Hebrew OT vs LXX

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Alan Patterson
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Hebrew OT vs LXX

Post by Alan Patterson »

Please forgive me if this question is placed in the wrong location, but I think it does bear on how we should understand a NT text when reading it.

Has anyone done a study on the number of OT passages quoted in the NT with reference to how many quotes appear to be taken from the 1) Hebrew text versus how many from 2) an LXX text (I presume there were a few versions around)? I think this would inform us as to the authors' Hebrew background, which in turn helps us when reading the GNT to understand when a Hebraism is very likely being referenced or a Hellenistic expression should be read. My sense is that the vast majority of quotations are from an LXX.

[Moderator: When I clicked on "Preview" it did not show me the Font colour or the Bold, so I hope they appear correctly.]
χαρις υμιν και ειρηνη,
Alan Patterson
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Hebrew OT vs LXX

Post by Stephen Carlson »

For the gospels, you can consult David S. New, Old Testament Quotations in the Synoptic Gospels and the Two-Document Hypothesis (SCS 37; Atlanta: Scholars, 1993).

I don't know of any studies off-hand for the rest of the NT, but I'm pretty sure someone has done some. It's kind of a natural thesis topic.

Stephen
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Ken M. Penner
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Re: Hebrew OT vs LXX

Post by Ken M. Penner »

Alan Patterson wrote:Has anyone done a study on the number of OT passages quoted in the NT with reference to how many quotes appear to be taken from the 1) Hebrew text versus how many from 2) an LXX text?
An amateur but thorough online resource is http://mysite.verizon.net/rgjones3/Sept ... xecsum.htm
Stephen mentioned some scholarly articles covering the Gospels; others covering the NT more broadly include:
Archer, G. L., and G. Chirichigno, Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament: A Complete Survey, Chicago 1983.
Barret, C. K., “The Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New”. Cambridge History of the Bible I, 1970, 377–412.
Davies, W. D., “Reflections about the Use of the Old Testament in the New in its Historical Context”. JQR 74 (1983), 105–37.
Dittmar, W., Vetus Testamentum in Novo. Die alttestamentliche Paralellen des Neuen Testaments in Wortlaut der Urtexte und der LXX, 2 vols, Göttingen 1899 and 1903.
Fernández Marcos, N., “La Biblia de los autores del Nuevo Testamento”. II Simposio Bíblico Español, ed. V. Collado-Bertomeu and V. Vilar-Hueso, Valencia-Córdoba 1987, 171–80.
Fernández Marcos, N., The Septuagint in Context: Introduction to the Greek Version of the Bible. Trans. Wilfred G. E. Watson. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
Harl, M., “La Septante et le Nouveau Testament: les citations”. Harl et al., La Bible grecque des Septante, 1998, 274–88.
Johnson, S. E., “The LXX and the New Testament”. JBL 56 (1937), 231–45.
Sperber, A., “New Testament and LXX”. JBL 69 (1940), 193–293.
Tabachovitz, D., Die Septuaginta und das Neue Testament. Stilstudien, Lund 1956.
Venard, L., “Citations de l’Ancien Testament dans le Nouveau Testament”. DBS 2 (1934), 23–51.
Ken M. Penner
Professor and Chair of Religious Studies, St. Francis Xavier University
Co-Editor, Digital Biblical Studies
General Editor, Lexham English Septuagint
Co-Editor, Online Critical Pseudepigrapha pseudepigrapha.org
refe
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Re: Hebrew OT vs LXX

Post by refe »

This is a bit off topic, but related to your question because it explores an important possibility that the NT authors were working with mss now lost, or creating their own ad hoc translations of the Hebrew. A friend of mine began some very cool work in this area, but couldn't find a publisher to keep the project going. Here's an excerpt:
Connecting the Septuagint to New Testament
Psalm 2 was written in Hebrew and Revelation was written in Greek. And the Septuagint (LXX) translation of the Psalms serves to bridge the two.
In determining where the New Testament is quoting, echoing or alluding to the Old Testament, the LXX is often the starting point. Mechanically, one searches for phrases or words from the LXX to see if they appear in a New Testament target text.
My purpose, then, is to develop ways for finding how one text quotes from another (how Revelation quotes Psalm 2). Of course John could have quoted from the LXX or from his own ad hoc translation or from a Greek OT we no longer have. Possibly, he may even have been working from a Hebrew manuscript now lost.
He wrote a software program that used the Muraoka 'Hebrew/Aramaic index to the Septuagint' to determine possible options for translating Hebrew words into Greek. By determining the choices the NT authors likely had available to them his software is able to locate quotations, allusions and even fainter echos of the OT in the NT - even if they don't perfectly match the LXX. This is the kind of work that would be necessary if someone ever intended to attempt a comprehensive list of OT quotations and allusions in the NT.
Eeli Kaikkonen
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Re: Hebrew OT vs LXX

Post by Eeli Kaikkonen »

I have to disagree with refe. I don't think a computer program is necessary for such work, although it could be helpful in some respects. Actually the "right" method would be to read through academic commentaries, and of course being thoroughly familiar with both Testaments. Such work has already been done by evangelical scholars, namely Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. People may disagree with their (conservative hermeneutical) conclusions, but they analyze all quotations and clear allusions.

"Allusion" itself is an ambiguous thing, and I'm not sure how a computer program would be better at detecting them than human mind.
refe
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Re: Hebrew OT vs LXX

Post by refe »

Eeli Kaikkonen wrote:I have to disagree with refe. I don't think a computer program is necessary for such work, although it could be helpful in some respects.
I don't mean that a computer program is necessary - that is the approach that this individual took because he happens to be both a student of the Bible and a computer programmer - simply that an approach that accounts for the likelihood that NT authors would have quoted or alluded to OT passages in ways that go beyond what we have in the LXX is important. There are many ways to translate Hebrew into Greek, so if the NT authors did quote directly from a Hebrew manuscript, it's certainly possible that it wouldn't read exactly like the LXX. Perhaps others have already accounted for this.
jeffreyrequadt
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Re: Hebrew OT vs LXX

Post by jeffreyrequadt »

You might also try Bruce Longenecker's Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (Second Edition). I don't have it available at the moment, but I think that it does go through each quotation and/or allusion from the Old Testament and specifies whether it is LXX or Hebrew or neither. That wasn't the main thrust of the book, but it was an important piece of the overall work.
Jeffrey T. Requadt
Tucson, AZ
Mark Lightman
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Re: Hebrew OT vs LXX

Post by Mark Lightman »

Refe wrote,
εἰ μεν τοῦτο δυναμένου ἀναγινώσκειν, Ἕλληνα δὲ ἀναγινώσκειν δύνασαι.
δύναμαι ἔγωγε.
James Ernest
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Re: Hebrew OT vs LXX

Post by James Ernest »

> You might also try Bruce Longenecker's Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (Second Edition).

It's Richard L.
-------------------------------------------
James D. Ernest, PhD
VP, Editor-in-Chief
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
Grand Rapids, MI

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jeffreyrequadt
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Re: Hebrew OT vs LXX

Post by jeffreyrequadt »

So it is. I wonder who Bruce is? Is he someone on B-Greek that I might have read?
Jeffrey T. Requadt
Tucson, AZ
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