Greek

LXX Translations Part III: La Biblia Griega

It is time for an overview of the third major modern translation of the Septuagint. If you haven’t been following along, I have been working on a multi-part series detailing the differences between  four recent or ongoing translations of the Greek Bible. Thus far we have done two of the four: NETS, and BdA (Part I and Part II). In this post, we’re going to move on to the Spanish translation, La Biblia Griega, or LBG.

This scholarly endeavor is published by Ediciones Sígueme in Salamanca under the directorship of eminent scholars Natalio Fernández Marcos and María Victoria Spottorno. The translation team is made up of ten to twelve scholars operating through the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) in Madrid. There will be no fewer than four volumes in this series when it is completed, and possibly a Companion volume in due course as well, a hefty printed set that will rival the German translation endeavors – no small feat!

The Modern Spanish Version

There are three volumes that have come out so far

I. Pentateuco (2008)   |   II. Libros históricos (2011)   |   III. Libros poéticos y sapienciales (2013)

CaptureThe fourth volume, IV. Libros proféticos, is yet to be produced but hopefully will soon. You can also read the samples from Volume I, Volume II, and Volume III, which include the full Prologue and General Introduction for each. These introductions are very useful, exceeding those of NETS and on par with the introductions in Septuaginta Deutsch in terms of quality in my opinion, although with less bibliography.

The best thing about these volumes, besides the high caliber scholarship involved, is the price for each, which ranges from €29-49. If you are working in a particular part of the LXX corpus, these are well worth having on your shelf at that price point. I have Volume II for my work in LXX-Judges, and can confirm that they are nicely bound hardback volumes.

The LBG Approach to Translation

The real mastermind behind LBG is N. Fernández Marcos, whose statements regarding the Septuagint give clues to what the general translation approach is. He says, “I consider the Septuagint as a Classic” in Greek literature, and points to Luke “who imitates and adapts the Septuagint just like Virgil imitates Homer and adapts his work to the new situation” (2008, 284). Nevertheless, he qualifies himself by stating that each book is a “regular literary unit but we cannot consider the whole Septuagint as a literary unit. It is a heterogeneous work, translated or created by different authors in different times in places” (ibid, 288).

With respect to the Historical Books in particular, Fernández Marcos makes some pointed observations regarding what he understands as the autonomous nature of the Greek version of the OT. Within this corpus alone a variety of changes occur only in the LXX, such as the reorganization of the books, the inclusion of new books or added parts that are missing in the Hebrew Bible (e.g. I-III Maccabees, the additions to Esther), the presence of double texts like Judges, and the appearance of exegetical features in the textual transmission of the Greek that “notably modify” the Hebrew for contemporary needs (2011, 11). He states that these new elements

ponen de relieve una vez más la riqueza y originalidad de la Biblia griega como obra literaria autónoma respecto de la Biblia hebrea … En otras palabras, los Profetas Anteriores de la Biblia hebrea no sólo han sido traducidos, sino también transformados y ampliados* (ibid, emphasis mine).

Apples and Oranges?

N. Fernández Marcos

I structured this series as I did for a reason. Setting forth the principles of NETS and BdA first provides a study in contrast; two ends of a spectrum, so to speak, of the modern translation projects in Septuagint studies. NETS and BdA stand in relief most drastically, with LBG and LXX.D falling somewhere between. Fernández Marcos points this out when he says

We have taken a middle road between the English and French projects with regard to the emphasis put on the source language or on the reception of the Septuagint. In this respect, our approach is closer to the German project (2008, 288).

Translation of the Greek with Hebrew Context

The translation they aim to produce in Spanish is one that is “faithful to the original Greek” rather than the underlying Hebrew,” since only with this procedure will the specific features of the Greek Bible emerge” (ibid). While the original Hebrew is consulted at times for context, LBG is rendered “from the Greek text which we have in front of us, not from the Hebrew text that is behind it” (ibid, 289). The goal of this process is so that a reader with no Greek knowledge can access the LXX in content, but also in form and style. Speaking of this translation process, Fernández Marcos points out in somewhat enigmatic but agreeable prose that “the modern translator needs not only to dominate the target language but also to display a certain amount of fantasy in order to find the appropriate expressions” (ibid, 289).

The LXX as Independent Scriptural Replacement

In this way, LBG translates the Septuagint as a literary, independent work at the level of the book. The LBG team does not understand the Septuagint to have been meant to replace the Hebrew Bible or serve as “an ancillary instrument, pace Pietersma [and the NETS team], to read the Hebrew” (ibid). They take it that the LXX was meant for Jews who could not read Hebrew. Putting their approach in nice contrast with both NETS and BdA, Fernández Marcos states that

Unlike NETS that emphasizes the aspects of the LXX as interlinear translation from the Hebrew, subservient to the source langauge and in which the Hebrew is the arbiter of the meaning, and unlike La Bible d’Alexandrie that considers the LXX as an independent work and puts the accent on the reception history, our translation views the LXX as a literary work that replaced the Hebrew Bible in the Jewish-Hellenistic world (ibid, 290).

The emphasis of LBG, then, falls on the meaning of the Greek text for the Jewish-Hellenistic community within their own cultural and linguistic world.

The Spectrum of Modern Translations

I hope that by now, even with these very brief overviews, the “spectrum” of translation approaches to the Septuagint is becoming clearer, which now looks something like this, with the horizontal axis signifying the degree to which the Septuagint is conceived of as independent from the Hebrew text:

NETS     –>     LBG     –>     BdA

I will flesh out this “spectrum” (which will probably become a chart somehow) in time with other posts. As I pointed out at the beginning of this series, translating the Septuagint into a modern language is bound up with all kinds of other assumptions about the Greek of the Septuagint and the purpose for which it was to serve (and did serve). As Fernández Marcos puts it quite proverbially: “We should bear in mind that translating a translation is not simply translation” (ibid, 288).

Stay tuned for a review of the German translation, Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D).

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*  … once again set in relief the richness and originality of the Greek Bible as an autonomous literary work with respect to the Hebrew Bible … In other words, the Former Prophets [Historical Books] of the Hebrew Bible are not only translated, but also transformed and amplified …”

Natalio Fernández Marcos, “A New Spanish Translation of the Septuagint, ” pp. 283-91 in Translating a Translation, edited by H. Ausloos, J. Cook, F. García Martínez, B. Lemmelijn and M. Vervenne (Leuven: Peeters, 2008).

Fernández Marcos, Natalio, and María Victoria Spottorno Díaz-Caro, eds. La Biblia Griega Septuaginta. Vol. II. Libros Históricos. Biblioteca de Estudios Bíblicos 126. Salamanca: Ediciones Sígueme, 2011.

Review of Porter’s “Linguistic Analysis of the Greek New Testament”

I was glad to receive a review copy of Dr. Stanley Porter’s most recent (latest) new (fresh) book this year, Linguistic Analysis of the Greek New Testament: Studies in Tools, Methods, and Practice. Stan is the president, dean, professor of New Testament, and chair in Christian Worldview at McMaster Divinity College, among inconceivably numerous other roles. To save some space detailing Porter’s credentials, why don’t you swing over to view his CV to peruse all fifty-seven pages of it.

Needless to say, when Stan Porter says something about Greek, it’s worth listening. Many will know (better than me) about Porter’s close involvement with the ongoing scholarly debates over verbal aspect in Greek, which – like it or not – makes him an important figure in contemporary biblical studies generally. Even in Old Testament studies, I am convinced, Greek remains quite central, considering the importance of the Septuagint to OT text-criticism and interpretation.

Book Outline

The book, which runs to over 440 pages, is structured as follows:

Introduction
Part 1: Texts and Tools for Analysis
1. Who Owns the Greek New Testament? Issues That Promote and Hinder Further Study
2. Analyzing the Computer Needs of New Testament Greek Exegetes
3. “On the Shoulders of Giants”–The Expansion and Application of the Louw-Nida Lexicon
4. The Blessings and Curses of Producing a Lexicon
Part 2: Approaching Analysis
5. Linguistics and Biblical Interpretation
6. A Multidisciplinary Approach to Exegesis
7. Sociolinguistics and New Testament Study
8. Discourse Analysis: Introduction and Core Concepts
9. The Ideational Metafunction and Register
10. Time and Aspect in New Testament Greek: A Response to K. L. McKay
11. Three Arguments regarding Aspect and Temporality: A Response to Buist Fanning, with an Excursus on Aspectually Vague Verbs
12. The Perfect Tense-Form and Stative Aspect: The Meaning of the Greek Perfect Tense-Form in the Greek Verbal System
Part 3: Doing Analysis
13. A Register Analysis of Mark 13: Toward a Context of Situation
14. The Grammar of Obedience: Matthew 28:19-20
15. Verbal Aspect and Synoptic Relations
16. Study of John’s Gospel: New Directions or the Same Old Paths?
17. Method and Means of Analysis of the Opponents in the Pauline Letters
18. 1 Timothy 2:8: Holy Hands or Holy Raising?
19. Greek Word Order: Still an Unexplored Area in New Testament Studies?
20. Proper Nouns in the New Testament
21. Hyponymy and the Trinity
Indexes

Thoughts in Review

There is a lot of valuable material in this volume. In large measure, the essays are distilled from Porter’s previous papers or presentations, but refined and updated. Each of the three parts has its advantages, but I found Part II most fascinating.

Part I is caught up with discussing what might be called “logistical items” in New Testament studies, such as the idea of intellectual property and ancient texts, computer tools, and the ins-and-outs of Greek lexicons. These are helpful essays insofar as they bring up interesting and relevant questions for the biblical studies community. But these chapters will prove most useful, I think, to those already a part of the “guild” rather than students. That said, those students who go on to enter professional biblical studies will do well to have these questions raised for future work.

Part II was, as I said, more interesting, and strikes me as the meat of the book. As the title rightly indicates, the most valuable aspect of Porter’s volume is his application of linguistics to the study of the NT. In Porter’s case, this is done consistently in the vein of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). The SFL approach in particular is what Porter has done so rigorously for so long, and is what he has found so “fruitful” for NT study (see his CV for proof). SFL has come under criticism by some because it is a basically quantitative approach that does not accommodate languages with highly variable word order, like Greek. For this reason, I was happy to see that Porter does not see SFL as the all-or-nothing for right exegesis, although he does presumably see SFL as the best model of modern linguistics for the tasks he is interested in completing. Chapter 6 however is concerned with, as Porter calls it, a “multidisciplinary” approach to exegesis that blends a variety of approaches to distill the many aspects of a text for contemporary understanding. In this part of the book, Porter basically works from broadest to narrowest, conceptually speaking, working from sociolinguistics through discourse, register, and verbal aspect. All these chapters are very clearly written and I personally found them very useful. The last topic – verbal aspect – as we might expect receives the favor of three full chapters promoting Porter’s taking on “nontemporality” in the Greek verb. Like it or not, Porter provides many compelling arguments for this particular view, which will need to be considered in future work on the topic.

Part III essentially puts some of the theoretical concepts from Part II into action. I was glad that Porter decided to do this, since in large measure there is a pretty hefty amount of undefined linguistics jargon strewn through Part II (especially guilty of this is Ch. 9), and the practical application in Part III clarifies much of Porter’s work. I found the first chapter (13) the most interesting in this section, likely because register is a significant aspect of my own research in the Greek version of the Old Testament. There is much of use in this part of the book, too, to students looking to continue their studies at more advanced levels, since Porter is consistently serving up ideas to pursue. The prime example here is ch. 19, which outlines the under-explored potential of word-order studies in Greek.

Wrapping Up

Needless to say, the great amount of particular goodies in this latest publication by Stanley Porter makes a review like this more prone to highlight generalities. Even so, I hope this brief review provides enough encouragement to get a copy of this book, or at least peruse through it at your institution’s library. If you are involved in biblical studies, there is something (or many things) relevant to you in Linguistic Analysis of the Greek New Testament.

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Thanks to Baker for providing a review copy, which has not influenced my comments above.

LXX Commentary Series: Part I – Brill

A while back I began a series of posts to overview the major contemporary translation projects of the Septuagint. Thus far I have dealt with the recent English translation, known as NETS (see here). Before moving on to the French translation project, La Bible d’Alexandrie (BdA), however, it makes sense to discuss one of the commentary series that is associated with English projects in the Septuagint. Note that there are two Septuagint commentary series (that I know of), distinguished below.

Septuagint Commentaries

15723755As I have been thinking about preparing a post for BdA, it struck me that I will need to discuss the fact that it is not merely a translation into French, but also a commentary. So when it is time for that post I will most likely make it two parts, one treating the translational approach into French, the other dealing with principles underlying the commentary, although they are of course inseparable.

And if I am going to talk about the commentary in BdA, then I also need to mention the similar efforts in the ongoing in English. So that is what I will start here, to be completed in two parts. For one, there is the  IOSCS Septuagint Commentary Series (SBLCS), which I will treat at a later point, and which is associated with the NETS project and interlinearity as a method. In this post I discuss the Brill Septuagint Commentary series (BSC), which is under the general editorship of (who else?) Stan Porter. The first volume on Joshua came out over a decade ago, and since then a number of other installments have appeared, even though completion is in the remote future.

(As an aside, one of the contributors to the BSC, W. Edward Glenny, will be the subject of one of my future LXX Scholar Interviews)

Brill Commentary Series (BCS) Methodology

One of the major ways in which the BSC differs from the work of BdA and SBLCS is in terms of the text used. As I will discuss in more detail in other posts, BdA employs Rahlfs’s Septuaginta as its base text, while the SBLCS uses critical editions such as Göttingen or the Cambridge Larger Septuagint (for details on which see here). The BSC on the other hand uses one of three main uncial codices – Vaticanus (B), Alexandrinus (A), and Sinaiticus (א). For example, the Genesis commentary is based upon Alexandrinus, as the other two uncials are defective in much of the book.

The rationale here is the aim of BSC to be a “literary commentary” on the Septuagint, which is thus treated – rightly so in many respects – as itself an early commentary on the Hebrew Bible and a source for New Testament study. As such, the LXX represents the reception of the Old Testament in a given community, Jewish or Christian, in the Greco-Roman world.

To this end, the BSC aims to provide “a commentary on the Septuagint in its own right,” and therefore makes reference to the Hebrew text “only when necessary” (Brayford 2007, 25). As far as I can tell, making reference is “necessary” in order to discuss features of the Hebrew that agree with the Greek version to provide coherence, and also to understand occasional differences. While there are points at which the BSC deals with text critical issues, commentators never claim one text tradition is “better” than another. Rather, “the Commentary examines the text as it is and interprets it in its own right from literary, historical, social, and theological points of view” (ibid, 26). One of the primary stated goals of the BSC series in this sense is to determine how that Greek text of the Septuagint functioned in its literary and religious community, although drawing such conclusions is often quite speculative since it is difficult to know the details of a given textual community.

In any case, the BSC approach is motivated by the conviction that it is impossible to discern the intention of the author or translator (not to mention the readers) of the Greek version of the Old Testament, which by contrast is the distinct aim of the SBLCS. Instead of the text-as-produced by the translator, the BSC focuses on the text-as-received by a community, or the Greek version as it could have been read and interpreted, according to a given text tradition. In that way, while presuming for the most part that the Hebrew Vorlage of the Septuagint was a proto-MT, the actual relationship between the Hebrew and Greek versions is not of primary importance, as the BSC is essentially reception historical in its approach.

Others to Come

As mentioned, I will also outline the approach of the other Septuagint commentary series in due course. Doing so, I hope, will provide a useful primer for the uninitiated to the major contours of contemporary LXX scholarship.

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Brayford, Susan. Genesis. Septuagint Commentary Series (Leiden: Brill, 2007).