Old Greek and Later Revisors: Can We Always Distinguish Them?

OLD GREEK AND LATER REVISORS: CAN WE ALWAYS DISTINGUISH THEM?

Peter J. Gentry

I. Introduction

This study addresses the question of the role of the ‘Three’ in the text history of the Septuagint.1 Specialists and non-specialists will want to know right away what is meant by the Three and what is comprised by the Septuagint. In simplistic terms the answer seems obvious: the Septuagint is the original translation of the Jewish scriptures into Greek made at the beginning of the Third Century b.c.e. and the ‘Three’ refer to Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, who later produced revisions of the original translation. Yet an attempt to describe either the Septuagint or the Three is to open the proverbial can of worms.

II. Identification of the Septuagint

A brief glance at introductions to the Septuagint—and we have had six in the last twenty years in contrast to two in the eighty years previ- ous—may offer a short summary of the situation.2 Uncertainties about

1 First presented at the University of Oxford, 23 May 2005, as part of the Grin- field Lectures on the Septuagint 2005–2006 under the general title “The Role of the ‘Three’ in the Text History of the Septuagint.” The sequel to this lecture is published as Peter J. Gentry, “Aspects of Interdependence of the Old Greek and the Three in Ecclesiastes,” Aramaic Studies 4.2 (2006): 153–92. I am delighted to dedicate this paper in honour of Prof. Raija Sollamo whose love for Septuagint and scholarship has always inspired me. 2 Introductions to the Septuagint in chronological order of publication are as follows: H. B. Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek (2d ed.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902; rev. by R. R. Ottley, 1914); S. Jellicoe, The Septuagint and Modern Study (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968); N. Fernández Marcos, Introducción a las versiones griegas de la Biblia (2d ed.; Madrid: C.S.I.C., 1979, 1998); M. Harl, G. Dorival, and O. Mun- nich, La Bible Grecque des Septante (2d ed.; Paris: Cerf, 1988, 1994); M. Cimosa, Guida allo studio della Bibbia Greca: (LXX) (Rome: Britannica & Forestiera, 1995); K. H. Jobes and M. Silva, Invitation to the Septuagint (Grand Rapids: Baker Aca demic Press, 2000); N. Fernández Marcos, The Septuagint in Context: Introduction to the Greek Versions of the Bible (trans. W. G. E. Watson; Leiden: Brill, 2000)—expanded and revised in addition to translation of the 1998 Spanish edition; F. Siegert, Zwischen Hebräischer Bibel und Altem 302 peter j. gentry the history of the process of translation of the Jewish scriptures are re sponsible for lack of precision in what is meant by the term Septua- gint. It is generally agreed that the Pentateuch or Torah was translated from its Hebrew original into Greek early during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (283–246 b.c.e.), possibly around 280 if reliable patristic testimony is accepted.3 The books in the Prophets and Writings were translated later, the majority of them by about 130 b.c.e. as suggested by the Greek Prologue to Ben Sira.4 Special questions arise about the date of translation of each of the books in the collection known as Megilloth and some of the books classified by Jerome as Apocrypha. Some of these may have been first translated after 100 b.c.e. It is not surprising, then, that the introductions by Fernández-Marcos and Harl-Dorival-Munnich see the process of translation ending in the First Century c.e.5 As a result, the term Septuagint is applicable in a technical sense only to the Greek Pentateuch although it is employed in a loose manner of speaking for the Greek translation of the Jew- ish Scriptures as a whole. This can be confusing, for long before all the books had been translated, revisions were already being made of existing translations. The precise line of demarcation between original translations and revisions in this body of texts has, in fact, not yet been clearly established. This is further com pounded by the fact that we have critical, scientific editions for only two-thirds of the books in this corpus. One may try to escape the problem, in a manner illustrated in the title of this first lecture, by using the term Old Greek rather than Septuagint to refer to the original translation in Greek, but as we will see, this does not neces sarily dis entangle one from the problem.

Testament (Münsteraner judaistiche Studien 9; Münster: Lit Verlag: 2001); and idem, Register zur “Einführung in die Septuaginta” mit einem Kapitel zur Wirkungsgeschichte (Münsteraner judaistiche Studien 13; Münster: Lit Verlag: 2003); Jennifer M. Dines, The Septuagint (London: T&T Clark, 2004). 3 N. L. Collins, “281 BCE: the Year of the Translation of the Pentateuch in Greek under Ptolemy II,” in Septuagint, Scrolls, and Cognate Writings (eds. George J. Brooke and Barnabas Lindars; SBLSCS 33; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), 403–503. A recent and thorough re-analysis of the Letter of Aristeas and the origins of the Septuagint is Sylvie Honigman, The Septuagint and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria: A Study in the Narrative of the Letter of Aristeas (London: Routledge, 2003). Her conclusions do not challenge a date in the early Third Century b.c.e. as the proposed time of translation. 4 Cf. Robert Hanhart, “Introduction,” in The Septuagint as Christian Scripture: Its Prehistory and the Problem of its Canon (ed. Martin Hengel; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2002), 2. 5 N. Fernández Marcos, The Septuagint in Context, 67; and M. Harl, G. Dorival, and O. Munnich, La Bible Grecque des Septante, 83–111.