The Book of the Twelve in the Septuagint

Chapter 18 The Book of the Twelve in the Septuagint

Barry Alan Jones

Manuscripts of the Greek translation of the Twelve Minor Prophets preserve the oldest complete witnesses to the text of the Twelve.1 They also provide the most important source of variant readings for the Hebrew text. LXX bears witness to a period in the history of the transmission of the Twelve when diverse textual forms were in circulation. The antiquity of the text underlying LXX may even provide partial evidence for the formation of the Twelve as a collection. As the first translation, LXX provides an important window into how the Minor Prophets were read and interpreted in the earliest period of their reception. Apart from its witness to the Hebrew text, LXX Twelve developed as a literary tradition with a history of transmission and reception all its own. As such, it had an important influence in early Judaism and early Christianity. In the last two decades, it has received renewed attention as a topic of scholarly investiga- tion independent of its witness to the Hebrew text.

1 Manuscript Evidence for LXX Twelve

1.1 Greek Witnesses Before the discoveries of ancient Hebrew manuscripts from the Judean Desert, Christian manuscripts of LXX Twelve provided the oldest textual witnesses, predating medieval Hebrew manuscripts by several centuries. The oldest complete text is the fourth century ce uncial Vaticanus (B). The oldest Christian Greek witness is Codex Washington (W), a third century ce papyrus. W pre- serves text from each book of the Twelve, though there are numerous gaps and only the final lines of Hosea survived from the front of the codex. All of the oldest Greek manuscripts preserve the Minor Prophets as a single collection of twelve writings, each writing being named and numbered in headings and/or colophons. W, B, and the other major uncials Alexandrinus (A) and Sinaiticus

1 The term Septuagint (LXX) has a wide range of usages. Unless otherwise noted, the designa- tion LXX in this article refers to the earliest Greek translation of the Twelve as represented in the critical edition of Ziegler (Duodocim prophetae) or similar reconstructions. See the discussion in Jobes and Silva, Invitation, 14–17.

(S) arrange the first six books in an order that differs from MT. They group the eighth century prophets Hosea, Amos, and Micah together, followed by Joel, Obadiah, and Jonah. MT places Joel after Hosea and Obadiah and Jonah be- tween Amos and Micah.2 A secondary witness to the treatment of the Twelve as one book is found in their placement relative to Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel in ancient codices. In codices A, B, and V, the Twelve are placed prior to the Major Prophets, while in S they are placed after them. Both placements have justification, but the location of the Twelve either before or after the Major Prophets is a result of their identity as a single book. As Tov explained, “Since the Minor Prophets were joined as one unit, there was no option to place some of them before the Major Prophets and others after them.”3

1.2 Evidence from the Judean Desert The discoveries from Qumran and the Judean Desert revolutionized the under- standing of the textual history of the Hebrew Bible in general. The discoveries related to the Twelve, however, illustrated the major developments in the textual history of this book in a dramatic way. Fragments of eight manuscripts of the Twelve from Qumran provide the oldest witnesses to the text while also demonstrating a degree of textual diversity among the earliest surviving witnesses. Fuller, editor of the Cave 4 manuscripts in the Discoveries in the Judean Desert series, has summarized their dates and textual affinities.4 The two oldest manuscripts, 4QXIIa and 4QXIIb, date to the mid-second century bce. 4QXIIb contains readings that are closely aligned with proto-MT, the consonantal text that formed the basis for MT, while 4QXIIa contains readings similar to proto- MT and LXX, and other readings independent of these two traditions. A con- sensus among scholars dates the translation of LXX Twelve to the middle of the second century bce in Egypt. This date places the Hebrew source text of LXX Twelve in the same general time period with 4QXIIab. Four other manuscripts from the first century bce are mostly similar to proto-MT but also attest some variants similar in nature to LXX. In sum, the manuscripts from Qumran give evidence that both the proto-MT text and texts like the Vorlage of LXX were in use in the mid-second century bce.

2 The eight century ce Codex Venetus (V) has the order Hosea, Amos, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah. Hosea, Amos, and Micah are not preserved in S. See Swete, Introduction, 198–199, 227. 3 Tov, Textual Criticism, 130. 4 Fuller, “Text,” 83–85; idem, “Twelve.” For an assessment of Fuller’s conclusions, see Brooke, “Prophets,” 20–25.