[B-Greek] LXX Source Texts

Albert Pietersma albert.pietersma at sympatico.ca
Thu Apr 15 20:07:14 EDT 2004


But surely you are not reduced to a mere presupposition and hypothesis! 
  There are ways of proving a hypothesis, are there not? By means of 
studying the translation technique of any given Septuagintal 
translation unit and with a knowledge of what common mistakes Hebrew 
scribes tended to make, you should be able to prove beyond a reasonable 
doubt in most cases what the Hebrew parent text was.  I can't imagine a 
supervisor insisting on physical attestation in manuscript X.  Lets 
assume that the LXX in a given place reads 'death' (QANATOS) where the 
NRSV as a translation of MT has 'word' (DaBaR), isn't it obvious that 
the LXX translator read his Hebrew text as DeBeR rather than as DaBaR? 
The same holds true for the consonantal text.  Surely no supervisor in 
his/her right mind is going to demand that you produce a Hebrew 
manuscript that actually has DeBeR??
Perhaps you ought to study Chapter III (How to Reconstruct the Vorlage 
of the LXX) of Tov's The Text-Critical Use of the Septuagint in 
Biblical Research (Jerusalem, Simor 1997).  The whole volume might in 
fact be great benefit to you.
Al
On Apr 14, 2004, at 7:25 PM, phil-eng wrote:

> 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
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>>
>> 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
>
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
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>
—
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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