The Septuagint As Christian Scripture: Its Prehistory and the Problem of Its

OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES Edited by David J. Reimer OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES The mid-twentieth century was a period of great confidence in the study of the Hebrew Bible: many historical and literary questions appeared to be settled, and a constructive theological programme was well underway. Now, at the turn of the century, the picture is very different. Conflicting positions are taken on historical issues; scholars disagree not only on how to pose the questions, but also on what to admit as evidence. Sharply divergent methods are used in ever more popular literary studies of the Bible. Theological ferment persists, but is the Bible's theological vision coherent, or otherwise? The Old Testament Studies series provides an outlet for thoughtful debate in the fundamental areas of biblical history, theology and literature. Martin Hengel is well known for his seminal work on early Judaism and nascent Christianity. In this volume he turns his attention to the Septuagint—the first bible of the church, yet a product of Greek- speaking Judaism. Hengel probes into the historical and theological puzzles posed by the Septuagint opening a window on the formation of canon and attitudes to scripture in the Christian tradition, and on the relationship between Judaism and Christianity in the early centuries of the era. THE SEPTUAGINT AS CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURE THE SEPTUAGINT AS CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURE Its Prehistory and the Problem of Its Canon Martin Hengel with the assistance of Roland Deines Introduction by Robert Hanhart Translated by Mark E. Biddle T&T CLARK EDINBURGH & NEW YORK T&T CLARK LTD A Continuum imprint 59 George Street 370 Lexington Avenue Edinburgh EH2 2LQ New York 10017-6503 Scotland USA www.tandtclark.co.uk www.continuumbooks.com Copyright © T&T Clark Ltd, 2002 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of T&T Clark Ltd. First published 2002 ISBN 0 567 08737 9 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Typeset by Waverley Typesetters, Galashiels Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall In honour of my colleague Luise Abramowski CONTENTS Preface xi Select Bibliography xv Introduction: Problems in the History of the LXX Text from Its Beginnings to Origen 1 by Robert Hanhart I. A Difficult Subject 19 II. The LXX as a Collection of Writings Claimed by Christians 25 1. The Translation Legend in Judaism and the Number of the Translators 25 2. Justin 26 (a) The Legend in the Apology and Dialogue 26 (b) Justin's Old Testament Library' 28 (c) The Dispute about the Translation of Isaiah 7:14 29 (d) The Appeal to the Seventy and the Charge of Falsifying Scripture 31 (e) The 'Generous' Treatment of Minor Variants 33 if) Justin's Appeal to the Seventy in his Discussion with Jews in Rome 34 3. The Seventy in Later 'Dialogues' 35 4. The Translation Legend in the Early Fathers after Justin 36 (a) Persistent Problems 36 (b) Pseudo-Justin's Cohortatio ad Graecos 37 (c) Irenaeus 38 (d) Clement and Tertullian 40 (e) Summary 40 5. The Form of the Christian LXX 41 6. The Jewish Reaction 43 7. The Question of the Hebrew Originals' 47 8. Augustine's Attempt at Compromise 51 9. The Problem of the Book of Enoch 54 III. The Later Consolidation of the Christian 'Septuagint Canon' 57 1. The First Codices: The Writings Contained in Them and Their Order 57 2. The Earliest Canon Lists 60 3. The 'Second Class' Character of the Writings Not Contained in the 'Hebrew Canon' 66 4. The Rejection of Authentic 'Apocrypha' 70 IV. The Origin of the Jewish LXX 75 1. The Translation of the Torah and Its Enduring Significance 75 2. The Translation of Other Writings 80 (a) Dependence on Palestinian Judaism 80 (b) The Translation and Origin of Individual Writings 83 (c) The Writings Not Found in the 'Hebrew Canon' 91 3. The Canon in the Jewish Diaspora 96 (a) The Prologue of Jesus ben Sirach 96 (b) Philo 's Therapeutae 98 (c) Josephus: Ap 1:37^3 99 V. The Origin of the 'Christian Septuagint' and Its Additional Writings 105 1. Early Christianity 105 2. The Problem of the Inclusion of the Writings Not Contained in the 'Hebrew Canon' 112 (a) Writings Outside the 'Hebrew Canon' 113 (b) Independent Documents outside the 'Hebrew Canon' 114 (c) The Dissemination and Prevalence of These Writings in the Church 122 Index of Biblical and Extra-Biblical Citations 129 Index of Authors 143 Index of Subjects 147 PREFACE With the Septuagint, it is the same as in Goethe's lines: Poems are painted window panes! From the market one looks into the church, Where all is dark and sombre . A considerable number of theologians regard the Septuagint as Goethe views the poems in 'der Herr Philister': they know it, if at all, merely from the outside, and are therefore able to do little with it. At best, it has a subservient function, for example in aiding the establishment of the text of the Hebrew Bible, as proof of quotations and allusions, and also for New Testament lexicography. Due to the overwhelming orientation toward the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament and the Greek text of the New Testament, larger related passages in the Septuagint, let alone one or more books, are seldom read with the aim of ascertain ing their style, translation technique and historical locus. Rather, the Septuagint is used as a reference work for individual verses and sections. This view 'from the market into the church' where 'all [seems] dark and sombre' distorts our understanding of its intrinsic historical and theo logical value. The Septuagint is not only a unique linguistic monument without analogy in the Greek literature of antiquity (no other work of this scale was translated into Greek from a foreign language), but it also constitutes the first complete and pre-Christian 'commentary' to the Old Testament. For every translation is an interpretation, and the LXX, as the first rendering of the writings of the Hebrew Bible into the Greek lingua franca, is this in an especial way. It was both the bible of primitive Christianity and the early church until well into the second century, and later it was the 'Old Testament' of the Greek church. Also, it funda mentally formed the theological language of oldest Christianity and, moreover, assisted in changing and leaving its mark on the spiritual world of late Antiquity. This relative neglect of the Septuagint has many different causes. First of all, some are external, in that there is still no handy bilingual Hebrew-Greek version which would make constant comparison possible, inviting intensive and continuous reading. Further, the excellent Göttingen edition is still unfinished (and the price virtually prohibitive), while Rahlfs's widely disseminated edition is scarcely sufficient for academic purposes because of its too narrow textual basis, all too limited critical apparatus, and, in particular, because the most important references to variants of the later revisions and reworking of the text are virtually completely absent. Thus, the revision of Rahlfs's Psalm edition in the Göttingen Septuagint is an urgent desideratum. Second, the Septuagint is seen as a 'mere' (and thus second-class) 'translation', of interest to only a few specialists of the intertestamental period— although particularly in its latest writings it shows that the 'Old Testament' lasted into the first century AD, that is, until the time of Jesus and early Christianity. It is thus easily overlooked that the Septuagint represents anything but a unity. Rather it stems from 350 years of turbulent history and represents the most important self-witness to Greek-speaking Judaism. The basic study of so-called 'Hellenistic Judaism' of the understanding of early Christianity in the truest sense of the word, should begin with the Septuagint and not with Philo of Alexandria. For Philo, being a Jewish religious philosopher, was rather an outsider; his actual theological achievement lay in the fact that he, as a Platonizing philosopher, extensively interpreted, in several stages, the translation of the Pentateuch by the Seventy. However, when one does actually enter the 'holy chapel' and 'is greeted', one cannot escape astonishment: There at once it's coloured bright, History and ornament flashing light, Portentous effect of a gentle glow; This to God's children applies, Flourish and feast your eyes! This translation contains an immense richness of philological, historical and theological points of view, and one can continually make new discoveries both in it and in the history of its influence on Jews and Christians. Further, the Septuagint is an ecumenical work, even though the object of Judaeo-Christian controversy for two centuries (until the Christians snatched it away from the Jews, who replaced it with Aquila's 'Greek Targum'), not only because it is still the Bible of the Orthodox Church today but also much more because through the so-called apocryphal books it constantly reminds the Christian church of its Jewish roots. Unlike the New Testament, its fifty-three documents (without the Psalms of Solomon) still offer a fallow field in which new discoveries can be made in diverse ways, both from the point of view of the formation of the texts at various times, places and under different influences, and from the point of view of the history of its controversial impact, which is a basic component of church history. The important introductory essay which Prof. Dr Robert Hanhart, the great Septuagint scholar, contributed to this volume goes back to a Tübingen Oberseminar during the winter term 1990/1.

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