Year: 2016

LXX Scholar Interview: Dr. Jan Joosten

joosten1Today I have the pleasure of presenting another of my LXX Scholar Interviews, this time with Dr. Jan Joosten, who is currently the Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford. If you didn’t see the post previously, you can listen to his inaugural lecture here.

To repeat some of what I have said before, if you are interested in Old Testament textual studies, you will have almost certainly run into his work. If you are a graduate student interested in Old Testament and/or Septuagint studies, you should strongly consider getting in touch with Jan about supervising. Either way, I am sure that this interview detailing his “academic biography” will prove interesting and shed some light on Jan’s qualifications and activity in the discipline of Septuagint.

The Interview

1) Can you describe how you first became interested in LXX studies, and your training for the discipline?

After a licentiate in Protestant Theology in Brussels (1981) and a one-year degree at Princeton Theological Seminary (ThM 1982), I received a scholarship to study at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. From 1982 to 1985 I studied textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible, and many other things, with Moshe H. Goshen-Gottstein. Among the other seminars I took was one on the Septuagint with Emanuel Tov. But I really got into Septuagint studies only much later, in 1994, after getting my first teaching job at the Protestant Faculty of the University of Strasbourg.

As professor of biblical languages I was expected to teach a research seminar for masters students. I figured the Septuagint would be a fitting subject, since the students were supposed to have had at least one year of Hebrew and Greek. I proposed a seminar on the Septuagint of Deuteronomy 32, which was a success (I had four students). In the following years I continued to teach the course on various biblical chapters. My research on the version developed from the teaching in this seminar (my first article on the LXX: “Elaborate Similes—Hebrew and Greek. A Study in Septuagint Translation Technique” Biblica 77 [1996], 227-236, was spun out from an observation on Deut 32:11).

2) How have you participated in the discipline over the course of your teaching and writing career? 

In 1997 I approached the Bible d’Alexandrie group in Paris and they proposed I should take on the volume on Hosea. With colleagues in Strasbourg, notably Eberhard Bons and Philippe Le Moigne, I began to work on the translation and annotation of this biblical book. In 2002 our work was published in the series. The Bible d’Alexandrie has made a crucial contribution
to LXX studies because it embodies the approach of the version as a text in its own right. Among biblical scholars the LXX has often been—and continues to be—studied as an ancillary text: a collection of variant readings in textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible, or a source of religious terms in New Testament exegesis. In Antiquity, the Septuagint was read simply as Scripture, among Hellenistic Jews first, and later among Greek-speaking Christians.

My personal contribution to the study of the LXX is for the most part tied to linguistic phenomena situated at the interface between the Hebrew source text and the Greek translation. Language is a subtle instrument, expressing not only a propositional meaning, but also, at times, revealing other details: on the culture and background of the translators, on their knowledge of Hebrew, on their approach to the source text, and much else. A sample of articles has been published in my book: Collected Studies on the Septuagint. From Language to Interpretation and Beyond (FAT 83; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2012). Some of the articles are available on academia.edu.

3) How have you integrated LXX studies into your work as a professor?

In Strasbourg I taught the seminar on the Septuagint yearly for almost twenty years, sometimes with my colleague Madeline Wieger. In 2014 I was appointed Professor of Hebrew in Oxford. I use the Septuagint in classes on textual criticism, but do not teach it as such. My close colleague, Professor Alison Salvesen does teach Septuagint regularly.

4) How has the field changed since you’ve been involved?

At some point, in the early 2000s, I thought Septuagint studies would go mainstream, causing a long overdue upheaval in biblical studies. Now I’m not so sure. The OT – NT divide is as strong as ever, it leaves little space for Septuagint studies (except as an ancillary text, see above, question 2).

5) For the benefit of graduate students who are potentially interested in LXX studies in doctoral work, what in your opinion are underworked areas and topics in need of further research?

A lot of work remains to be done on the vocabulary of the Septuagint (see the next question). Also important is research on single translation units of the Septuagint: practically each book comes with its own challenges and opportunities. Although lately a few studies on the style of the Septuagint have appeared, this is also a field that remains largely unexplored.

6) What current projects in Septuagint are you working on?

Together with Eberhard Bons I’m editing the Historical and Theological Lexicon of the Septuagint, a projected four-volume work offering for each significant word of the Septuagint an article detailing: a) its use in classical and Hellenistic Greek, b) its transformations (if any) in the Septuagint, and c) its usage in writings depending on the Septuagint. The first volume, with 150 articles, should be published in 2016. [Editor’s note: a volume of essays related to the HTLS can be found here, and see image to right.]

7) What is the future of Septuagint studies?

The near future is when all the books of the Septuagint will finally be available in a full-scale critical edition. A more distant, and perhaps utopic, future is one where the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls will be fully integrated into biblical studies.

Wrapping Up

Thanks to Dr. Joosten for his willingness to do this interview, and, of course, for his prolific and scholarly work in the field. Stay tuned to this series for further interviews with other scholars working in Septuagint. Feel free to comment below with scholars you’d like to hear from, or questions of interest.

Exegeting the Septuagint Psalms – 2016 Course at Trinity Western University

Just a quick post today to publicize the 2016 course at Trinity Western University’s John William Wevers Institute for Septuagint Studies, near Vancouver, B.C. If you’re interested in advanced coursework in Septuagint, you should go. I have posted in the past about graduate programs that focus on Septuagint studies in North America – the short story is that there aren’t many. However, the Wevers Institute is the only place in North America where a full-fledged Septuagint degree is offered, as both a Master of Theological Studies and the shorter Master of Theology. If you are interested in LXX studies, you should definitely look into this program.

This year’s seminar will be led by Dr. Cameron Boyd-Taylor, a very prolific and respected scholar in the field.  Along with Dr. Albert Pietersma, Boyd-Taylor is one of the most vocal proponents of the Interlinear Paradigm for interpretation of the Septuagint. If you don’t know what that is, then please understand that you cannot be a Septuagint scholar without wrapping your mind around and engaging it. This seminar will be a fantastic way to get familiar with the concept of “interlinearity” from a (the?) leading scholar currently employing it. And it is not an uncontested issue!

The Wevers Institute also benefits from several excellent scholars, including Drs. Robert Hiebert (director), Larry Perkins, Dirk Büchner, and Peter Flint, each of whom are working on Pentateuchal commentaries in the SBLCS.

Seminar Details

The seminar will be 3 credit hours and is entitled Exegeting the Septuagint Psalms: Theory, Method and Interpretation. It will be held from May 30 – June 3 of this year. I can personally attest to the benefits of traveling to the Vancouver area for this event. It’s a beautiful region that you won’t regret visiting. However, if you can’t swing the trip, the Wevers Institute is also offering live-streamed video sessions. The course description includes:

Students will study the translation technique, language and ideology of the text with a view to understanding the larger methodological and interpretive issues, and they will be introduced to the foundational principles and methodology of the above-mentioned research initiatives.

If you’re interested, email acts@twu.ca. Check out the poster below for more details:

2016 LXX Poster

A Septuagintal Review of The Bloomsbury Companion to Discourse Analysis

I’ve been doing a fair bit of reading in theoretical and applied linguistics this year so far. As I’ve chugged along, I came across Hyland and Paltridge, eds., The Bloomsbury Companion to Discourse Analysis, New York, Bloomsbury Academic, 2013. It looked like something that would be a useful tool to have on hand, so I was happy get a review copy of it from the publisher.

The book opens with this sweeping but, I think, accurate claim: “Discourse is one of the most significant concepts of modern thinking in a range of disciplines across the humanities and social sciences” (p. 1). To the extent that this is correct, biblical studies no doubt is swept into the mix. This volume is aimed at offering “an accessible and authoritative introduction to the many facets of this fascinating and complex topic” (ibid.). And so it does, as you can see from the extremely variegated table of contents:

Part I: Methods of Analysis in Discourse Research

1. Data Collection and Transcription in Discourse Analysis, Rodney Jones
2. Conversation Analysis, Sue Wilkinson and Celia Kitzinger
3. Critical Discourse Analysis, Ruth Wodak
4. Genre Analysis, Christine M. Tardy
5. Narrative Analysis, Mike Baynham
6. Discourse Analysis and Ethnography, Dwight Atkinson, Hanako Okada, and Steven Talmy
7. Systemic Functional Linguistics, J R. Martin
8. Multimodal Discourse Analysis, Kay L. O’Halloran
9. Corpus Approaches to the Analysis of Discourse, Bethany Gray and Douglas Biber

Part II: Research Areas and New Directions in Discourse Research

10. Spoken Discourse, Joan Cutting
11. Academic Discourse, Ken Hyland
12. Discourse in the Workplace, Janet Holmes
13. Discourse and gender Paul Baker
14. News Discourse, Martin Montgomery
15. Discourse and Computer Mediated Communication, Julia Davies 
16. Forensic Discourse Analysis: a work in progress, John Olsson
17. Discourse and Identity, Tope Omoniyi
18. Discourse and Race, Angel Lin and Ryuko Kubota
19. Classroom Discourse, Jennifer Hammond
20. Discourse and Intercultural Communication, John Corbett
21. Medical Discourse, Timothy Halkowski

This book’s two sections deal with quite different matters. The first is primarily theoretical and deals with the nuts and bolts of carrying out the task of discourse analysis, while the second part dives into more topicalized research material as it relates to discourse. However, every chapter includes an applied sample of whatever is under discussion and bibliography for further reading, two aspects that I think increases the overall value of this Companion.

As I read through parts of the volume, I thought I’d review it here by focusing on one particular concept I’ve been mulling for some time. The thoughts below are still half-baked, but hopefully they demonstrate the intersection between linguistics, the Septuagint, and biblical studies more generally.

Genre and Translation

Out of the chapters in the first half, I was interested in Christine Tardy’s on genre analysis (pp. 54-68). Genre is a sticky concept when you think (or read) about it for too long, so I was curious to see a recent treatment. One of the important points she makes is that genre studies have transformed within scholarly opinion from a linguistic concept to a rhetorical and social concept, a shift that may have important consequences for Septuagint studies.

A picture of the original translation of the Septuagint

In particular, I have often wondered whether the Septuagint, in particular the Greek Pentateuch, established a genre within Hellenistic Judaism – to be perhaps unhelpfully broad, let’s say it’s the genre “Greek Scripture.” Of course whether or not this is true depends on what one means by “genre.” I was interested that Tardy’s definition seems to make this genre-creation idea plausible in some ways.

Genres, she says, are not simply linguistic entities, but also “social actions” that function for particular purposes. These purposes are accomplished using

typified forms of discourse – that is, forms that arise when responses to a specific need or exigence become regularized. With repeated use, responses begin to conform to prior uses until the shape of these responses become expected by users. Genres, then, are recognizable by members of a social group. (p. 54) … [W]hat makes a text a genre is not its linguistic form but the rhetorical action that it carries out in response to the dynamics of a social context (p. 55).

That definition certainly seems fitting for the original translation of the Pentateuch into Greek. When inserted into the Ptolemaic Alexandrian milieu (even if only among Jews, who in the diaspora had become Hellenized), the translated Jewish scriptures became a new entity. No longer properly the Hebrew Torah, neither did the Greek Pentateuch fit into any established Greek literary slot. Yet it went on to furnish an exemplar to later Jewish translators for the other books, and even established a “biblical tone” – on account of the translation technique used – for what might qualify as Scripture.

Is that a Septuagint in Luke’s hand?

Now, that is not to say that having a “biblical tone” was a criterion of canonicity. “Credibility” may be the better word.  For instance, the Gospel of Luke is well known for the affinities it has with the syntax and style of the Greek Old Testament, which some suggest was intentional to mimic a biblical “sound” in the book. Tardy notes that the “conventionalized forms that genres take on over time are inherently tied to their socio-rhetorical contexts” (p. 57). So it seems plausible to say that, thanks to the Septuagint, “Greek Scripture” had become a kind of genre by Luke’s time, one that accommodated a variety of literary forms (e.g., historiography, legal code, gospel, etc.), and one that served a social purpose. What began as a translation technique for rendering Hebrew scripture into Greek came to function and was eventually accepted as a “typified” form of discourse – a genre – that had some scriptural value, or ethos, within the 1st-2nd c. CE milieu of Jews and Christians.

Of course, developing this line of thinking could influence answers to nearby questions. For instance, although it would take a lot of work and some highly persuasive findings, a genre approach to the language of the Gospels may affect how we think about the so-called Aramaic Hypothesis to some extent.

Concluding Thoughts on the Companion

I certainly didn’t read this entire Companion word-for-word. For one thing, that’s not what a “Companion” is for, anyway. It’s supposed to act as a tool sitting on your shelf that you reach for when you’re out of your depth in a particular topic. For another thing, not every contribution to this volume is strictly relevant to biblical studies, much less Septuagint scholarship, as you can see from the Contents. Nevertheless, it is always surprising – to me at least – how much seemingly bizarre and theoretical linguistic matters can bear upon significant aspects of biblical scholarship.

On a related note, although this blog is dedicated to Old Testament studies in its broadest sense, the main subdiscipline of interest to me is the Septuagint. By extension, and because of my particular methodological inclinations within Septuagint studies, this implies that I spend a lot of time working in Greek language studies. By extension again, linguistics is an important part of my work, dealing as it does with the intersection of languages, cultures, and texts. This is what makes the Septuagint so interesting and fruitful.

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Thanks to Bloomsbury for providing a review copy, which has not influenced my opinion.