NA28 has its own snazzy site here. (What a day we live in, when a Greek Bible gets its own Website! Its writers would be amazed.) Recent text-critical work on the New Testament has led to revisions in the Catholic Letters, but not elsewhere. So the Gospels and Pauline epistles, for example, retain the same text as the NA27. However, there are changes that affect the whole edition, as the publisher points out:

  • Newly discovered Papyri listed
  • Distinction between consistently cited witnesses of the first and second order abandoned
  • Apparatus notes systematically checked
  • Imprecise notes abandoned
  • Previously concatenated notes now cited separately
  • Inserted Latin texts reduced and translated
  • References thoroughly revised

As for the textual differences themselves, those are explained and listed here. There are more details to be digested about the new NA28 edition. I can do no better than to refer you to the writings/reviews of Larry Hurtado, Rick Brannan, Daniel Wallace, and Peter Williams.

All the quick-reference inserts you need to make sense of symbols and abbreviations are included:

The 3 inserts

Concluding Thoughts: Sell All You Have?

The product page for the beautiful Biblia Graeca is here for CBD, here at the German Bible Society, here at Hendrickson, and here for Amazon. And, best yet, you can look at a sample of the book here. If it’s just the text (and not the apparatuses) that you’re interested in, you can read the NA28 online here and the Rahlfs-Hanhart Septuagint here.

Rahlfs wrote in his preface that he sought to “provide ministers and students with a reliable edition of the Septuagint at a moderate price.” If you click the links above, you will see that this is not “a moderate price.” It’s significantly cheaper to buy the same critical editions of each Testament under separate cover.

But there are at least two major advantages to putting them together. First, when the New Testament writers quoted Scripture, they predominantly did so in a form that is closer to what we have now in a Septuagint text. Comparing a quotation (in Greek) with its source (in Greek) is facilitated by this edition. Second, that this edition exists is an important symbolic statement. Lovers of the Septuagint are fond of affirming that it was the Bible of the early Church. If that is so, why can we not have one, too? Now we can, printed and bound in a way that would shock the pre-printing press world that first heard all these Scriptures together when gathered for worship.

Professor Ferdinand Hitzig has often been quoted saying, “Gentlemen!” (and today, he would say, “Ladies!” too) “Have you a Septuagint? If not, sell all you have, and buy a Septuagint.”

In true biblical storytelling fashion, he is using hyperbole to communicate his point. But for those who are so inclined and able, if selling a few things to get a Septuagint is a good idea, how much more might someone like Hitzig encourage them to sell a few things for the Biblia Graeca?

Christians believe that the Septuagint has come to full fruition through the New Testament.

So it only makes sense to be binding the two together.

Many thanks to Hendrickson for the privilege of reviewing this fine work. A copy came my way for review, but with no expectation as to the nature of my review, except that it be honest.