[B-Greek] LXX Source Texts

phil-eng phil-eng at ighmail.com
Wed Apr 14 19:25:15 EDT 2004


The problem I have right now is that I have already assumed, for my 
thesis of 9 selected LXX/MT variant texts  that:

(i)  the parent LXX Hebrew consonantal texts are no longer extant, and 
that

(ii) the MT consonantal text forms a good substitute for the parent LXX 
Hebrew consonantal texts.

And then gone ahead to grammatically critique the LXX translations based 
on the fact that the MT consonantal text is essentially the source text 
of the LXX.

The problem is that my supervisor asks now, 

"Do you know what the LXX parent text or texts were?"  or,

“Are you assuming that the LXX was translated from the MT consonantal 
text?”

I have tried to argue, based on advice from this list and other sources, 
that the MT consonantal text can be taken as the LXX Parent text until 
proven otherwise; but I do not know whether this will stand the scrutiny 
of postgraduate, i.e. MPhil standards.

If not, I may have to abandon the entire thesis of which I am almost 
concluding.

The 9 selected verses are spread out over the OT so a study of each book 
where each verse is located is possible, but may delay the thesis.

Philip Engmann (phil-eng at ighmail.com)


-----Original Message-----
From: Albert Pietersma [mailto:albert.pietersma at sympatico.ca] 
Sent: 11 April 2004 01:18
To: phil-eng at ighmail.com
Cc: Albert Pietersma; b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] LXX Source Texts

Far be it from me, to discourage any one from reading Emanuel Tov's  
very fine book, mentioned by Arie, but the question that is being asked 
requires little more than simple logic.  As long as, in any given book, 
the  consonantal Hebrew text of MT supports the LXX more than fifty 
percent of the time, one's working hypothesis ought to be that the 
consonantal text of MT is the parent text of LXX—until proven 
otherwise.  In point of fact , I doubt that any text within the LXX 
corpus comes anywhere near 49% variance from the consonantal text of 
MT. As a hands-on experiment, you might read Gen 1-5 in MT and LXX, 
side by side, and make a rough calculation of the percentage of textual 
difference between them.
Needless to say, the percentage of variance may differ from translation 
unit to translation unit.
Also needless to say, in order to be able to distinguish between 
textual variants and translational variants one needs to study the 
translation technique of individual translators.
Al
On Apr 10, 2004, at 10:40 AM, Philip Engmann wrote:

> In the analysis of the accuracy or the 'goodness' of the translated LXX
> texts[1] and consequently the analysis of the 'goodness' of LXX
> translation techniques, it is helpful to have not only the target 
> texts,
> i.e. the LXX texts, but also the source texts, i.e. the Hebrew
> consonantal texts from which the LXX texts were translated;.
>
> Whilst the Dead Sea scrolls have revealed that the MT source texts
> differed in some places from the LXX source texts, is it fair to assume
> that the MT consonantal text reflects the LXX unless otherwise proven?
> And can this assumption stand up to critical scholarly scrutiny? Is
> there any clear scholarly evidence for such an assumption?
>
> Thank you,
>
> Philip Engmann (phil-eng at ighmail.com)
>
>
>   _____
>
> [1] i.e. from the Hebrew consonantal texts to the Greek LXX texts
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
> B-Greek mailing list
> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
>
>
—
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




More information about the B-Greek mailing list