Research

International Septuaginta Summer School – July 2015

Septuaginta-Unternehmen

For the fifth year running the Universität Göttingen will host the International Septuaginta Summer School, from July 6-10. This is an exciting and unique program run at one of the foremost institutions of higher educations in the discipline. The university is home to some significant figures in Septuagint studies, and has produced many others. Both Alfred Rahlfs and Robert Hanhart were professors at Göttingen (of the Rahlfs-Hanhart Septuagint), and the list of previous Old Testament faculty reads as a who’s-who of biblical studies, among whom are figures such as Wellhausen, Smend, von Rad, and Zimmerli for starters (not to mention figures in New Testament such as W. Bauer and J. Jeremias).

In the early 20th century, Rahlfs and Smend undertook the foundation of the Göttingen Septuaginta-Unternehmen. With backing from Royal Academy of Sciences of Berlin, the institute launched in 1908 and has had an illustrious history since then. The main production of the Septuaginta-Unternehmen has been a critical edition of the Septuagint, taking into account every known textual witness to date. While there are still several books to be completed (including, regrettably, my chosen book of study, Judges), the finished Göttingen LXX volumes are the gold standard of the discipline, as they reflect a text that hypothetically precedes all recensions.

Septuagint Summer School

Situated at the Lagarde-Haus in Göttingen, the Septuaginta-Unternehmen hosts annual “summer school” for the Septuagint. This is no remedial program for slackers and flunkies, like the American notion of “summer school.” Run by the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen in conjunction with the Faculty of Theology at Göttingen, the summer school only takes 16 applicants in either graduate or postgraduate stages.

More importantly, each year the summer school has been conducted by a keynote speaker. In 2014 this was Dr. Alison Salveson of the University of Oxford, lecturing on Greek Isaiah in interpretive history. This year the speaker is Dr. James K. Aitken of the superlative University of Cambridge.

Complete information, including application procedures, is given on the Septuaginta-Unternehmen website (here).

Greek Language & Septuagint Vocabulary

Aitken’s topic is “From Language to Social Context: The Pentateuch and Later Traditions.” As the site states, this year’s summer school “will examine the evidence and methods for interpreting the context of the Septuagint, while contrasting the Pentateuch to the later traditions of translation (Kaige). The course will introduce students and doctoral students from Europe and all over the world to the issues and methods in Septuagint study, and in particular will teach analysis of the language and vocabulary as a means for evaluating the Septuagint text.” This should be an excellent lecture series, as study of the language and vocabulary of the Septuagint is the foundation for so many other aspects of the discipline.

The best part about the Septuagint Summer School is the cost. At only €300, inclusive of five nights hotel lodging with breakfast, all sessions and materials, and a “cultural program,” it is an incredible deal.

New Resource for Septuagint Vocabulary

Just a brief post here to mention the publication of an excellent new resource for the Septuagint studies community. Just last month Eisenbrauns published No Stone Unturned: Greek Inscriptions and Septuagint Vocabulary (CSHB 5).

Of course, I am somewhat biased in this particular instance, as the author is my supervisor, Jim Aitken. (And no, he is not paying me to do this post). But if you are interested in LXX studies and have not seen this book, you will want to pick it up. At just $26 (here), it’s a great bargain.

Septuagint Vocabulary

I have posted a few times in the past on various matters in LXX studies that have overlapped with the issue of vocabulary. Most notably is the first two posts in my series discussing the approach of modern language translations of the Septuagint (here and here). As I mentioned, there is ongoing discussion among Septuagintalists regarding just how a LXX word is to be defined. Part of the reason that folks differ on that issue is due to differing views on what the LXX actually is (or was meant to be at first), and to what extent that influences word meaning.

Inscriptions & Lexicography

The purpose of Aitken’s new volume, however, it to draw more attention form all parties to inscriptions as a primary resource. In the discipline of Greek lexicography, there are many rooms. Some of these are very heavily trafficked. Word usage and development is extremely well documented for sources like Classical works, the New Testament and related literature (Philo, Josephus, the Fathers). Other rooms, however, are quite dark and forgotten. That is certainly the case with inscriptions, which offer a range of vocabulary and registers from a variety of regions and over may centuries.

That is why inscriptions are so important, and why it is so unfortunate that they have largely been overlooked in the lexicographical enterprise (Another reason being the relatively recent discovery of many of them). Of course, there are major difficulties in dealing with inscriptions, and those wishing to incorporate data from them into their research (such as myself) will have do much of the work de novo. Inscriptions are published in specialized and scattered volumes (with obscure commentary, often in German or Italian), are rarely translated, and employ difficult and fragmentary Greek.

Fortunately, the wonderful opportunities that these challenging primary sources offer are now somewhat more accessible with Aitken’s new book. It helpfully (and briefly!) describes recent discussions in LXX vocabulary and Greek lexicography in general, explains in detail why inscriptions are important, and then describes how to do the work of using them. Grab a copy!

The 2014 Conference Season: A Review

San Diego was Awesome

It probably goes without saying, but this year’s biblical studies conference location is the best I’ve yet experienced. This was only my third year participating in these events, but 70 degrees and sunny every day sure beats the dreary, sub-freezing temperatures I was met with in both Chicago (’12) and Baltimore (’13).

That being said, it was about a 20-hour journey there from Cambridge, all told, so it did not come without pain on my part. Nevertheless, I did have the opportunity to present at both the ETS and SBL conferences, as I wrote about here.

A Study in Contrast

It should go without saying that not everyone who participates in the one conference participates in the other. Indeed, ETS, being as it is evangelical (‘E’), is quite a bit smaller than SBL. The latter tends to throw conferences that are dumbfoundingly well-organized and impressive, fueled by the huge amounts of members and funding poured into the society year after year. On the other hand, ETS is – well – poor. As a result, ETS is rarely in the same venue as SBL for these conferences, and this year the difference was particularly humorous. Both sites were nice, don’t get me wrong. But that was due largely to the fact that they were both in sunny San Diego where palm trees grow like dandelions.

I’ll let you puzzle out which conference center was the venue for which society.

Option A:

Option B:

The Papers

Naturally, I benefited equally from both conferences, however. Just because ETS is poor does not mean it’s not worth your time. Just the opposite! It’s the perfect reason to become involved. The smaller group makes it actually a bit more fun than SBL, where one tends to float anonymously through seas of scholars of all stripes.

“‘There is No Spoon’: Text-Critical Question-Begging in the So-Called ‘Acrostic’ of Nahum 1

To briefly overview the topics I presented on, at ETS I discussed the acrostic of Nahum 1, which in truth is really only a partial acrostic. If you don’t know what an acrostic is, it only gets more obscure from here. The partial acrostic in the first eight verses of the book has a few “problematic” lines, which do not begin with the “right” letters. It is fairly common, therefore, for commentators to “fix” or “emend” the text in one way or another to “restore” it. To attempt to do so is fine as far as it goes. But the problem is that most commentators go too far.

One of the challenges of OT studies is the scant textual evidence at hand. Basically, we have the Masoretic text, the versions (the Latin Vulgate, the Septuagint, and other translations), and the Qumran scrolls. This makes arguments for changing the MT very challenging to make well. In short, in this paper I go through the common arguments for changing the MT to “restore” this acrostic on the basis of the LXX as a text-critical witness, and pick them apart one at a time. Mostly, the arguments are poorly founded or misuse the evidence, especially when the LXX version is understood in light of its translational character.

I am hoping to get this paper turned into a published article.

The Divergent Battle Language in LXX-Judges: ΠΟΛΕΜΕΩ and ΠΑΡΑΤΑΣΣΩ

This paper is directly related to my dissertation research. I have realized that the most straightforward way to explain what I am doing here at Cambridge is to say “Greek lexicography.” Now, that may not help some people, but it is accurate. And I am using the Greek texts of LXX-Judges as a “heuristic environment” of sorts. Basically this means I’m looking at the ways in which the two Greek translations of the one Hebrew book phrase things in different ways, and then investigating why that might be the case.

The way I do that is to dive into Greek documentary evidence for better understanding of the word or words in question. Believe it or not, there is a vast body of Greek writing out there that is mostly ignored by Greek scholars. The reason (simply put) is because it is koine Greek, and not the high-flying and academically respectable Classical Greek that has been so popular for, oh, two thousand years. There is a bit of an academic tradition of snubbing koine Greek, although a major reason for that is because we didn’t quite know that koine Greek was a thing until about a century ago. Until then, the Greek Bible was about the only existing koine document, which is why scholars though it was “Holy Ghost Greek” or a special Jewish-Greek dialect.

But when huge amounts of papyri and inscriptions written in the same kind of Greek were literally dug up about a century ago, all that changed, although there is still lots of work to be done. That’s where I fit in. My paper focused on the differing terminology used for “to battle” or “battle” in both translations. I found that in the B-text, the less common and seemingly unlikely words were chosen in most places. As I investigated the data, I uncovered what I believe is a previously unnoticed semantic change in the words in question: παρατάσσω and παράταξις. These words are used in ways similar to the B-text of Judges as in koine historical literature, and so I suggest that the B-text has literary or specialized terminology in it.

Other Points of Interest

There is too much else to say about these conferences. Suffice it to say that I truly enjoyed my involvement in the Institute for Biblical Research (or IBR, here), and the Scripture and Hermeneutics sub-group (through the Paidaia Centre, here). It was also a great pleasure to meet and talk with many senior scholars in various fields. I’ve said before that attending these conferences pays for itself in terms of the conversations that are available there. The feedback on one’s work and the chance to learn about initiatives and opportunities you did not and would not otherwise know about are invaluable.

I’m already looking forward to next year! As a teaser, there are rumblings of a new Septuagint section at the next ETS conference. But we will have to wait and see what happens.