Greek

LXX Resource Reviews

Part of my purpose for this blog is not only to centralize my own work and interests, but to create a sort of LXX resource site. No doubt this will take some time to do well, and so (hopefully) I will get some assistance along the way. But it seems to be a desideratum in the Septuagint blogosphere. Hence: Resource Reviews.

To help bridge the gap, then, I am on the one hand continuing to build my LXX Resources page with resources as I come by them. I will hopefully one day get around to adding some actual prose to the page, with introductory information to the field. As I mention on the Intro page already, even when LXX studies is not concerned with complex and highly technical issues in linguistic and textual matters (which is rarely), it can still be a lot of insider baseball. As a result, things can get quite confusing.

Sometimes LXX studies make you feel like this.

It is a small field that is only just starting to grow and add new faces, so newcomers often end up parsing seemingly endless disciplinary ellipses that are otherwise unmysterious to those who have been speaking LXX for decades.

However, a page full of lists of resources is no good if you have no idea what to do with the resources. So in addition to the Intro page, I will also be periodically posting reviews of the resources. In good romantic fashion, I hope to help those interested in the field see the apparently foreboding and impassable Septuagint Mountains rather as a landscape whose beauty can be appreciated (not feared), and even provide enjoyment.

That brings us to my blog category “Resource Reviews,” which I will tag posts with wherever appropriate. I also have a sub-page under Intro to LXX that will centralize all the information (here). Perhaps I’ll simply start trolling through the materials already listed on the Intro page, and build from there. However it happens, hopefully this will contribute to the field in some small way, even if only to help newcomers navigate unfamiliar territory.

Don’t look down.

Happy International Septuagint Day

You’ll be glad to know that you have not missed it. Today is the eighth celebration of this great day, which was instituted in 2006 by the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS).

The rationale behind the date apparently comes from Robert Kraft’s observation that the date is the only one we have record of being historically related to the Greek Scriptures. In a document dating to February 8th, 533 C.E. the Emperor Justinian, announces permission for public reading of Jewish Scriptures in the Roman Empire. He proclaims his approval of any language, but where Greek is used he states that “those who use Greek shall use the text of the seventy interpreters [i.e. the LXX], which is the most accurate translation, and the one most highly approved…” An English translation of the novella is available here.

There are many reasons to love the Septuagint – not least of all the wide variety of options for pronouncing the word itself (sep-TOO-a-jint, sep-TOO-a-gint; SEP-too-jint; SEP-too-gint; SEP-twa-gint; and on and on). It is a greatly under-valued aspect of the heritage of the Christian religion, since it was (and is) an integral part of the formation of the Old Testament as we read it in our ESVs and NIVs. If we really want to access the most original form of Old Testament scriptures, the LXX is critical to that task since it often preserves older readings, as more biblical scholars are realizing. It also paved the way for the New Testament by furnishing an accessible corpus of scripture (and theology?) to draw upon for the apostles and early church. The LXX is an amazing artifact in its own right, too, a monument to the language, religion, and society of Ptolemaic Egypt. Oddly, more than being ignored in much of biblical scholarship, it is ignored by scholarship concerned with Hellenistic Judaism as well.

So, to help turn the tide, and in the spirit of the “most highly approved” Greek translation, consider reading an excerpt from the LXX today. PDFs of the New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS) are freely available here. Or, you might consider reading an accessible introductory work such as T. Michael Law’s When God Spoke Greek (reviewed in many places, but currently receiving a “dialogic” review here), or Müller’s The First Bible of the Church: A Plea for the Septuagint.

Lexicon Update, &c.

The Lexicon mentioned in my previous post is an ongoing project. After a summer of somewhat slower work on it that I would have liked (my first child was born early May), I have resumed research and writing. As mentioned, the primary focus of this revision is to reassess the categorization of logical/rhetorical relationships assigned to the various Greek lexemes. The first step of so doing is to define the relationships, which itself is an ongoing, but nearly finished process.

The Lexicon is aimed primarily at students of scripture with an intermediate to advanced knowledge of Greek, but with little to no introduction to the field of (text) linguistics. As such, the challenge is to tread the line between detailed explanation and general introduction so that the work is usable and informative without being overwhelming.

Happily, the work is currently under contract, although it may be a while before it goes to press.

Otherwise, I have begun research into LXX-Nahum 1:2-8, the opening divine warrior hymn and so-called “broken acrostic”. This I am analyzing using a methodology developed by my project advisor, Fred Putnam, in order to compare the HB to the LXX and approach the question of translation methodology. This will be a year-long endeavor, but will hopefully orient me to the field of LXX studies in order to pursue doctoral work there.

WAR