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NOTES ON THE GREEK BOOK OF *

In his version of Scripture, brought forth the , as he says, "from the archives of the Hebrews" and rendered it into Latin "just as it stands in Hebrew". After the end of the Hebrew book, however, he placed six long sections that are found in Greek but not in Hebrew.1 Accordingly, Luther and then the English translators gathered together these six passages, removed them from their context and relegated them to the "", as "The Rest of the Chapters of the Book of Esther". Modern scholars continue to deal with these disconnected "chapters" as if they existed indepen­ dently of the Greek Book of Esther. In fact, the latter not only adds these 107 verses to the "Scroll of Esther" but also more often than not disagrees with the Hebrew in 163 verses common to both books. The Greek Esther, of which the "Rest Chapters" are integral and essential parts, is not the Megillath Esther, couched in and letters, but its adaptation designed for the Diaspora.

* Some abbreviations. Ginzberg = L. Ginzberg, The Legends of the . I. S. = Institutions des Seleucides, 1938. Motzo = B. Motzo, Saygi di Sotria e Letterature Giudeo-Ellenistica, 1924. Motzo Versione: see below n. 7. Paton = L. B. Paton, The Book of Esther, 1908. Pfeiffer = R. H. Pfeiffer, History of Times, 1949. RE = Realencyclopadie fur class. Altertumswissenschaft. StM = Studi e Materiali di Storia della Religionit. Welles = C. B. Welles, Royal Correspondence in the . 1 Hieron, Prolog. ad Esther. I quote Paton's (p. 24) English translation. The expression Hebraica veritas which Jerome often uses (e.g. Prol. Galeat.: quamquam miht omnino conscius non sim mutasse me quidpiam de Hebraica veritate) does not mean that the Hebrew text alone was correct (as the expression is now understood) but the authentic Hebrew text. See e.g. Hieron. (Praef. in Evang. P.L. XXIX, p. 526); sin autem veritas est quaerenda de pluribus (sc. codicibus latinis); Aug. Epist. ad Hieron. (71, 6) : si scripturam graecam ... latinae veritati redderis quae in diversis codicibus ita varia est ut tolerari vix posset, etc. The Additions are: A (before l, l), The Dream of ; B (after 3, 13), Artaxerxes' Edict against the Jews; C (after 4, 17), the Prayers of Mordecai and of Esther; D (after 5, I): Esther before the King; E (after 8, 12) : Artaxerxes' Edict for the Jews; F (at the end of the book), Interpretation of Mordecai's dream. NOTES ON THE GREEK BOOK OF ESTHER 247

l. MANUSCRIPT GROUPS

The Greek Esther was quite popular with Jewish and Christian readers. Added in the Greek Book, the prayer of Esther who was "perfect in faith" was often quoted by Church Fathers, from Clement of Rome onwards. Origen recommended the book as appropriate reading for catechumens. 2 Often copied, the Greek Esther circulated in a number of variant forms. Four of these recensions have come down to us. 3 1. "K" This text is found in all uncial Mss. and in almost all cursives of the Greek as well as in the Chester Beatty Papyrus, written about 250 C.E. Origen (ca. 240 C.E.) based his scholarly revision of the Greek Esther on the same recension. 4 The type K also underlies the ancient versions of the book which were made from the Greek into Oriental languages as well as Jerome's Latin rendering of the "Rest Chapters". It was obviously the standard text used in the Greek Church, editio vulgata as Jerome calls it. We shall denote this current text by the symbol K (= koine ekdosis). 5

2 A. v. Harnack, Bible Reading, 1912, p. 73 and p. 122. Cf. also Hieron. Ep. 102, 12. The statement that "the early Christian church made no use of" Esther (Paton, 97) is unwarranted. On the estimate of the book in the Christian Church cf. generally J. Langen, Die Deuterocanonischen Stucke des Buches Esther, 1962, p. 3-11; P. Cassel, Commentary on Esther, 1888, p. XXVIII-XXXI. 3 See now The in Greek, edited by A. E. Brooke, N. McLean and H. St. John Thackeray III, 1 (Cambr., 1940). This publication supersedes all previous editions of the Greek Esther, as well as the critical apparatus given by L. B. Paton in Old Testament Studies in Memory of W.R. Harper, 1908, II, p. 1-52. But for the Old Latin Version see below n. 7. Cf. generally Paton, p. 29-47, p. 243-311; B. Motzo, "I testi greci di Ester", StM V, I, 1930, p. 223-231. See now the edition ofR. Hanhart, 1966. 4 Origen's hexaplaric text has been preserved in Codex 93 and in corrections noted in . See F. Field, Origene~ Hexaplorum qui supersunt I, 1875, p. 793 ff. and now the apparatus of the new Cambridge (n. 3). The latter edition also records the readings of 967-8 = F. C. Kenyon, The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri VII, 1937. 5 The Coptic version (which I am unable to read) in Herbert Thompson, A Coptic Palimpsest Containing Joshua ... and Esther, 1911. On the character of this version cf. W. Crum's review of Thompson's edition in Zeitschr. Deutsch. Morgenland. Ges. LXV, 1911, p. 806. The variants of the Coptic version are also recorded in Cambridge Septuagint (see above n. 3). For the Ethiopic version (beside the Cambrige Septuagint) see P. M. E. Pereira, Le livre d'Esther, version ethiopienne (Patrol. Orient. IX, 1913). The