[B-Greek] Psalm 39:7 LXX
Albert Pietersma
albert.pietersma at sympatico.ca
Mon Dec 22 18:40:17 EST 2003
Dear Ben,
I feel disinclined to attempt to answer the series of questions you
pose. As you say, we are here in the realm of text-criticism. But
text-criticism like all disciplines has its methods, procedures and
principles. To me, your questions essentially boil down to two basic
issues. One of these is the nature of evidence. If the answer is that
the only evidence worth its label is attestation in at least one
textual witness, I would demur. If the answer is then further spelled
out to mean that at least a goodly proportion of textual witnesses must
have the reading at issue, I would demur even further. I know of no
text-critic that would insist on such a stricture.
The second basic issue is directly related to the first: the general
presuppositions of the text-critic. E.g. I would want to know whether
the outcome a text-critic's investigation is predetermined by
theological considerations.
With respect to Ps 39:7, is the outcome of any investigation
predetermined either that the vast majority of textual witnesses have
SWMA? And is the outcome at all fixed because Hebrews 10:5 has the
text as containing SWMA? Note well, I deliberately used the terms
"predetermined" and "fixed". Thus I am not saying that either the
NUMBER of witnesses is irrelevant, or that attestation in an early
literary document is immaterial.
Finally, the secondary evidence being cited from pre-1931 scholars is
(a) understandable in view of what the major uncials read and (b) is of
questionable continuing value since few if any would have subjected the
text of the Greek Psalter to the kind of painstakingly detailed
scrutiny, in relationship to it source, that Rahlfs did. I repeat: that
does not mean that Rahlfs is always correct, but it does mean that one
would dismiss him at one's peril---if one is interested in the original
text of the Greek Psalter.
That Rahlfs' conclusion in 39:7 is "certain" I would not be foolish
enough to claim. But that it is far more certain as original text than
SWMA I am convinced of.
Al
On Dec 22, 2003, at 3:28 PM, Pastor Mark Eddy wrote:
> I know that we are into the area of text criticism here, so we may
> want to continue this off-list, but
> since I preached on Hebrews 10 this last week-end (and it relies on
> the reading SWMA KATHRTISW MOI), I did
> some more looking into how Psa 39:7 LXX has been read over the years.
> So I shall summarize what I found
> here. But I would apreciate some answers to my questions below, and
> some input about any post-Rahlfs
> studies that may have been done on this text.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Albert Pietersma" <albert.pietersma at sympatico.ca>
>
>
>> That Kirkpatrick and Westcott in 1903 would cite "the Septuagint" as
>> reading SWMA in Ps 39:7 is precisely what one would expect since their
>> exemplar of the "the Septuagint" clearly read SWMA. Since Rahlfs'
>> critical edition of 1931 it has been clear, however, that SWMA
>> belongs
>> to the RECEPTION HISTORY of the Old Greek text, but NOT to its
>> CONSTITUTIVE CHARACTER.
>
> The evidence that I have seen so far leads me to the opinion that this
> conclusion is far from certain.
> The oldest manuscript evidence that Rahlfs (or anything else I have
> seen) gives for reading WTIA instead
> of SWMA is the Gallican Psalter, which is the second Latin version of
> the Psalms prepared by Jerome (ca.
> 388 A.D.). I do not have the Gallican Psalter itself, but the two
> versions of the Vulgate in my possession
> have the phrase "aures ... fodisti" (ears you have dug/pricked) and
> "aures ... perfecisti" (ears you have
> perfected/finished/completed). Material in the Nicene and Post-Nicene
> Fathers volume on Jerome says that
> Jerome prepared his earler Roman Psalter (383) based on the LXX. But
> both his Gallican Psalter and his
> translation for the complete Vulgate (ca. 392) were made after he had
> studied Hebrew. The latter was
> reportedly translated directly from Hebrew. The Gallican Psalter of
> Jerome was reportedly translated from
> the 5th column of Origen's Hexapla, compared with the Hebrew text.
> (Originally Jerome noted additions or
> deletions which he had made after comparing the LXX with the Hebrew
> text.)
>
> First question: Which of these readings above (or something else) was
> the reading of the Gallican Psalter?
>
> I'm guessing that "fodisti" is Jerome's final translation (from the
> Hebrew) and "perfecisti" is from the
> Gallican Psalter. I have seen an online version of Ps. 39:7 (from the
> Paris Psalter) which reads: "corpus
> ... perfecisti." I'm guessing that this is the reading of Jerome's
> original Roman Psalter. (Which would
> indicate that the LXX read: SWMA at the time that the Old Latin
> version of the Psalms was translated.)
>
> Second question: Is there any way to tell if the Gallican Psalter
> translation of Ps. 39:7 was made from
> the LXX column of the Hexapla alone, or did Jerome base his
> translation on the Hebrew of this verse, which
> was also available to him in the Hexapla?
>
> The 5th column of the Hexapla which was a version of the LXX which
> Origen corrected after he had studied
> Hebrew. (The 6 columns of the Hexapla are: 1 the Hebrew text, 2 a
> transliteration into Greek, 3 Aquila, 4
> Symmachus, 5 LXX as as it existed at the time [but Origen felt free to
> make changes, including additions
> and deletions based on other texts], & 6 Theodotion.) Eusebius (100
> years later) had access to the Hexapla
> in Caesarea. No copies of the full Hexapla were ever made, though the
> LXX column was copied by Pamphilus
> and Eusebius. It is believed that the Hexapla was destroyed by Arabs
> in 653. The Ante-Nicene Fathers
> volume on Origin states: "The remains of this work were published by
> Montfaucon at Paris, 1713, 2 vols.
> folio; by Bahrdt at Leipsig in 1769;" It also states that the
> surviving portions of this were to be
> published (1875) by "the Clarendon press, Oxford, under the editorship
> of Mr. Field, who has made use of
> the Syriac-Hexaplar version, and has added various fragments not
> contained in prior editions."
>
> Third question: Is Psalm 39 included as part of this fragmentary
> Oxford edition of Origen's LXX?
> Fourth question: Is there any way to tell which portions of this text
> are re-translations from Syriac back
> into Greek?
> Fifh question: Since Origen admittedly made some changes to the LXX of
> his day, how do we know that Origen
> himself did not change the LXX which he saw in Ps 39[40]:7 so that it
> would conform to the Hebrew text and
> other Greek translations?
>
> Swete's _Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek_ states that "all
> our MSS. of Ps. xxxix." read SWMA
> (p. 479), though he considered this reading to be a "corruption" of
> the original LXX. He noted that
> "textual corruption began before the Christian era" (p. 478). But he
> suggests that "perhaps" SWMA in Ps.
> 39:7 may be due to "the accidental influence of N.T. citations" (p.
> 479).
>
> Sixth question: besides the conjecture (without textual evidence) that
> a supposed original LXX reading of
> ...S WTIA was misread as SWMA (reading TI as M), what evidence is
> there that the writer to the Hebrews did
> not read SWMA in the copy of the LXX that he had before him?
>
> Swete notes that the Latin version of Irenaeus cites Ps 39:7 as "aures
> autem perfecisti mihi." But Swete
> calls this "possibly a correction from the Gallican Psalter," then
> notes, "but a few cursives read after
> the Heb. WTIA or WTA" (p. 417). This seems to contradict what he
> writes on page 479 (above).
>
> Swete himself gives a different explanation for the origin of the
> reading SWMA DE KATHRTISW MOI on p. 327,
> where he cites this as an example of where "a whole clause in
> interpreted rather than translated."
>
> Franz Delitzsch seems to have adopted this hypothesis for how the LXX
> came to have this reading.
> (Westcott, a generation later, agreed with him.) In His commentary on
> Hebrews 10:5 Delitzsch specifically
> rejects the conjecture of Bleek and Luenemann that some ancient
> copying misread SWMA for S WTIA (vol. 2,
> p. 153). He thinks that later mss. which include WTIA were derived
> from Theodotion or Origen's Hexapla. He
> notes that Augustine's commentary on the Psalms (baed on a pre-Jerome
> Latin text) read "corpus autem
> perfecisti." Delitzsch came to this conclusion: "We must therefore
> infer that the Septuagint translator
> himself substituted, for the strange-sounding and easily misunderstood
> WTIA WRUXAS (DIWRUXAS) MOI, the
> SWMA and KATHRTISW MOI of the text; KATHRTISW being by itself an
> easier and more general rendering of the
> Hebrew CRYT."
>
> Final question (for now): While Delitzsch admitted that this was only
> an inference, is there any
> manuscript evidence for or against it? Related to this, what is the
> oldest manuscript of Psalm 40 in
> Hebrew that is still extant? And is it possible that the LXX
> translation was based on a different Hebrew
> text from the standard Massoretic text?
>
>> Are you suggesting, Ben, that we return to "the Septuagint" of 1903
>> and thus collapse reception history and constitutive character?
>> My apologies if I misread you.
>
> If we really want to see the LXX, and not Theodotion, Aquila, or
> Symmachus, it appears to me that the
> reading SWMA should have been in the Rahlfs text, since this is the
> only reading in the extant uncials.
> And Rahlfs should have left the reading WTIA for the footnote. It
> appears that there is little or no hard
> evidence for what is "reception history" or what is the "consitutive
> character" of the LXX of Ps 39:7. It
> seems that the best that scholars have done is "infer" or "conjecture"
> what they think the "original LXX"
> read.
>
> Mark Eddy
>
>> On Fri 19 Dec 2003 (16:55:25), markeddy at adams.net wrote:
>>> The printed edition of Rahlfs' LXX has a footnote at Ps 39:7 which
>>> says that the three major LXX uncial manuscripts (B, S [=aleph in
>>> the N-A
>>> Greek NT], and A) all have the word SWMA, as in Hebr. 10:5. As
>>> support for
>>> the reading WTIA, the footnote simply has "Ga". The "Explanation of
>>> Symbols" section doesn't list "Ga" so I don't know what it means.
>>> Does
>>> somebody tell me what "Ga" stands for.
>
> On Dec 20, 2003, at 6:52 PM, Ben and Jo Crick wrote:
>
>> The "Ga" is the Gallican Psalter, which differs from the Vulgate
>> /corpus autem aptasti mihi/ in Hebrews 10:5, but has /aures autem
>> perfecisti/ at
>> Psalm 39[40]:7[6].
>>
>> AF Kirkpatrick, /Psalms/, Cambridge, 1903, has a footnote on page
>> 212:
>> "1 The reading of the LXX is SWMA DE KATHRTISW MOI, /a body didst
>> thou prepare for me/. This reading is attested by the Vulgate.
>> /Aures/ in the
>> Gallican Psalter is a correction. KATARTIZESQAI occurs in the LXX as
>> the
>> rendering of several Hebrew words, and might easily have been chosen
>> to represent
>> the obscure /thou hast dug/. 'Body' for 'ears' may then have been a
>> free
>> paraphrase. But the reading may have originated in an ancient
>> corruption of the Greek text. Through a repetition of the final -S of
>> the preceding
>> word, and the change of WTIA into WMA, HQELHQAS WTIA might easily have
>> become HQELHSAS SWMA."
>>
>> BF Westcott, one half of the famous "Westcott & Hort" duo, comments:
>> "The LXX, as is well known, differs from the Hebrew in one remarkable
>> clause : for 'oZ:NaYiM KaRiYTa LiY /ears hast thou opened (dug) for
>> me/, it gives SWMA DE KATHRTISW MOI. There can be no question that
>> this is
>> the true reading of the Greek. The ceonjecture that SWMA is an early
>> blunder
>> for WTIA (the reading of the other Greek versions) cannot be
>> maintained in the
>> face of the evidence. The rendering must therefore be considered to
>> be a free
>> interpretation of the original text. In this respect is extends and
>> emphasises the fundamental idea. The 'body' is the instrument for
>> fulfilling the
>> divine command, just as the 'ear' is the instrument for receiving it.
>> God
>> originally fashioned for man in his frame the organ for hearing His
>> voice, and
>> by this he ppainly shewed that he was made to obey it."
>> [BF Westcott, /The Epistle to the Hebrews/, London, 3rd Ed 1903, p
>> 310]
>>
>> A case of Synechdoche or /pars pro toto/, the part for the whole?
>>
>> ERRWSQE
>>
>> Ben
>
>
—
Albert Pietersma
Professor of Septuagint and Hellenistic Greek
Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations
University of Toronto
Home: 21 Cross Street,
Weston ON Canada M9N 2B8
Email: albert.pietersma at sympatico.ca
Homepage: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~pietersm
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