Subject: Re: tc-list priority

From: John Hill <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 08 Dec 1997 11:25:41 +1100

At 12:27 07-12-97 -0500, Jim West wrote:
>Colleagues,
>
>mine is an historical question.  In the history of TC scholarship has anyone
>ever argued the thesis that the Greek version of the OT is actually the
>older and that the Hebrew version was only later translated for Jews in
>Palestine?

	Jim,
		I'm not aware of a current scholarly debate over the whole of the MT and
LXX. I can only think of the well-known issue that is alive and kicking in
Jeremiah scholarship about the relationship between the MT and LXX textual
traditions, where there is a school of thought that maintains a priority of
the LXX over our MT. The thesis is that our LXX is closer to the earliest
Hebrew Vorlage of the book than our present MT. I'm not aware of a similar
debate over the relationship between LXX  Samuel and MT Samuel. I mention
Samuel together with Jeremiah because the differences between the MT and
LXX traditions is quite extensive - in Jeremiah the MT is about one-eight
longer and has a different order.

---

From: "Dr Johann Cook" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 08:59:31 GMT+0200

> Date:          Mon, 08 Dec 1997 11:25:41 +1100
> To:            [email-masked]
> From:          John Hill <[email-masked]>
> Subject:       Re: tc-list priority
> Reply-to:      [email-masked]

> longer and has a different order.

In respect of Samuel there are indeed scholars who argue that the 
Vorlage of LXX is closer to some Qumran fragments and that it 
represents older Hebrew Vorlagen. This is obviously a difficult 
issue. The text-critical value of any given version must naturally 
first of all be determined before an answer of some value may be 
suggested. It does also pay to hold on to the given that individual 
translation units should be treated separately. What would hold for 
LXX Jeremiah needs not automatically be true of Samuel. I have just 
published a book in the series VTS no 69 at Brill concerning LXX Proverbs 
where I argue that the difference in the order of some of the final 
chapters in LXX compared to MT is the result of the translator and 
not of a deviating Hebrew parent text. I do, nevertheless, suspect 
that in LXX Jeremiah, where a more literal translation technique was 
followed by the translator, different Hebrew Vorlagen are possible. 

Johann Cook 

Prof. Johann Cook 
Department of Ancient Near Eastern Studies
University of Stellenbosch
7600 Stellenbosch
SOUTH AFRICA 
tel 22-21-8083207
fax: 22-21-8083480