Bulletin of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
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Bulletin of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies Volume 42 • 2009 Articles A Cultic Term (ἁμαρτία) in the Septuagint: Its Meaning and Use from the Third Century B.C.E. until the New Testament ........................ 1 Dirk Büchner Greek Exodus and Greek Isaiah: Detection and Implications of Interdependence in Translation ........................................................... 18 Larry Perkins Translation and Recensions: Old Greek, Kaige, and Antiochene Text in Samuel and Reigns ................................................................... 34 Siegfried Kreuzer One Text, Two Interpretations: Habakkuk OG and MT Compared ............ 52 David Cleaver-Bartholomew Le débat sur le divorce en Malachie 2:16a et l’ambivalence de la LXX ............................................................................................. 68 Innocent Himbaza Innovation and Translation: Hellenistic Architecture in Septuagint Ezekiel 40–48 ....................................................................................... 80 Daniel M. O’Hare The Complutensian Polyglot, the Text of Sirach, and a Lost Greek Word .......................................................................................... 95 John A. L. Lee Dissertation Abstract A Critical Edition of the Hexaplaric Fragments of the Book of Canticles, with Emphasis on Their Reception in Greek Christian Exegesis ....... 109 Reinhart Ceulemans ii BIOSCS 42 (2009) Featured Book Review Wolfgang Kraus and Martin Karrer, eds., Septuaginta Deutsch: Das griechische Alte Testament in deutscher Übersetzung ......................................................... 111 M. N. van der Meer Book Reviews Abate, Emma, La f ine del regno di Sedecia ................................................................... 120 A. Sérandour Aejmelaeus, Anneli, On the Trail of the Septuagint Translators: Collected Essays ........................ 122 C. Boyd-Taylor Cohen, Naomi G., Philo’s Scriptures: Citations from the Prophets and Writings: Evidence for a Haftarah Cycle in Second Temple Judaism ........................................... 127 S. J. K. Pearce Fabry, Heinz-Josef, and Dieter Böhler, eds., Im Brennpunkt: Die Septuaginta. Band 3: Studien zur Theologie, Anthropologie, Ekklesiologie und Liturgie der Griechischen Bibel ...................... 129 J. Joosten Fernández Marcos, Natalio, Septuaginta: la Biblia griega de judíos y cristianos; and Fernández Marcos, Natalio, and Ma Victoria Spottorno Díaz-Caro (Coordinadores), La Biblia griega: Septuaginta. I: El Pentateuco ........................................................................... 130 M. Silva Kim, Jong-Hoon, Die hebräischen und griechischen Textformen der Samuel- und Königsbücher: Studien zur Textgeschichte ausgehend von 2Sam 15,1–19,9 .......................................... 132 N. Fernández Marcos Kohlenberger, John R., ed., The Comparative Psalter: Hebrew (Masoretic Text), Revised Standard Version Bible, the New English Translation of the Septuagint, Greek (Septuagint) ................. 134 R. G. Wooden Lemmelijn, Bénédicte, A Plague of Texts? A Text-Critical Study of the So-Called ‘Plagues Narrative’ in Exodus 7:14–11:10 ...................................................................................... 135 L. Perkins Littman, Robert J., The Book of Tobit in Codex Sinaiticus ................................................... 137 H. Engel Mélèze Modrzejewski, Joseph, Troisième Livre des Maccabées ............................................ 140 M. Alexandre Rajak, Tessa, Translation and Survival: The Greek Bible of the Ancient Jewish Diaspora ................ 143 Chris Seeman Schwartz, Daniel R., 2 Maccabees ............................................................................ 145 T. Nicklas Troxel, Ronald L., LXX-Isaiah as Translation and Interpretation: The Strategies of the Translator of the Septuagint of Isaiah .............................................................................. 147 A. van der Kooij IOSCS Matters Program in Boston, U.S.A. ........................................................................ 153 IOSCS Minutes, Annual Business Meeting, Ljubljana, Slovenia ............. 154 Treasurer’s Summary ................................................................................ 156 Einladung zur Tagung ............................................................................... 158 A Cultic Term (з̨̛̝̬̯̝) in the Septuagint: Its Meaning and Use from the Third Century B.C.E. until the New Testament DIRK BÜCHNER Introduction: “Sin” or “Sin Offering”? In the Septuagint Pentateuch and particularly in Leuitikon (hereafter Leu), the word з̨̛̝̬̯̝, “sin” is the equivalent for =&%, which denotes both “sin” and “sin offering.” There are three scholarly contexts in which attention is given to the Greek word and its meaning. The f irst would be entries in lexica. x LSJ9: “[1] a failure, fault, 2. in Philos. and Religion, guilt, sin.” x BDAG: “1 a departure fr. human or divine standards of uprightness,” with a subheading a, “sin”, under which one f inds the following: “—In Hb sin is atoned for … by sacrif ices ̛̤̰̮̝̥ ѿ½Ҝ̬ з. … also simply ½̡̬Ҡ з (Lev 5:11; 7:37) … ½̬̫̮̱ҝ̡̬̥̩ ½̡̬Ҡ з. bring a sin-offering Hb 5:3.” x GELS: in addition to the standard senses found in LSJ, two further senses, marked with an asterisk to indicate that these meanings are not attested before the translation of the Pentateuch: “*3. slaughtered animal offered to atone з̨̛̝̬̯̝ … Le 4.29 … ‘they shall eat the sin-offerings of my people’ Ho 4:8” and “*4. penalty incurred for committing a sin: ̧ҟ̨̡̳̯̝̥ ̯Ҟ̩ ~̝̩….”1 x LEH2: also in addition to the glosses guilt, sin, “sin-offering Lv 4,33.” The second scholarly context is the recent translations of the Septuagint. The New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS), La Bible d’Alexandrie (BA) and Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D) render з̨̛̝̬̯̝, in cultic portions of the Pentateuch, as “sin”: e.g., Exod 29:36 “the young calf for the sin”/“le jeune taurillon pour le péché”/“das Kälbchen (Für-) die Sünde;” Lev 4:21 “it is for a sin of the congregation”/“voilà la faute de la communauté”/“Es ist ein I dedicate this article to my parents, Oswald and Heleen, and to my parents-in-law, Peter and Polly Allan, who supported us f inancially during a sabbatical on reduced salary. Acknowledgement is due in no small measure to Kenneth Brown, my research assistant, who kept an ever watchful eye on my formulation and language. Mostly, I would like to express my appreciation to the editors of BIOSCS and the anonymous peer reviewers—one in particular—who worked through my initial submission in meticulous detail and offered a multitude of gracious corrections and lexicographical insights that stimulated me im- mensely and increased my understanding of a f ield into which I have been taking small steps. Whatever faults remain are entirely my own. 1. The phrase in Hos 4:8 reads: з̨̛̝̬̯̝̭ ̧̝̫ԉ ̨̫̰ ̱қ̟̫̩̯̝̥. 1 2 BIOSCS 42 (2009) (Für-die-) Sünde der Versammlung.”2 They appear not to have followed entries in the lexica that include “offering” as part of the semantic range intended by the translators. The third context is the New Testament. This word and the prepositional phrase ½̡̬Ҡ з̨̛̝̬̯̝̭ are considered by some NT scholars and Bible translators to mean “sin offering,” no doubt in analogous fashion to the entry in BDAG just cited: e.g., Rom 8:3 in the NJB and the NRSV (footnote); 2 Cor 5:21 in the NJB; and Heb 13:11 in the NRSV. This word seems to have had different connotations over time or changed in meaning, and to have been viewed differently by various communities that used it in religious language. Philologists have recognized this to be true for other, similar cases.3 In this article I will endeavor a) to explore what might have been the LXX translators’ procedures in creating for the f irst time a Greek equivalent for a Hebrew sacred term, and b) to note some of the reception of that rendition on the way from the LXX to the NT. It will be shown that over time the elliptical LXX usage gave rise to two opposite attitudes—one that is explicative and the other that resists clarif ication. The f irst may reflect a conservative attitude to the meaning of Greek words; that is, they mean what they mean in ordinary Greek and therefore are in need of clarifying referents. The second seems to assume that Greek items contain whatever meaning their Hebrew equivalents contained and that this is, or should be, self-evident to readers. It appears that the end result of both modes were available to, and utilized by, the NT authors as they exegeted Scripture, as is also the case with modern translators and lexicographers. I propose to argue the following points: I. At the time of the translation, the moral4 sense of з̨̛̝̬̯̝ was a sin or a condi- tion arising from a misdeed that required recompense of some kind. II. The glosses “victim” or “sin-offering” supplied by the LXX lexica most likely did not belong to the semantic range of з̨̛̝̬̯̝ at that time. What is certain, however, is that the translators of the Pentateuch held to a strictly rigid pairing of =&% and (an oblique form of) з̨̛̝̬̯̝. III. In the rest of the LXX this usage is imitated virtually without exception. Only in 2 Maccabees, a Greek composition, is the referent ̛̤̰̮̝ added with a clarifying purpose. 2. For further comment see L. Perkins, “To the Reader of Exodus,” in A New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included under That Title (ed. A. Pietersma and B. G. Wright; New