Initial Impressions of Muraoka’s Syntax of the Septuagint

Septuagint scholars everywhere are rejoicing to finally have a brand new, full grammar of the Greek Old Testament at hand. Although it is still being released in fits and starts from what I hear, Muraoka’s A Syntax of Septuagint Greek is finally shipping. Adding to the momentousness of this occasion beyond its significance for LXX studies is the fact that it has also been over a century since any reference grammar on Koine Greek per se has emerged (i.e., Koine beyond the NT).

There are only two other resources in existence that attempt to do what Takamitsu Muraoka has done for the Septuagint. I say “attempt” because both are incomplete in some sense. Moreover, both are quite old, which while not bad in itself, means that more recent linguistic approaches to grammar are, well, not there.

First, there is H. St. J. Thackeray’s A Grammar of the Old Testament in Greek According to the Septuagint (1908). It’s a classic work, and usually quite useful. However, Thackeray only ever completed Volume 1: Introduction, Orthography, Accidence.

Secondly, we have F. C. Conybeare and G. Stock’s Grammar of Septuagint Greek (1905, but now in an updated version), which is also helpful. But it is very terse and assumes a significant amount of knowledge on the reader’s part, especially of Classical Greek. The actual grammar only runs for the first 100 pages, followed by about 300 more pages of selected readings.

Needless to say, it’s likely that no one has attempted to write a grammar of the Septuagint in over a century because of the outrageous enormity of the task.

Except Takamitsu Muraoka.

Impressions of the Grammar

The paragon of industry, Muraoka started working on this project when he was 74 years old. Ever since his “retirement” in 2003, Muraoka has steadily produced a range of detailed and technical resources for ancient languages like Syriac, Aramaic, and Greek. Much of his work has focused upon the Septuagint, resulting in a lexicon, Greek-Hebrew/Aramaic index, and now a full grammar.

Weighing in at 904 full, 8.5×11 pages, this book is ridiculously gigantic and will definitely scare away your friends. Just the Table of Contents itself is twenty-seven pages long. I am not going to give a full review of the book, but will focus on what Muraoka says about the Greek of the Septuagint in the introduction, then give a few thoughts on the book in general.

The Koine Greek of the Septuagint

One of the things Muraoka points out is how the Septuagint itself is a massive repository of non-literary Koine Greek, perhaps as significant as the pre-Christian documentary evidence for our understanding of the language. Not only is this significant in terms of volume, but also of completeness. That is, the Septuagint is non-fragmentary, unlike many papyri and inscriptions, so we have much more to work with in grammatical description. This is a delightful perspective that is pretty much ignored by every other Greek scholar out there, who typically dismiss “LXX Greek” as some kind of “contaminated” or “illegitimate” Greek because it is a translated text.

But Muraoka emphasizes that Septuagint Greek “basically reflects the pre-Christian Hellenistic Greek” of its time, not a “peculiar jargon” of Alexandrian Jews (p. xxxvii). While it does contain unconventional features in vocabulary and syntax owing to source language interference, Muraoka stresses the need to strike balance in one’s analysis the language of the Septuagint. We should not overemphasize the prominence of these phenomena, lest we mistake Septuagint Greek as a “philological Cinderella for Hellenistic Greek” and miss an opportunity to better understand the latter (p. xxxviii). [Note, Muraoka uses “Hellenistic” and “Koine” interchangeably].

Muraoka believes the Septuagint was produced with public, rather than cultic or personal, readership in mind, and therefore finds it unlikely to have been “written in colloquial, conversational, informal Greek of the streets” (p. xliv). I was a little puzzled by this statement in light of what Muraoka says elsewhere. Judging by the number of qualifiers, I think Muraoka is taking a defensive position here against the often-disdainful characterization of Septuagint Greek as “vulgar” or as a Volkssprache, especially by Classicists (ibid.). Muraoka goes on to say that the translators could also “rise to the occasion and write as elegantly as some contemporary writers … such as Philo or Josephus” (ibid.). As far as I can tell, then, Muraoka seems to wish to say that on the one hand, Septuagint Greek is not like the literary Greek of its era (a fact that does not necessarily reflect upon the capability of the translators), yet neither is it completely devoid of literary qualities. As my supervisor James Aitken has pointed out, this is true of many of the contemporary papyri that we see, for instance, in the Zenon Archive: we find “bursts” of literary style amidst otherwise prosaic but comprehensible written correspondence.

Furthermore, although there is no way to prove it short of emerging evidence, Muraoka maintains that it is likely that the Septuagint preserves the first or only occurrences of contemporary and conventional features of Koine Greek, free from any Semitic influence. This applies to orthography, syntax, new words (neologisms), and also semantic development of the existing lexicon.

Related Digression/Rant

After all, low frequency of written attestation of a linguistic feature in extra-biblical texts is not necessarily indicative of its lack of pervasiveness in contemporary speech. That is, a given expression may be rarely attested and thus apparently not pervasive, yet could have been conventional in speech nevertheless. Our corpus of Greek sources is not fully representative of the language. Not every linguistic feature was written down, what was written down may not statistically match its degree of pervasiveness in speech, plus we’ve lost huge swathes of Greek sources that once existed in the millennia since they were inscribed. When it comes to the Septuagint, it is not necessarily significant that certain constructions are rarely attested in extra-biblical Greek, yet pervasive in the Septuagint. While this can mean the LXX contains an unconventional expression of some kind (of whatever linguistic feature: phonology up to the phrase), we should be wary of too readily assuming that is the case in principle.

Another factor is important: It is reasonable to assume that a construction that does occur at least a few times in extra-biblical Greek was conventional. So, pervasive use in the Septuagint of what is an infrequently attested (but conventional) Greek construction outside the Septuagint may have been motivated by the syntax of the Hebrew if it happens to match the syntax of the infrequently attested conventional Greek construction.  Because of the typically source-oriented approach of the translators of the LXX, if you take a high frequency construction in Hebrew, pair it with an infrequent (but conventional) construction in Koine, voila!, the Greek construction becomes extremely pervasive and productive in the Septuagint, and may even be propagated in non-Jewish communities as a result (read: NT, inter alia). Thus, so-called “literalism” in the Septuagint (another kettle of fish) does not necessarily conflict with the use of contemporary and conventional Greek in translation. The translators were not dummies, but motivated by communicative concerns unknown to us, and they deserve more credibility in their native Greek language then they often receive from the modern scholarly guild.

Reader-Centered Approach

Muraoka addresses some issues along these lines (the digression above), which I greatly appreciate. That is because, by and large, he takes a “reader-centered” approach to the Greek of the Septuagint. Don’t confuse this with “reader response” criticism. This approach assumes that the intended and actual reader of the Septuagint was a Greek speaker, to whom, as Muraoka puts it, the original “Hebrew was, say, Basque, not Greek (!)” (p. xl). These ancient readers knew zero Hebrew. While they were Jews, they were Greek-speaking Jews living, for the most part (at least in the early days of the Septuagint’s production), in the Hellenistic world. So Muraoka focuses primarily on making sense of the Greek text as Greek, not as a “vehicle” for Hebrew (though this does happen at points, as with calques).

He states:

In the course of this research, as the reader can see at many turns, I did try to establish if this or that feature shows significant signs of influence of the linguistic structure of the source text. But I had to be realistic. Those who believe that a syntax of [Septuagint Greek] can be only complete [sic] after a thorough and systematic investigation of the Septuagint from the perspective of translation technique, I could only wish that they undertake such a research and hopefully revise or supplement what is presented here (p. xli).

LXX and the NT

Muraoka is also keenly aware that the Septuagint was a fundamental part of the “religious and cultural milieu” in which the New Testament and Early Church took shape and grew (p. xli). Let his admonition be heeded: “Not only in terms of this shared cultural legacy, New Testament Greek can be best analysed, interpreted, and understood when one is intimately familiar with [Septuagint Greek]“ (p. xli).

Overview & Method

Muraoka’s approach is both analytic and synthetic in method. Thus, there are two major parts of the book: morphosyntax and syntax. The former deals with the “functions and grammatical values of various parts of speech and inflectional categories” (p. xlii). Here we find treatment of paragraphs dealing with 1) nominals and 2) the verb. The Syntax section is most of the volume, and has three parts: Paragraphs dealing with 1) how substantives are expanded, 2) how the verb is expanded, and 3) macro-syntactic questions like coordination, word order, etc.

While Muraoka takes a primarily synchronic approach, he is well aware of diachronic issues, and keeps close watch on related phenomena in Mayser’s massive grammar, among others. Moreover, he is alive to the issues presented by the diversity of translation approaches throughout the Septuagint, along with the (often complex) textual history of a given book and the fact that some books are not translations at all, but compositions in “Septuagintlizing style.” To this end, Muraoka stays alert to distinctions in genre and register, while acknowledging that style and register in particular are often difficult to demonstrate.

Possible Drawbacks

I have not read the full text of this volume, nor used it all that rigorously in the short time it’s been making my bookshelf sag. But there are a few things that I have noted so far that could add up to drawbacks. One of the first things that struck me is the strangely conversational tone yet terse discussion in some of Muraoka’s treatment of a given topic. This could be seen as a benefit, I suppose, but in general I felt the tone was unlike what you typically find in discussions of grammar. Another slight disappointment is that the Hebrew text, where cited, is transliterated.

An issue that is more substantial is the indices. These seem extremely underdeveloped, and it doesn’t surprise me, since I know that these were the last thing that Peeters was waiting before putting it to press. Here is what you get:

  1. List of Frequently Used Technical Terms – 2 pages, 40 headings.
  2. Index of Passages (including Septuagint, NT, Classics, Misc.): – 72 pages (mostly LXX)
  3. Index of Subjects – 4 pages, 125 headings
  4. Index of Words – 3 pages (165 Greek headings, 25 Hebrew headings, 7 Aramaic headings)
  5. Index of Consulted Authors – 6 pages

It feels like the indices were rushed, especially the scanty material in (1), (3), and (4) above, and that will detract from the overall usefulness of the volume.

However, one very user-friendly aspect of this volume that will no doubt allow it to be more widely used, is the fact that Muraoka cites the phrase or sentence relevant to a given issue under discussion, and in the vast majority of cases follows the Greek with an English translation.

Wrapping Up

Overall, as I said at the outset, this is a massive achievement and a massive contribution to the study of Greek, Septuagint scholarship, and biblical scholarship in general. Muraoka is to be lauded for what he has done here. No doubt, there are theoritical issues that will be debatable and could have been improved (and which will be nit-picked by the usual suspects). But, much like the lexicon that Muraoka also single-handedly assembled, his work will provide a remarkably useful foundation for the improvements that can and should be made in the future for this important field.

A Puzzling Article on “the LXX”

I have been a member of the Institute for Biblical Research (IBR) for a few years now. I have attended the past three or four annual meetings, which get squished between the ETS and SBL conferences, and have made a habit of reading IBR’s journal, Bulletin for Biblical Research (BBR) each quarter. In fact, BBR is where I have contributed most of my book reviews by far. It’s a thriving society, and a very good journal for evangelical scholarship.

ibr_logo_headerSo I was excited to find an article in the latest volume that dealt directly with the Septuagint. The article is by Dr. J. Daniel Hays, and entitled “The Persecuted Prophet and Judgment on Jerusalem: The Use of LXX Jeremiah in the Gospel of Luke” BBR 25.4 (2015): 453-73. As I began reading it, however, it seemed to me to contain some flaws, or at least things that left me puzzled. In this post, I want to respond to what I found to be the more unconvincing aspects of Hays’s argument.

In advance of posting, I sent a draft of this critique to Dr. Hays, and his response is at the bottom of the post.

Summary of the Article

Now, I realize that it is probably possible to nit-pick most journal articles into oblivion, so I want to state at the outset that that is not my goal. Rather, I wish to point out how I think Hays’s article represents broader trends in biblical scholarship – especially New Testament scholarship – when interacting with the Septuagint.

I’ll state it up front: Identifying shared vocabulary between the NT and LXX with an indistinct notion of “dependence.” This assumption shows up to some degree in Dr. Hays’s response below.

The article’s abstract is as follows:

This article argues that within Second Temple Judaism, Jeremiah was well known as the paradigmatic “persecuted prophet” and was likewise closely associated with the consequential fall and destruction of Jerusalem. Thus, when the Gospel of Luke portrays Jesus as the “persecuted prophet” in conflict with the leaders in Jerusalem or recounts Jesus’ warnings of judgment on Jerusalem, allusions and parallels to Jeremiah are numerous, implying that the traditions associated with LXX Jeremiah form a critical background for understanding those texts.

Overall, I think that Hays does a fine job defending about 75% his thesis. In fact, I have basically no qualms with anything he proposes about the themes of Jeremiah or its well-known status in Second Temple Judaism. The problems arise when we get to the Septuagint aspect. Again, as his response states, this is the very aspect that Hays assumes.

1) Questionable Textual Basis

One of the first problems in this article appears in Hays’s third footnote. There he states that he cites translations of LXX Jeremiah from the NETS translation (available here). That is fine as far as it goes. But he then states that he will work from Rahlfs-Hanhart’s text of LXX Jeremiah. This is problematic for two reasons. Firstly, Ziegler’s critical edition of OG Jeremiah is the far superior text and should therefore form the basis of any study like this (1). Secondly, the NETS translation of LXX Jeremiah is itself based on Ziegler, not on Rahlfs-Hanhart, which risks misalignment between what Hays cites in English versus Greek, although presumably he checked for this.

2) Questionable References to LXX Jeremiah

Almost as soon as Hays begins to move through his argument, he starts to talk about LXX Jeremiah in terms that are not actually specific to LXX Jeremiah (i.e. Jeremiah in its Greek version, in distinction from the Hebrew original). This is quite pervasive and leads to two problems, a thematic one and a lexical one.

Thematic: First, it causes Hays to illegitimately attribute features proper to Jeremiah in Hebrew to LXX Jeremiah. But any “themes” or “theology” present in Jeremiah in Hebrew are going to carry over into the Greek version, unless you really do some spadework to show how that is not the case (i.e., how LXX Jeremiah somehow changes the message of Jeremiah in Hebrew, which gets picked up by Luke. This is possible, but takes a lot of work to demonstrate). To this extent, wherever Hays talks about Luke adopting a Jeremianic theme, this proves nothing about Luke’s “use” of LXX Jeremiah (i.e., the Greek version specifically). This is like attributing “shared themes” between Charles Spurgeon’s sermons and Romans to his “use” of the KJV. The fact that there are similarities in themes does not arise from the translation itself, but the ideas of the original that the translation conveys.

The fundamental flaw seems to be Hays’ assumption that shared ideas demonstrate the textual dependence of Luke upon LXX Jeremiah (although he never clearly defines “use”). Or, that a relationship of dependence between Luke and LXX Jeremiah does not need to be demonstrated. For example, Hays cites a range of texts from Jeremiah to illustrate the central role of Jerusalem, it’s judgment, and the persecution of the prophet, but there is nothing specific to the Greek text in these matters that isn’t part of the Hebrew also (again, unless you carefully demonstrate this, which Hays does not systematically attempt). This is evident from the fact that Hays often cites both the LXX and MT versification – there is no meaningful difference between the two at the level of concepts or themes.

This problem continues throughout much of the article. See his discussion of:

  • Jeremiah facing rejection on 463
  • Conflict with leaders on 463-64
  • The negative sense of “scribe” and the suffering prophet concept on 464
  • Rejection and Jerusalem themes on 465
  • Judgment on Jerusalem on 465-66
  • Persecution of prophets on 466
  • Lament over Jerusalem on 467-68
  • Den of robbers on 469
  • Destruction of Jerusalem on 470-71
  • Prophetic trials on 471-72
  • “Daughter of Jerusalem” on 472

Lexical: Secondly, Hays repeatedly appeals to “catchwords” to demonstrate what he sees as Luke’s dependence upon LXX Jeremiah. But in the vast majority – if not all – of his examples, the vocabulary identified is far too conventional to necessarily prove any textual relationship. For example, Hays observes that priests are collectively characterized in negative terms in Jeremiah more than any other prophetic book, and points to the appearance of ἱερεύς 35x (p. 456). But, for one thing, the use of the word ἱερεύς is not a “distinctive” of LXX Jeremiah. And if the portrayal of priests in largely negative terms is distinctive, that is a distinctive theme specifically of the Hebrew text, not the LXX version per se. For another thing, nothing about Luke’s use of the word ἱερεύς means he was “dependent” upon the Greek version of Jeremiah, rather than using the word simply to talk about priests. If Luke, too, portrays priests negatively, this has nothing to do with LXX Jeremiah itself (other than perhaps its existence allowing Luke to read and be familiar with the concepts of the Hebrew original, but this too is debatable).

This problem persists through most of the article also, as Hays repeatedly finds shared vocabulary of the broadest sort, then takes the associated concepts and makes them indicative of “use” of LXX Jeremiah. It continues with:

  • ἐκκόπτω on 463
  • αἷμα on 466
  • πῦρ and ἀνάπτω on 467
  • The use of vocatives on 467
  • κλαίω on 468
  • ἐχθρός and ἀνθ᾽ ὧν on 469
  • ἀποστέλλω and δοῦλος on 470
  • ἐρήμωσις on 471

But the fact that both Luke and LXX Jeremiah are written in Greek and share standard vocabulary should not be confused for any special relationship between the two texts themselves, or any special influence upon the theology of Luke from the Greek version of Jeremiah. Agreement in vocabulary is insufficient to prove textual dependence specifically from the Greek version of Jeremiah if that vocabulary accurately reflects the underlying Hebrew. Hays seems to get close to realizing this a few times, but always stops short. On p. 466, for instance, he notes that Luke and Jeremiah both deal with persecution of the prophets, and, although διώκω occurs in other prophetic books, because Jeremiah is the only one to use it in the sense of persecution against God’s prophets like Luke does, there is a relationship of dependence. But again, the Greek vocabulary does not demonstrate any dependence, only shared themes between Luke and Jeremiah, themes that arise specifically from the Hebrew text of Jeremiah. (See a similar case on p. 469 in his discussion of ἐχθρός and its related themes).

The Connection to Lamentations

Hays also observes how in the Greek translation of Lamentations the figure of Jeremiah is framed as the speaker, a feature not present in the Hebrew text. This is one occasion where Hays has identified something that is actually unique to the Greek version of a book versus the MT. Hays attempts to tie the notion of Jeremiah weeping with Luke’s statement in 19:41-48 that Jesus wept over Jerusalem (p. 468). While it is true that Jeremiah weeps on several occasions (9:1; 13:17; 22:10), this is not a feature unique to LXX Jeremiah (as if Jeremiah does not weep in the Hebrew version). And while the reference to Jeremiah in LXX Lamentations is unique to the Greek version, at that point we are talking about the figure of Jeremiah and not the Greek text of Jeremiah. At best, this supports Hays’s point about the prevalence of “Jeremiah” (text[s], themes, theology) in the literary milieu of Second Temple Judaism (pp. 457-60), but at worst it is an equivocation in terms that adds little to his argument for the “use” of LXX Jeremiah in Luke. Again, Hays never defines what he means by “use,” which I think only adds confusion.

Summary and Response

Again, my objective here is not to “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of the Septuagint.” But I want to point out what I might call problematic habits that tend to show up in NT scholarship when interacting with the Septuagint. Ironically, Hays cites a scholar who points out that usually, New Testament use of terms found in the LXX indicates a common literary milieu for Greek-speaking Jews, but not necessarily literary dependence (p. 458 n. 20). I fear that this observation applies globally to Hays’s thesis, as he ends up conflating textual influence with theological (or literary, thematic, etc.) influence. Carefully distinguishing these two is a crucial but too-often overlooked aspect of studies of the New Testament “use” of the Old Testament. (2)

Hays argues that the use of Jeremiah in Luke is “easily overlooked.” I agree, but for very different reasons. In fact, I found little compelling evidence that Luke is “using” LXX Jeremiah, as much as he is simply familiar with the message of the book generally. Still, I would say that Hays does a good job showing how Luke is influenced by Jeremiah in this general way, and that we can see that influence because of the concepts that both Luke and Jeremiah share (in Hebrew or Greek). Yet once you show how Luke is familiar with and employs the distinctive themes found in Jeremiah in Hebrew – which Hays does – it is not at all necessary to bring the Septuagint into the equation. Now, if you could show that Luke had picked up some phrase from LXX Jeremiah that somehow changed what its Hebrew source text said, then I think you could talk about Luke’s “use” of LXX Jeremiah.

Hays’ Response

First of all, I think you are missing my point. I am not trying the show that Luke is using LXX Jeremiah in distinction to MT Jeremiah. I assume that before I even start. That is, I’m starting with the assumption that background OT literary, theological and lexical influence in Luke (as in much of the rest of the NT) comes via the LXX. I’m not trying to establish this or defend it. This is a widely held view in NT studies. What I’m trying to establish is that the OT Prophets should not all be lumped together into an amorphous “common prophetic language” in discussing NT use of the OT. I’m arguing that in regard to the specific themes of the persecuted prophet and the destruction of Jerusalem, Luke is not influenced in his language and allusion by “the prophets” in general but by Jeremiah in particular. In conducting that study, one has to use the LXX. That these same themes show up in MT Jeremiah is irrelevant to my argument.

The lexical comparisons are likewise along these same lines. For example, I point out that the Greek word for “false prophet” shows up on the LXX only 10 times, 9 of which are in Jeremiah. Thus the use of this same term in Luke 6:26 “for that is how their ancestors treated the ‘false prophets’” is not just “common prophetic language” but more specifically language common to Jeremiah.

Arguments about lexical usage, dependence and allusion are by nature only convincing when viewed cumulatively. That is, many of the individual word arguments are hardly conclusive on their own (as you note) and can be challenged one by one. But cumulatively, tracked throughout Jeremiah, underscored and strengthened by the many times that same word of phrase only occurs in Jeremiah (and not in Isaiah, etc.) the argument gains strength.

Conclusion

I’m grateful for Dr. Hays’s work, and for his generous (and kind!) response to my criticism. It is always refreshing when scholarly interaction is civil and clarifying.

___________________________

(1) J. Ziegler. Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum Auctoritate Societatis Litterarum Gottingensis editum XV: Ieremias Baruch Threni Epistula Ieremiae. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1957.

(2) For a helpful overview of similar misuses of “the LXX” in NT scholarship, see pp. 39-44 in McLay, R. T. The Use of the Septuagint in New Testament Research. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2003.

LXX Scholar Interview: Dr. Emanuel Tov

Today I continue with my ongoing Septuagint Scholar Interview Series, which has been underway for at least two years now. The seventh scholar to participate in this undertaking whose interview is featured today, is Dr. Emanuel Tov. Presently Dr. Tov is actively researching and writing as professor emeritus in the Department of Bible at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. If you are at all involved in Old Testament textual studies, you will know Tov’s extensive work.

Without getting into the same details that you will hear about in the interview, Dr. Tov has an amazing “scholarly biography” of work with esteemed scholars such as Sha’Arei Talmon, Isac Leo Seeligman, Moshe Goshen-Gottstein, Chaim Menachem Rabin, and many others. He has contributed to numerous projects, some of which are ongoing, that have changed the landscape of Old Testament studies.

I was excited to have the opportunity to try out a video format for this interview, and I am thankful for Dr. Tov’s willingness to give some of his time. The video is about 30 minutes long, and in it you will hear about Dr. Tov’s early academic training in Septuagint, his work in Greek lexicography with John W. Wevers, the development of CATSS and the Hebrew University Bible Project, and lots more. Sit back with a cup of coffee and enjoy hearing from one of the most influential scholars in Septuagint scholarship today (Oh, and also buy his most recent book).

If you want to skip around in the video, here are the questions, although there are a lot of interesting rabbit trails in between:

0:00-3:18        Describe how you became interested in LXX studies and your training?
3:19-7:04        How did your academic mentors think about the Greek of the Septuagint? 
7:05-17:30      Describe some of your more significant publications in the field.
28:45-29:30   How has the field changed over the course of your career?
24:15-25:24   What are areas in LXX that still need research? 
25:25-28:44   What are some of your current projects in LXX studies?
28:45-29:30   What is the future of LXX studies?