A Game of Thrones: Textual History of 2 Kings 17 in Light

Faculty of Theology, Department of Biblical Studies, University of Helsinki A GAME OF THRONES: TEXTUAL HISTORY OF 2 KINGS 17 IN LIGHT OF THE OLD LATIN Timo Tapani Tekoniemi DOCTORAL DISSERTATION To be presented for public discussion with the permission of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Helsinki, in PIII, Porthania, on the 7th of September, 2019 at 12 o’clock. ISBN 978-951-51-5376-0 (nid.) ISBN 978-951-51-5377-7 (PDF) Unigrafia Helsinki 2019 “Kaikki miehet saunaan – ja Taata!” Acknowledgements Opin teillä oppineita Suomessa on suuria, Väinämöisen kanteleita täällä tehdään uusia; valistus on viritetty, järki hyvä herätetty. (Jaakko Juteini, Laulu Suomessa) This dissertation would not have been possible without the help and encouragement of multiple people. First and foremost I want to thank my supervisors, Doctors Juha Pakkala and Tuukka Kauhanen of the University of Helsinki, who meticulously read, commented, and pushed my work forward from the beginning to the very end. Juha of course supervised already my bachelor’s and master’s theses, and was thus best suited to guide me through the doctoral stage, as well. Without his vast knowledge on several academic fields my work would have lacked in multiple aspects. Tuukka’s pedantic guidance was essential in the text-critical portions of the dissertation, and it is safe to say that without him the quality of these sections would never have been even close to what they now are. It is just as clear that without the help of Professor Christoph Levin of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München the literary- critical aspects of the work could have proved as the stumbling block of this dissertation. During the year I spent in his care in the beautiful and graceful city of München I learned practically all I know about literary criticism, and for this I will stay ever so grateful to Professor Levin. For the synthesis of these two critical approaches, and for his entire lifework, I express my deepest gratitude and reverence to Professor Julio Trebolle Barrera, with whom I had the privilege to meet multiple times during my 6 month stay at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. My stay in Madrid – what a city of arts and culture it is! – would not have been possible, nor as enjoyable, without the help, hostfulness, and friendship of Professor Pablo Torijano Morales and our conversations concerning both academic and maybe-not-so- academic subjects. Without these five people and the support and inspiration they provided me this dissertation would have remained only a distant dream – thank you for helping me make it reality. I want to also thank Adrian Schenker, another long-time academic idol of mine, for helping me via a brief e-mail correspondence at the very beginning of my dissertation work. This proved very important to me and some of my arguments. My research during these five years was funded by and conducted as part of the Finnish Academy’s Center of Excellence Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions (CSTT). The Center of Excellence, directed by Prof. Martti Nissinen (who is likely the main culprit for my interest in exegetics), was (and at the time of writing this, still is) an extraordinarily capable bunch, full of the brightest minds I ever met. I am deeply grateful to Martti and all my co-workers at the Center of Excellence and the Theological Faculty to have had the possibility to be part of the same brilliant working environment. Dr. Ville Mäkipelto, a fellow student of Juha and Tuukka, has remained a valuable friend and supporter of my work from our master’s thesis seminar to this day. Our numerous methodological discussions and many expeditions to different foreign countries and academic fields have brought me great joy and gezelligheid (as the Dutch say; the closest counterpart to this would probably be the Danish hygge) – I can only hope my companionship has brought these feelings to him, too. The same may be said to Paavo Huotari, with whom I, among other things, shared a sweaty but unforgettable conference trip to the eternal city of Rome. With Paavo it is always a pleasure to disagree on the interpretation of text-critical cases! Dr. Katja Kujanpää, Dr. Saana Svärd, and Prof. Sara Milstein provided me with multiple lessons, mentoring even, not only of scholarly kind but also concerning life and academia, for which I am deeply grateful to them. The friendship of Sanna Saari has been equally invaluable to me during these years. The many methodological discussions I had with the members of our CSTT team, Literary Criticism in the Light of Documented Evidence – Juha, Tuukka, Prof. Levin, Prof. Reinhard Müller, Prof. Urmas Nõmmik, Prof. Francis Borchardt, Dr. Mika Pajunen, and Dr. Anssi Voitila – had a very special value when coming to the conclusions concerning the cases also in this dissertation. They are also to be thanked for many merry scholarly evenings at various drinking establishments (as admittedly are most of the people mentioned here). Another important circle of co-workers was the newly founded Text-Critical Study Group of University of Helsinki, consisting of Ville, Paavo, Sanna, Miika Tucker, Ossi Arpe, Lauri Laine, and Antti Vanhoja. Many interesting and stimulating conversations were had with them when discerning the numerous strange but alluring textual cases. Similarly, I want to express my gratitude to the members of our Greek Reading Group, and most of all to its tireless leader Dr. Ivan Miroshnikov, with whom many fun moments were had and many fun and peculiar texts read. Special thanks go to my CSTT co-members Dr. Sebastian Fink, Dr. Jessi Orpana, Dr. Rick Bonnie, Dr. Tero Alstola, Dr. Christian Seppänen, Dr. Izaak de Hulster, and Marika Pulkkinen, whose collegiality I have had the privilege to enjoy. I want to thank Professors Andrés Piquer Otero and Matthieu Richelle (who will also act as my opponent at the defence) for examining my work, and for the illuminating conversations we had during my dissertation project. Prof. Shuichi Hasegawa, Dr. Elina Perttilä, Dr. Elisa Uusimäki, Dr. Kirsi Valkama, Dr. Raija Mattila, Noël Yeh Martín, Dr. Wolfgang Schütte, and Prof. Anneli Aejmelaeus deserve a special recognition for our many scholarly discussions. It is furthermore worth mentioning that without two of my former teachers, Markku Mäkäräinen (Järvenpään yhteiskoulu) and Antti Mattila (Järvenpään lukio), I would have hardly started my theology studies. Most of all I want to thank my family, Outi, Esa, and Katri, as well as all of my friends, for supporting me through all of my university life. This work would have never been possible without my parents’ loving care – they believed in me when I had lost all hope, which meant quite a large portion of the first two to three years of the project. Indeed, writing a doctoral dissertation is exceedingly hard, and it is made exponentially harder when you are suffering from depression. Thus, I want to thank my psychotherapist Juha Rainio for bringing me back into the books of the living after the seven year darkness and hopelessness. It is unfortunate that much of this dissertation became in many ways not a fruit of passion, but a monument to nearly blind obsession. Nevertheless, I am happy to have finished the work. Being quite satisfied with many of its aspects, I hope for my dissertation to be an important contribution to the scholarly field. May the end of this project mark a beginning of something new. In Helsinki, August 19th 2019, Timo Tapani Tekoniemi Ens taistelun ma maailmalla jo kestin, kestin kunnialla. Jo rauhan sain ma rintahain – kauaksiko? – hetkeks vain. (Eino Leino, Ensi taiston jälkeen) Abstract This study examines and reconstructs the textual history of 2 Kings 17 both in light of the preserved textual evidence and in light of the literary-critical method. The analysis of textual differences between Septuagint (LXX), the Old Latin (OL), and the Masoretic text (MT) and the reconstruction of the oldest text attainable forms the backdrop to the more hypothetical aspects of text-historical study. The text-critical study of the Greek and Latin witnesses shows that the Old Greek (OG) version of 2 Kings 17 was translated from a Hebrew Vorlage often even radically differing from the MT. In most cases it can be shown that the MT in fact exhibits signs of later editing. Many of the cases have both historiographical and redaction critical repercussions. Literary critically, LXX can help us reconstruct multiple text-historical layers otherwise out of our reach. Many of the proto-Masoretic changes can likely be dated to the Hellenistic period or even later. The literary critical study of the chapter proves in many ways more complex than the comparison of many of the text-critical variants. It can be concluded without a doubt that the text has grown through the centuries even in passages where there is no text-critical evidence of this growth. However, the methodological limitations of literary criticism become clear when discerning such a complex chapter as 2 Kings 17: in many cases the textual evolution may have happened in multiple different ways. Furthermore, differing conclusions on certain text-critical cases can have far-reaching consequences on the literary-critical analysis. Thus, as supposed by the literary critics for well over a century, the textual data shows beyond doubt that there has happened vast editing and rewriting of 2 Kings 17 even at a very late date. Text-critical considerations are therefore not only useful, but likely invaluable to all scholarly work on 2 Kings 17, and Books of Kings as a whole. Table of Contents 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 4 1.1 The outline and aims of this study ....................................................................

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