Author: William A. Ross

Assistant Professor of Old Testament, Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte, NC)

The 2015 Annual Conferences in Review

It’s been a few weeks now, but the annual conferences of the major biblical studies societies have come and gone. Legions of scholars from around the world spent untold dollars and lost entire time zones of sleep to make it there, and are only now recovering. This year’s melee was held in Atlanta, a lovely city whose downtown area is apparently constituted only of gigantic hotels. And they all seemed to be full of the scholarly hordes for about a week in late November.

Some Highlights

20151118_131217669_iOSI mentioned in a previous post that I would not only attend both the ETS and SBL conferences (plus the IBR meetings squished in the middle), but I also presented three papers. In retrospect, that amount of preparation and participation was probably overly ambitious. I’m glad to have done it, but I’ll likely keep it to two papers at most from now on.

One major event for me at ETS was participating in our newly formed Septuagint Studies session, where I presented one of my papers. It was a pleasure to help pull this session together with the work of many colleagues, and I think the session went quite well. We had about a dozen attendees who were very engaging and interested. Most exciting, though, was having our proposal for consultation status approved by the powers-that-be, which means Septuagint Studies will be a session at ETS for at least the next three years. For next year, it is the hope of the steering committee to put together a great session of invited papers from top evangelical scholars to address key issues in the study of the Septuagint. Stay tuned for more developments here.

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The steering committee for the ETS Septuagint Studies consultation (yes, I shaved my head)

My two other papers were for SBL. For the second year in a row I was able to participate in one of the IOSCS sessions. These are an excellent venue for me to present work drawn directly from my dissertation, since almost every scholar active in Septuagint studies turns up. It makes for a time of very profitable interaction and feedback. My paper dealt with the changes in “meeting” vocabulary within the textual history of LXX-Judges, attempting to account for shifting trends in terms of changing stylistic aims or chronological situation.

I also presented at the Greek Bible section this year. The paper dealt with the well-known narrative echo in Judges 19 of Genesis 19, where in both texts travelers find shelter in a strange city only to have their host intercede for their safety from hostile “men of the city.” I reconstructed the OG translation of this passage in Judges and examined whether and how the translator receives the OG narrative from Genesis. 20151121_144729067_iOSIt sounds boring, but I believe I can show quite conclusively that the Judges translator knew and consciously re-employed features of the OG Genesis text in his version of Judges. In effect, he amplifies the relationship between the narratives, but also shows good (if intermittent) Greek style, and reveals something of the status and familiarity of the Greek Pentateuch in later eras.

Of course, between the presentations were many meetings with people of all sorts – both intentional and incidental – plus sessions, banquets, receptions, happy hours, seminars, and the expansive book exhibit. As for the last, I was most excited to see T. Muraoka’s new A Morphosyntax and Syntax of Septuagint Greek (Peeters). Although it’s not quite ready yet, a sample was there to thumb through. Let me just say that it’s about 800 pages as it is, and there are no indexes yet. It should ship in a month or two.

Another really wonderful highlight was the small festschrift party (ein Festschriftfest?) held for John A. L. Lee. 20151121_234901746_iOSIn case you don’t know, John is one of the top scholars of Koine Greek at the moment and has contributed extensively to lexicography. His work in the Greek Pentateuch is what spurred my own interest in Septuagint vocabulary and has provided much of the methodology for my doctoral research. Trevor Evans and Jim Aitken teamed up to put together an edited volume of essays in John’s honor, Biblical Greek in Context (Brill). This looks like an excellent resource that will hopefully get wide attention.

Wrapping Up

As usual, the conferences are chaotic, exhausting, and expensive, but always worth the investment. The conversations and connections one can make are invaluable. If you missed this year and are disappointed, never fear: the proposal period for the 2016 conferences in San Antonio opens in about three months!

LXX Translations Part IV: Septuaginta Deutsch

The time has finally rolled around for my last installment of the series I have been working on for quite a while now covering the major modern translations of the Septuagint. While there are other translations in progress (e.g., Japanese and I believe also modern Hebrew), there are four translations currently dominating scholarly discussion. These are the translations into English (NETS), French (BdA – Part I and Part II), Spanish (LBG), and German. So far we have discussed three out of the four with a view to understanding the differing methodologies involved in each project. At last, we have come to the German translation, known as the Septuaginta Deutsch, or LXX.D.

The Modern German Project

The Septuaginta Deutsch is published in three volumes by the German Bible Society (which, by the way, has a wonderful selection of online biblical texts freely available, including BHS, NA28, and Rahlfs-Hanhart). It is billed as the first complete German translation of the Septuagint, and was completed in 2009 after nine years of labor by eighty-seven scholars. The LXX.D is edited by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Kraus (Koblenz) and Prof. Dr. Martin Karrer (Wuppertal), along with nine further co-editors. Like NETS, LXX.D is based upon the Göttingen Septuagint where available, otherwise defaulting to Rahlfs.

The actual translation comprises two volumes, where there is also an apparatus detailing significant divergences from the Masoretic text, Greek variants, and alternative translation possibilities (into German). A third volume provides a commentary of the scholars who translated the Greek into German discussing their work. There is also an entire series of secondary literature volumes, referred to as LXX.E (here), compiling essays by scholars who were involved with the production of LXX.D. As if that were not enough secondary literature, there is also Das Septuaginta-Handbuch (LXX.H) forthcoming, which will furnish the scholarly world with a companion text parallel to the recent T&T Clark volume. With no fewer than eight volumes planned, however, the first of which is available this month, it is safe to say that the German handbook will go into somewhat more depth, more like a dictionary.

Suffice it to say that the Germans have produced a lot of literature to get your head around. Unfortunately, unlike NETS or LBG, the LXX.D is quite expensive and best left to library acquisitions managers unless you are full-time into Septuagint scholarship.

The LXX.D Approach to Translation

As Martin Karrer notes, since there was no precedent to a German translation of the LXX, the scholars involved were free to come up with their own principles (Karrer, 2008, 106). Consequently, Karrer points out the following characteristics of the German approach that guided their work.

1. Priority of the Greek Text

LXX.D understands itself first of all as a translation of a translation, thus gives priority to its own source text, i.e. the Septuagint itself. The translators “handed over their work to the readers … The available Greek became a source text in its own right” (ibid., 107). Because of its influence in lexicon and syntax, the Hebrew text is taken into consideration in the German translation, yet without giving it priority. Thus, LXX.D “allows strange and peculiar trends in German style (for example the foreign parataxis ‘und… und… und’) while real mistakes in the target language are not accepted” (ibid.). In sum, while most of the attention is paid to the Greek text in LXX.D, at least some weight is given to the Hebrew text as the translation was produced.

2. Use of the Best Editions of the Greek Text

Subservient to the previous goal, LXX.D employs the best critical editions of the reconstructed Old Greek version, rather than adopting the readings of a given later manuscript tradition (as does the Brill LXX commentary series). The obvious option here is the Göttingen Septuagint, although it is unfinished and therefore Rahlfs-Hanhart must fill in the gaps. Wherever the two differ, Rahlfs is rendered in a footnote, occasionally with commentary. Notably, LXX.D has declined to use Rahlfs’ in the Historical Books and instead adopts Fernández Marcos’ reconstructed Antiochene text. The rationale here is the highly complex textual history of the Historical Books due and the developments since Rahlfs put together his edition.

3. Translation + Research

In good German fashion, the LXX.D had strict protocols for work flow to produce “scientific reliability” in their translation (ibid., 109). Other features of the translation process included a team of researchers from multiple disciplines outside biblical studies, the addition of inner-Septuagintal cross references and general introductions to each book, and two full-blown conferences to discuss issues.

4. Translation Technique

Karrer summarizes the LXX.D approach to representing translation technique by pointing to the use of a concordance for translation equivalents between Greek and German for consistency, particularly where there are points of intertextuality within the Septuagint. Secondly, for readability LXX.D used a “system of reduced transcription” for transliterated words in Greek, normalizing the most common proper nouns (ibid., 112). Also, LXX.D has refrained from capitulating in its translation to contemporary cultural issues such as social justice or gender concerns, because of its devotion to the Greek rendering. That is not to say, however, that the exegetical realizations of Hellenistic culture within the Greek text are not conveyed into German.

5. Intended Readers

LXX.D is aimed primarily at researchers and graduate students and aimed at religious neutrality, while presuming readers to be biblically well-educated (ibid., 114). This certainly comprises German-speaking Eastern Orthodox Christians, although there are often textual differences with liturgical materials employed in (often differing) Orthodox rites.

The Spectrum of Modern Translations (Part II)

Both NETS and BdA existed prior to LXX.D, and thus the latter was developed with the benefit of preexisting methodological reflection upon translation translation, so to speak. However, there are a few key differences. LXX.D, unlike NETS, does not use an existing translation of the Hebrew OT as a base text that is changed wherever the Septuagint diverges from it (ibid., 117). In part this is because NETS takes the Hebrew text as its point of departure in important ways that legitimate such a decision. LXX.D is not interested in interlinearity. LXX.D is also less interested in reception history than BdA, although it is not completely disregarded in producing the German version in difficult texts.

In my post on LBG I included a spectrum of the modern translations surveyed thus far. Having reviewed the German project, we can now update that spectrum to look like this, with the horizontal axis signifying the degree to which the Septuagint is conceived of as independent from the Hebrew text. NETS understands the LXX as the least independent from (i.e., most dependent upon) its source text in terms of form and meaning:

NETS     –>     LXX.D     –>    LBG     –>     BdA

It is arguable that the middle two could swap places, but in my reading of LBG I see more discussion of the legitimacy of the Greek Septuagint as an independent text than LXX.D. As far as I can tell, LBG will consult the Hebrew text to clarify where “necessary,” while LXX.D consults the Hebrew text as long as it does not have priority. Thus the differences, I think, is in degree.

Wrapping Up

This series has been a long time in the making, and no doubt much more could be said.  Accordingly, for those interested, I presented a bulked-up version of this series in paper format at the ETS National conference in Atlanta, GA, which I hope to publish eventually. While the paper won’t be “more” in length than this blog series, it will include more comprehensive notes to secondary literature that will hopefully be a guide through these important issues in the discipline.

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Karrer, Martin. “Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D). Characteristics of the German Translation Project.” Pages 105-18 in Translating a Translation. Edited by H. Ausloos, J. Cook, F. García Martínez, B. Lemmelijn and M. Vervenne. Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 213. Leuven: Peeters, 2008.

 

Karen Jobes Discusses Her Two New Books on the Septuagint

Those who read this blog regularly or who have some acquaintance with Septuagint scholarship already will know Karen Jobes. She was kind enough to be the subject of my first Septuagint Scholar Interview series, which you can read here (also see here). Outside her work in the Greek Old Testament, Karen is respected in New Testament circles as well, with many publications in that field to boot.

As for her work in Septuagint, Karen is best known for her Invitation to the Septuagint (Baker 2005) coauthored with Moisés Silva. If you are interested in Septuagint research but new to the field, this resource is an excellent place to start, as you will read more about below. That was why I was excited when she told me last year that she was in the process of creating a second revised edition, which can be pre-ordered and will be available at the upcoming ETS and SBL conferences at the Baker Academic booth.

More than that, she is also publishing a second book on Septuagint, Discovering the Septuagint, also available to pre-order, that functions something like a graded reader. I thought it would be best to let Karen describe the books for herself. Enjoy!

Invitation to the Septuagint, 2nd Edition

Can you describe the purpose of Invitation for those who may not be familiar with it?

 Invitation to the Septuagint is intended to be a comprehensive introduction to the ancient Greek version of the Hebrew Bible known as the Septuagint and to the modern scholarship that focuses on it.  It presumes no previous knowledge of the Septuagint.  The Septuagint was the Greek Scripture of diaspora Judaism in the Hellenistic period and is one essential element in understanding the Judaisms of that time.  Christianity emerged from this period of history and the early church largely adopted the Septuagint as its biblical text.  The New Testament writers use it extensively, so study of the Septuagint and other early Greek versions help us to better exegete the New Testament.  Beyond that the Septuagint provides a vast corpus of material for linguistic and translation studies.  Because of the important place of the Septuagint in both Judaism and Christianity, anyone interested in religious or biblical studies will find Invitation to the Septuagint a helpful first step toward learning about it.  

Why did Invitation require a second edition? What’s different?

The first edition appeared in 2000, and there has been significant developments in Septuagint studies since that time.  Every chapter of the first edition has been revised and recent bibliography added.  The appendices have been expanded to include additional helpful aids, including an English translation of the symbols and abbreviations used by the Göttingen critical apparatus.

What are the most important developments in Septuagint scholarship since the first edition?

There has been much discussion about the hermeneutical issues involved in understanding a translated text.  The interlinear paradigm as a model for understanding the relationship of the original translation to its source text has also received much attention by scholars in the last fifteen years.  Because there are now two commentary series on the books of the Septuagint,  individual books of the Septuagint have enjoyed focused work by scholars.  And there is the ongoing discussion about the theology of the Septuagint.

Discovering the Septuagint

Can you describe your Discovering the Septuagint volume?Discovering the Septuagint

Discovering the Septuagint: A Guided Reader is forthcoming from Kregel.  It is intended for readers who have had at least three semesters of New Testament Greek and who wish to dip into the Septuagint and continue to develop their proficiency in Greek.  The book includes a selection of texts of various books and genres and provides notes on parsing and syntax as well as additional bibliography.

How did this volume come about? 

The book is the collaborative effort of several of my graduate students who took my Septuagint reading course and some of my former teaching assistants.  It is based on my classroom notes and their own studies of the texts.

What are your hopes for the book? 

I hope the book will be a helpful resource that motivates instructors to offer courses on Septuagint reading, and will influence student readers to further work in Septuagint studies.

When can we anticipate it sitting on our bookshelves? 

Hopefully in early 2016.

Wrapping Up

If you’re like me then you’ll be picking up these books as soon as you can scrape together the dollars. They will certainly be well worth it.