Fred, the answer to your questions are much simpler than you seem to think. Remember that most Bibles are printed primarily for an audience of synagogue and church-going readers, and what they are interested in is what their tradition considers to be the "authoritative" text. For Jews, this is unquestionably the MT - the Septuagint has no authority whatsoever. While it is true that the Septuagint was a Jewish translation, after the demise of the Greek-speaking diaspora, it was shunted aside and all but ignored. For Christians, the story is a little more complicated. The Septuagint was the Old Testament of the early church, and is still that of most Eastern churches. In the West, it was Jerome who basically decided NOT to use the Septuagint as the basis for his Vulgate, which does make sense if one considers the Septuagint to be "just" a translation. So he used the Hebrew text that Jews of his day were using, and considering the very few differences between the Vulgate and the MT, what he used was basically the forerunner of what became the MT (call it the "proto-MT - of course it did not include the vowel points or cantilation marks, and the chapter and verse divisions were slightly different). He did consult the Septuagint is many places, but the main text is that of the "proto-MT". Since the Vulgate became the authoritative text of the Catholic church, once again the Septuagint became irrelevant in the West. Later, post-reformation translations into other Western languages follow the same tradition - to translate the OT from what is seen as the "authoritative" Hebrew text - the MT - and the NT from the "authoritative" Greek text - the Septuagint.
Despite all this, many modern translations DO take some Septuagint readings into account, where they seem to provide a more "logical" text than the MT. Whether this is done without comment, or in a footnote, or as a suggested alternative reading, depends on what the publisher feels his intended readers would be comfortable with. So your no. 1 below is not entirely correct. Your no. 2 below is correct linguistically, but as I've already commented, the Septuagint can certainly be a useful witness of: a. alternative text-traditions, and b. the way in which 3-2nd century Jews understood the biblical text. I partially agree with your no. 3. Yigal Levin From: fred burlingame [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, November 25, 2010 7:46 PM To: Yigal Levin Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] cognate alphabet Hello Yigal: Thanks for your clear and helpful explanation. Please allow me to respond in inverse order, with my understanding of your remarks. 1. The septuagint language relates to the masoretic text ("MT") language, but only in an approximate "rosetta stone" fashion. I still do not understand however, why modern english bible publishers (and their scholar consultants) unanimously (in my un-scientific experience), accept the MT rendering and reject the corresponding septuagint rendering (in the case of differing words or meanings). 2. Comparative linguistics identifies sufficient closeness between aramaic and MT languages (by way of example, and not limitation), for the one to explain the other, to a degree. No such proximity exists between septuagint greek and MT hebrew. 3. My reaction to "2" above mirrors my response to fred putnam's comments (in a separate post). I don't see the linguistic distinction between: a. vertical; and b. horizontal, languages; or, why does ancient aramaic inform understanding of MT, but not mishnaic hebrew? It seems to me a distinction without difference; that laterally related languages enjoy more closeness than vertically related languages. Perhaps this conclusion represents ignorance on my part. regards, fred burlingame _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
