Subject: ATTN: LXX scholars--one text or many?

From: "Perry L. Stepp" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 2 Mar 1997 21:11:28 -0600

Ronald L. Minton wrote:

> > However, I still have questions on the percentage of times the NT
quotes 
> > or refers to the Heb, LXX, Both, Neither.  

Matthew Johnson replied:

> Very good question.  However, this is a little harder to answer than one
> might hope, because over the centuries copyists have tended to harmonize
> the OT citations to the LXX.  

An added problem is that the LXX doesn't seem to have been a single text,
but rather a group of divergent texts (if I read the tea leaves properly). 
In other words, there may have been no single ascendant Greek OT text, but
rather a group of them, and no single text could claim to be *the* standard
LXX.

Perhaps a Septuagint scholar can fill in the lacunae in my knowledge of
this particular point and its corrolaries.  Which LXX texts were most
widely used?  How widely do the extant texts diverge?  Is Rahlfs a
satisfactory critical text?  How large a base is its text built on?  How do
NT quotes relate to the schizophrenic state of the LXX in late antiquity
(if the situation is as I've described it)?

Grace and peace, 

Perry L. Stepp

************************************************************
Pastor, DeSoto Christian Church, DeSoto TX
Ph.D. candidate in New Testament, Baylor University

"A system of morality which is based on relative 
emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar
conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing
true."
                    Phaedo 69b
************************************************************

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From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 09:42:47 -0700

On Sun, 2 Mar 1997, "Perry L. Stepp" <[email-masked]> wrote:

[ ... ]
>(if the situation is as I've described it)?

Actually, a dominant text did eventually develop (though it was never
as dominant as the Byzantine text). This seems to have been the "Old
Greek" form of the LXX as revised (probably in several stages) toward
the MT. In general, as I understand it, this text resembles that of
A more than B.

It does not seem likely that this text was completely dominant in
NT times, however. Based, again, on my experience in Paul, the
NT citations don't match any particular text. I once did a check
on Psalms citations in some list of books or other (I can't remember
which). Out of about twelve citations, I believe seven agreed with
Aleph, six with B, and seven with A. I believe three did not match
any of those texts. (Please note that this was a *very* informal
survey; don't quote me, OK?)

My conclusion was that Rahlfs is *not* an adequate authority for
the LXX text. Even if its apparatus includes all the variants in
the tradition, it doesn't tell you their support. And this is
important. Where B, Aleph, and A divide, one needs to know the
evidence of supporting witnesses (C, G, M, N+V, Q, probably some
minuscules) to know how to assess the variant.

Robert Waltz
[email-masked]

Inside Bluegrass
2095 Delaware Avenue
Mendota Heights, MN 55118-4801
612-454-8994
World Wide Web: http://www.mtn.org/~mbotma/

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From: John Wevers <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 08:29:14 -0500 (EST)

The query raised by Robert Waltz raises so many questions that it is
difficult to know where to begin. Permit me to address one of the
questions raised. What about the text of Rahlfs, and on what evidence
is it based? First of all, I am not sure what the questioner means by
Rahlfs. There is the large and complete text of the entire Greek
O.T. Bible. This is usually appreviated Ra. But there are other Rahlfs
texts as well. His Psalmi cum Odi is a semi critical text on the {salter,
but its collations of most materials cited in it are based on the old
Holmes-Parsons voluminous work, which is not at all trustworthy. Then
he did an earlier text of Genesis, based on the Cambridge Septuagint. Since
this rests on a much more secure basis that the large Ra, its text is
markedly superior.
	As to Ra, which is presumably what you wish assessed, it is 
based on a recollation of very few uncial texts. Thus for the 
Pentateuch it cites only B and A and the few fragments of S. For the
rest an occasional hexaplaric gloss is cited, and that is about it.
Since for the Pentateuch, there are over 100 preGutenberg mss
extant, this is obviously not a critical text. In Ralhfs' defence it
should be stated that he never intended Ra to be more that a Nothilfe,
a text which was rapidly prepared to serve as an interim text, which
had at least rid the text of many glaring errors which a text which
presented a single ms text, such as Swete's O.T. in Greek, which is
based, as is the Cambridge LXX, on the text of cod B, and where that
is not extant on cod A. Fortunately, Rahlfs was enamored of cod B
which for many parts of the Greek text is an excellent witness to the
oldest recoverable text of the Septuagint. Far superior to the text
of Ra, and this I am sure is what Rahlfs would have wanted to be
publicized as widely as possible, is the text of the Goettingen LXX,
which is a truly critical text. Unfortunately, these volumes are
very expensive.
	I realize that this is only small reply to the many and varied
queries raised by R. Waltz, but it would take a great deal of time
to cover the ground adequately. It would take a book! JWW
-- 

John Wm Wevers
Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations
University of Toronto
INTERNET: [email-masked]