Subject: tc-list Psalms 40:7/39:6 -- MT or LXX better attested?

From: Joseph Crea <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 16:23:42 -0500

Hello everyone!

   I know this sounds like a really simple question, but I'm stumped.  I
ran into  an individual who champions the superiority of the LXX over the
MT and claims that the citation of Psalms 40:7/39:6 at Hebrews 10:5 is just
icing on the cake since the "inspired" author would have cited the better
rendition.  He also asserted that the LXX rendering is both better attested
and the earlier reading, mentioning the DSS in passing but providing no
details.

   I thought that debunking this would be a piece of cake -- but when I
pulled out my copy of BHS and looked up the passage in question I couldn't
find a mention of the LXX version, or of any variants whatsoever.  Since
the LXX reading quite definitely is different from the MT, I'm leery of
accepting the claim of the apparatus that there are no other variant
readings out there.  I managed to locate an online Vulgate and was happy to
see that it supports the MT (at least in the Gallican Psalter), but what
about all the other early versions like the Roman Psalter, the Old Latin,
the Peshitta, etc.?  I'm on a student's budget so getting copies of Rahlf's
LXX or the Stuttgart Vulgate has to be as I can afford them and up to now
that hasn't been possible -- and ordering a copy of the Peshitta from the
ABS, while affordable, won't arrive in time to be of use.  Can anyone shed
some light on this for me?  Thanks in advance.

With Mettaa,

Joseph Crea
<[email-masked]>

---

From: "James R. Adair" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 01:16:27 -0400 (EDT)

Rahlfs prints the reading of the Gallican Psalter in the text: wtia de
kathrtisw moi, and this reflects the reading of MT, but BSA read swma for
wtia, agreeing with Heb 10:5.  Were BSA all influenced by the NT reading
here?  Rahlfs seems to think so, but then where does the reading
originate?  Jerome Lund says that there is no obvious way to derive the
Greek reading swma from a Hebrew reading similar to what we have in MT
[)znym], so probably we're looking at an inner-Greek corruption.  The
previous word is hqelhsas, which ends with s, so maybe a scribe (or the
author of Hebrews?--I suspect that the reading arose in the LXX) combined
the final s from hqelhsas with the following word, wtia, in which the ti
had been smudged to resemble a mu (both have two downstrokes in the uncial
form of the letters), hence swma. Of course this is just a guess, but it
seems plausible.  (Cf. Plate VIII in Metzger's Text of the New Testament. 
It doesn't take too much of an imagination to see how the TI in AMARTIAS
[line 7] could be mistaken for M if the left part of the crossbar of the T
was missing or faint.) 

Another possibility is that the author of Hebrews invented the reading
because it made his(?) point better.  Look at Heb 10:10: "... we have been
sanctified through the offering of the body (swma) of Jesus Christ once
for all."  Whether through chance misreading in the tradition or
intentional adjustment on the part of the author, the reading swma is
clearly a "better" reading for the author of Hebrews, because it helps him
make his point about the superiority of Christ's sacrifice to those
required by the law.

As to the question of the inspired author's use of the better text, this
is clearly a point of view based on theological presuppositions rather
than a study of the text.  NT writers tend to quote the LXX rather than
the MT (where they disagree) because it was more familiar to them or, as
in the present case, occasionally because one version or another was more
helpful in supporting the point they were trying to make (maybe Matthew's
citation of Isa 7:14 falls into this category).  There are several
occasions in the NT where a verse is cited in one way here and in another
way there.  These are usually just minor differences, but if the theory of
inspiration is taken to the extreme of having the authors (or God) pick
the "correct" rendering, shouldn't the proponents of this view have to
explain even minor differences in the readings?

Jimmy

***********************************************************************
James R. Adair, Jr.
Director, ATLA Center for Electronic Resources in Theology and Religion
http://purl.org/CERTR
***********************************************************************