PESHITTA INSTITUTE COMMUNICATION XXI

"THE BEST WORDS IN THE BEST ORDER": SOME COMMENTS ON THE "SYRIACING" OF LEVITICUS1

I

Leviticus is a book of repetitions and technical terms, with only the briefest of narrative elements (the episode of Nadab and Abihu in x, for example), and comparatively little in the way of sustained discourse (the blessings on obedience and the curses on disobe- dience in xxvi and xxvii, for example). A book containing repeti- tions and definitions, with little in the way of narrative or sustained discourse, gives a good chance to observe a translator at work, and to detect not only the basis on which his work of translation rests, but also his cast of mind: something which is shown not only by his understanding of that basis but also by his native style. This reference to a cast of mind leads to a second concern. For this article approaches not only Leviticus, but the "Syriacing" of Leviticus. Hence it makes a contribution of a kind different from most of what has already been said about the Syriac version, its character, history and antecedents.2 The Leiden Peshitta is now nearing completion, and each fascicle has an introduction which does some justice to the relationship of the manuscripts concerned.

1 This article is a version of a paper given before the Society for Old Testament Study at Hull in 1982. The writer is grateful for comments made at that meeting, for discussion with the editorial staff at the Peshitta Institue, Leiden, and for cor- respondence with Dr Michael Weitzman of London. It is hoped that the appearance of the article will coincide with the publication of the text and Intro- duction to the Leiden edition of Leviticus, in conjunction with which it should be read. 2 A judicious survey of Peshitta material is given in P. A. H. de Boer "Towards an edition of the Syriac version of the Old Testament", VT 31 (1981), pp. 346-57. Later developments can be followed in P. B. Dirksen and M. J. Mulder (ed.), The Peshita: Its Early Textand History (Leiden, 1988). An assessment of the value of the Peshitta Dodekapropheton as a version is made in A. Gelston, The Peshitta of the TwelveProphets (Oxford, 1987), and a comment on the value of the Leiden Peshitta in the present writer's review of Job Dodekaprophetonand Daniel in JBL 103 (1984), pp. 107-8. 469

Larger works on the manuscript traditions have appeared, notably the studies of M. D. Koster on Exodus3 and of P. B. Dirksen on Judges.4 These have dealt with the history and relationship of the manuscripts in those books at least in such detail that it is fair to say that a pattern has been established. The introduction that J. A. Emerton was able to provide in the first edition of Wisdom of Solomon 5 has shown that in the manuscript evidence as well as in the printed Syriac Bible there is little of obvious substance in a Syriac apparatus criticus: for the most part we have to do with inner- Syriac variants, mostly of single words or letters, and sometimes with Syriacisms or palpable errors. Further plentiful and recent and not-so-recent work on the Syriac Old Testament has had to do not with relations between manu- scripts or variants, but with the relations between the Syriac version and its antecedents both textual and theological. Here the names of P. E. Kahle 6 and A. V66bus come to mind. The discussions have concerned the version's relationship with a text similar to the . Massoretic that we know or to an Aramaic version, known or sur- mised, or the influence (if any) of the texts referred to broadly as the LXX. The question has been raised whether the Pentateuch in Syriac guise depends on Christian or Jewish translators, and, if the latter, upon which part of Aramaic-speaking Judaism. Yet the work done in connexion with the Leiden Peshitta and the work done on the larger questions of the version's antecedents, tex- tual or cultural, beg a question and proceed on an assumption. The assumption is that the Syriac version rests so closely upon an iden- tifiable textual base that the original text of the original language can be reconstructed. This admittedly makes possible the critical apparatus of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, and brings the Syriac ver- sion to the attention of textual critics. But it begs the question whether the translator is an individual with a culture and style of his own, able to use his own cast of mind as well as a technical knowledge in order to produce a translation recognizable as a genu- ine contribution to Syriac literature.

3 The Peshitta of Exodus (Assen, 1977). 4 The Transmissionof the Textin the PeshittaManuscripts of theBook of Judges(Leiden, 1971). 5 The Peshitta of the Wisdomof Solomon(Leiden, 1959). 6 The Cairo Geniza2(Oxford, 1959). 7 Peschittaund Targummimdes Pentateuchs(Stockholm, 1958).