psalms 38 and 145 of the old greek version

8/17/2019 Psalms 38 and 145 of the Old Greek Version

1/412


2/412

Psalms 38 and 145 of the Old Greek Version


3/412

Supplementsto

Vetus Testamentum

Editor in Chief

Christl M. Maier

Editorial Board

H.M. Barstad - N. Calduch-Benages - D.M. Carr - R.P. Gordon - L.C. Jonker J. Joosten - G.N. Knoppers - A. van der Kooij - S.L. McKenzie - C.A. Newsom

M. Nissinen - H. Spieckermann - N. Wazana - S.D. Weeks - H.G.M. Williamson

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/vts

http://brill.com/vtshttp://brill.com/vts


4/412

Psalms 38 and 145

of the Old Greek Version By

Randall X. Gauthier

|


5/412

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gauthier, Randall X., author.Psalms 38 and 145 of the old Greek version / by Randall X. Gauthier.

pages cm – (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum ; volume 166)Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 978-90-04-28337-4 (hardback) : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-90-04-28338-1 (e-book)1. Bible. Psalms. Greek. Septuagint. 2. Bible. Psalms–Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Title. II. Series:

Supplements to Vetus Testamentum ; v. 166.

BS1430.52.G38 2014223'.2048–dc23

2014034591

This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters coveringLatin, , Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For moreinformation, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface.

- ---- (hardback) ---- (e-book)

Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke Brill , Leiden, The Netherlands.Koninklijke Brill incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhof and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system,or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill providedthat the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive,Suite 910, Danvers, 01923, . Fees are subject to change.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.


6/412

τῇ γυναικί μου τῇ ἀγαπητῇκαὶ τοῖς δυσὶ υἱοῖς μου τοῖς ἀγαπητοῖς

∵


7/412


8/412

Contents

Acknowledgements Sigla & Abbreviations

Introduction 1 Overview 1 Delimitation 2 Textual Considerations 7 Outline 34

Literature Overview 36Part 1. Overview of Select Septuagint Translations & Methods 36 Introduction 36 A New English Translation of the Septuagint () 41 La Bible d’Alexandrie (BdA) 62 Septuaginta Deutsch (.) 72 Septuagint Commentary Series 81Part 2. Translation & Communication 82 Septuagint and Communication 82 and Translation Studies: Relevance Theory () 84 Relevance Theory and Interlingual Communication 90 Relevance Theory and Septuagint Studies 95 Septuagint Hermeneutics and Exegesis: Implications 101 Conclusion 104

Overview of Methodological Considerations 105 Grammatical, Syntactical, Lexical Comparisons 105 Versions 105 Context 105 Dual Emphasis 106 The Lexica and Lexicography 113

Psalm 38 ( 39) 117 Translation 117 Outline of Psalm 38:1–14 118 Textual Source Description 119 The Dead Sea Scrolls 119


9/412

Introduction 120 Commentary 120

Psalm 145 ( 146) 229 Translation 229 Outline of Psalm 145:1–10 230 Textual Source Description 230 The Dead Sea Scrolls 230 Introduction 232 Commentary 233

Summary and Conclusions 303 Overview & Delimitation 303 Textual Criticism 303 Literature & Method 304 Psalms 38 & 145 309

Appendix 319 Purpose & Scope 319

Method & Explanation 319 Index 321Bibliography 359Index of Modern Authors 380Index of Subjects 384Index of Texts 385


10/412

Acknowledgements

This book is a modied version of my doctoral dissertation, the research for which was conducted at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, from 2007to2010.Inowhappilythankthosewhoweremostinstrumentaltome,fromthebeginning of my undergraduate study to the present day. Thanks go to RonaldSauer for instilling in me a love for the Greek language and encouraging me todig deeper. To Jon Laansma, I give thanks for taking me to the next step. Hisacademic rigor and incisive mind always remind me of how far I have yet to go.He helped me think through countless issues during my undergraduate and

graduate work, and provided numerous helpful responses to technical Greek questions involved with my doctoral project.

Through it all, my love for the Psalms has only increased over the years,having been rst stoked in the res of my rst Hebrew exegesis classes under

Andrew J. Schmutzer so many years ago. To him I owe perhaps my greatest andsustained gratitude for nursing me along from my earliest steps right up to thepresent. In him I have found not only an exemplary scholar, but have gained alife-long friend and mentor. Indeed, without Andrew I would have never made

it to the doctoral level.Special thanks go to Gideon Kotzé, who not only read and commented on

earlier drafts of my dissertation, but regularly brought serious textual issues tolight.AsironsharpensironIowehimthanksforhiscarefulreadingofmywork,his expertise in textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible, as well as his assistanceto me in understanding subtle nuances of so much German! My research isthe better for him. I also give special thanks to my external examiners, Robert

J.V. Hiebert and Harry F. van Rooy, and my internalexaminer, Johan C. Thom, forbringing numerous errors to the light and for providing substantial feedback.Notwithstanding, all of the views expressed are my own as well as any errorsthat linger.

Without a doubt my doctoral promoter, Johann Cook, deserves my heart-feltthanks for reasons too many to count. His scholarly output, interest, special-ization, and promotion of the Septuagint attracted me to Stellenbosch in therst place. During my brief stint in the beautiful wine country he calls home,I quickly learned that Johann is always positive, warm, jovial, witty, brilliant,open-minded, networking, planning, writing, teaching, and working. His well-deserved and hard-earned reputation as a continental scholar is the result of his tireless work ethic in his research pursuits and in the tasks he performs inconjunction with the many hats he wears in South Africa. Thanks go to Johann,Marie, and Herman-Peter for the personal invitations to their home, the warm


11/412

hospitality extended to me and my family, and for many wonderful braai expe-riences. Through it all I continually made use of Prof. Cook’s open oce doorand even had the privilege of taking intensive courses from him in biblical and

extra-biblical Aramaic, Syriac, and Coptic. I was also able to participate in aca-demic conferences in South Africa and Namibia, at the expense of his ownresearch fund.

ThanksgototheformakingresearchfundspossibleandtoProf.Cook forchannelingagenerousportionofthesefundstomethrougharesearchassis-tantship. Thanks go to the University of Stellenbosch for the generous meritbursary that I benetted from for two years. Without this nancial support thepresent research would not have been possible. I thank the staf of the Gericke

library and especially the interlibrary loan oce, which I put to a great deal of work.

Finally, I wish to thank my family for prayerful and nancial support for somany years, and most recently, to my parents for their gracious help in thetransition of our repatriation. I give thanks to my wife, Heather, most of all,for the daily support and strength to move forward. We moved from Texas toChicagoandontoSouthAfricawhereourrstsonwasborn.WithoutHeather’s

willing and adventurous spirit I would have gone nowhere a long time ago.


12/412

Sigla & Abbreviations

Sanders, Henry A., ed. The Old Testament Manuscripts in the Freer Col-lection: Part , The Washington Manuscript of the Psalms. University of

Michigan Studies Humanistic Series . New York: The Macmillian

Company, 1917. See ch. 1, 3.2.4.

Kasser, Rodolphe and Michel Testuz. Papyrus Bodmer : Psaumes

– . Cologny-Genève: Biblothèque Bodmer, 1967. See ch. 1,

3.2.4.

* When subjoined to a lexical reference the asterisk (*) indicates that the

example or verse noted is explicitly cited in the lexica.* The Old Greek; the “original” or oldest recoverable text as opposed to

later revisions or copies. Sometimes * refers to the translator(s) of

this text. Context will determine whether the text or translator(s) is

intended.

Septuagint (= )

Masoretic Text (= )

Qumran, see ch. 1, 3.4.2.

Syriac Peshitṭa, see ch. 1, 3.4.2. Targum Psalms, see ch. 1, 3.4.2.

Latin Vulgate (= Uulg), see ch. 1, 3.4.

Aquila (= α´) according to the marginal note in Codex Syro-Hexaplaris

Ambrosianus after the edition of Ceriani, Antonio Maria, ed., Codex

Syro-Hexaplaris Ambrosianus Photolithographice Editus. Monumenta

Sacra et Profana Vol 7. Milan: Typis et impensis Bibliothecae Ambrosia-

nae, 1874.

ܣ Symmachus (= σ´) according to the marginal note in Codex Syro-Hexa-

plaris Ambrosianus after the edition of Ceriani (1874).

α´ Aquila

σ´ Symmachus

θ´ Theodotion

Codex Alexandrinus, see ch. 1, 3.2.4.

´’ + 1219+55 + fragments 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2016,

2020, 2021, 2022, 2025, 2027, 2029, 2030, 2031, 2036, 2043, 2047, 2048, 2054

Codex Vaticanus, see ch. 1, 3.2.4.

´’ + + Bo + fragments 2008, 2014, 2019, 2037, 2039, 2042, 2044, 2049, 2051

Biblical Archaeologist

Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research

Bonner biblische Beiträge


13/412

&

BdA La Bible d’Alexandrie, see ch. 2, 3.

Bauer, Walter, Frederick William Danker, W.F. Arndt, and F.W. Dan-

ker. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early

Christian Literature. 3rd edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,2000.

Brown, Francis, S.R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, eds., A Hebrew and

English Lexicon of the Old Testament . Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936.

Blass, F., Debrunner, A. & Funk, R.W. 1961. A Greek Grammar of the

New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (revised edition).

Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium

Van der Merwe, Christo and Jacobus Naudé, and Jan H. Kroeze. A Bib-lical Hebrew Reference Grammar . Biblical Languages: Hebrew. Sheeld:

Sheeld Academic Publishers, 1999.

Elliger, K., and W. Rudolph, eds. Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Stuttgart:

Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1984.

Bib Biblica

Bulletin of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate

Studies

Bo Bohairic Coptic, see ch. 1, 3.4.Brenton Brenton, L.C.L. The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament, According

to the Vatican Text, Translated into English. London: S. Bagster and Sons,

1844.

Catholic Biblical Quarterly

Cod. Codex Leningradensis

ConBOT Coniectanea biblica: Old Testament Series

Crum Crum, Walter Ewing. A Coptic Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939.

Smith, J. Payne. A Compendious Syriac Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1967.

Discoveries in the Judean Desert . See especially Ulrich, Eugene, et al.,

eds. Qumran Cave 4.: Psalms to Chronicles. . Oxford: Claren-

don Press, 2000; Martínez, Garcia, E.J.C. Tigchelaar, and A.S. Woude.

Manuscripts from Qumran Cave 11 (112–18, 1120–30). . Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1997; Sanders, James A. The Psalms Scroll of Qumran

Cave 11 (11QPsa). . Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Crossway Bibles, 2006.

Forschungen zum Alten Testament

The Forms of the Old Testament Literature

Muraoka, Takamitsu. A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint . Lou-

vain-Paris-Walpole, Ma: Peeters, 2009.


14/412

&

Gesenius, Wilhelm, Emil Kautzsch, and Arthut E. Cowley. Gesenius’

Hebrew Grammar . 2nd Revised Edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910.

Gö The Göttingen Septuagint

Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies Koehler, L. and W. Baumgartner. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the

Old Testament . 2 volumes. Translated by M.E.J. Richardson. Leuven: Brill

Academic Publishers, 2001.

Hebrew Bible

Harvard Theological Review

Hebrew Union College Annual

Waltke, Bruce K. and M.P. O’Connor. An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew

Syntax. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990. Jastrow Jastrow, Marcus. Dictionary of the Targumim, theTalmud Babli and Yeru-

shalmi and the Midrashic Literature. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers,

2005.

Journal of Biblical Literature

Journal of Jewish Studies

- Joüon, Paul, and Takamitsu Muraoka. A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew: 2

volume Set. Volume 1, Part 1. Orthography and Phonetics; Part 2. Morphol-

ogy. Volume 2, Part 3 Syntax. Subsidia Biblica, 14/1–14/2. Rome: BiblicalInstitute Press, 1994.

Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages

The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic text: A New Translation.

Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1917. Also

called the Jewish Publication Society Version (1917), Tanakh.

Jewish Quarterly Review

JSem Journal of Semitics

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament: Supplement Series

Indicates the ketib form of a word.

TheHolyBible:KingJamesversion.Nashville:ThomasNelsonPublishers,

1989.

The Lucianic recension (= Byzantine, Vulgar, Antiochan)

´’ Tht, Sy + , , He; , , ; Su, Th, Ch; 1046, 2040+119 collated by

Holmes and Parsons

La Here La = Old Latin (La) + Ga + iuxta Hebraeos. In Rahlfs (1979) La =

La and La.

La The Old Latin portion of the Verona () Psalter, see 1.3.4.

La The Old Latin “Lat. 11947” in nat Bibl. The text used here comes from

Sabatier, Pierre. Bibliorum Sacrorum Latinae Versiones Antiquae seu


15/412

&

Vetus Italica et Caeterae Quaecunque in Codicibus Manuscriptis et Anti-

quorumLibrisRepeririPotuerunt:QuaecumVulgataLatina,&cumTextu

Graeco Comparantur . Volume 2. Remis: Reginaldum Florentain, 1743.

See 1.3.4. Lust, Johan, Erik Eynikel, and Katrin Hauspie. Greek-English Lexicon of

the Septuagint . Revised Edition. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft,

2003.

- Louw, J.P. and Eugene Albert Nida eds. Greek-English Lexicon of the New

Testament Based on Semantic Domains.Volumes1&2.NewYork:United

Bible Societies, 1996.

Liddell, H.G., R. Scott, and H.S. Jones. A Greek-English Lexicon. 9th Edi-

tion with a Revised Supplement. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. The Septuagint (= )

. Kraus, Wolfgang and Martin Karrer, eds. Septuaginta Deutsch: Das Grie-

chische Alte Testament in Deutscher Übersetzung. Stuttgart: Deutsche

Bibelgesellschaft, 2009.

Masoretic Text (= )

- The arrangement of the Hebrew Psalter as evidenced in the 150 psalms

of .

Horsley, G.H.R. ed. New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity. 9 Vol-umes. Sydney: Macquaire University, 1976–1987.

The Bible: New English Translation (rst edition); Biblical Studies

Press (1996–2005); www.bible.org.

Pietersma, Albert and Benjamin Wright, eds. A New English Translation

of the Septuagint and Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included

under that Title. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson

Publishers, 1989.

Old Testament Studies

Inicates the qere form of a word.

Codex Verona, see ch. 1, 3.4.1.

´’ + La + La + Aug Tert Cyp

Ra Rahlfs, Alfred and Robert Hanhart, eds. Septuaginta: Id est Vetus Tes-

tamentum Graece Iuxta Interpretes, Duo Volumina in Uno. Editio

Altera. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2006.

Rahlfs’s The text of Rahlfs, Alfred. Septuaginta id est Vetus Testamentum Graece

Iuxta Interpretes. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1935, 1979.

The Review of Biblical Literature

Robertson Robertson, A.T. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of

Historical Research. Nashville: Broadman Press, 1934.

http://www.bible.org/http://www.bible.org/


16/412

&

TheHolyBible:RevisedStandardVersion.Nashville:ThomasNelsonPub-

lishers, 1972.

Revue de théologie et de philosophie

Codex Sinaiticus, see 1.3.2.4.Sa Sahidic Coptic, see 1.3.4.

Sa Budge, Ernest Alfred Wallis. The Earliest Known Coptic Psalter: The Text,

in the Dialect of Upper Egypt, Edited from the Unique Papyrus Codex Ori-

ental 5000 in the British Museum. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner

& Co. Ltd, 1898. See 1.3.4.

Sa Rahlfs, Alfred, ed., Die Berliner Handschrift des sahidischen Psalters.

Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen. Philo-

logisch-Historische Klasse. Neue Folge Band 4, No. 4. Göttingen: Van-denhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970.

Society of Biblical Literature Septuagint and Cognate Studies

Septuagint and Cognate Studies

Smyth Smyth, Herbert W. Greek Grammar . Fifth Printing Edition. Cambridge,

: Harvard University Press, 1968.

Syh The Syrohexaplaric Psalter according to Ceriani, Antonio Maria, ed.,

Codex Syro-Hexaplaris Ambrosianus Photolithographice Editus. Monu-

menta Sacra et Profana Vol 7. Milan: Typis et impensis Bibliothecae Ambrosianae, 1874 and Hiebert, Robert J.V. “The “Syrohexaplaric”

Psalter: Is Text and Textual History.” Pages 123–146 in Der Septuaginta-

Psalter und Seine Tochterübersetzungen. Edited by Anneli Aejmelaeus

and Udo Quast. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000, see 1.3.4.

Thomson The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Covenant, Commonly Called

the Old and New Testament: Translated from the Greek .

Theologische Literaturzeitung

TynBul Tyndale Bulletin

Uulg The Latin Vulgate (= )

Vigiliae Christianae

Vetus Testamentum

VTSup Supplements to Vetus Testamentum

Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament

Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft


17/412


18/412

© , , | : ./_

1

Introduction

1 Overview

The present study is foremost a commentary on Psalms 38 ( 39) and 145( 146) in the Septuagint () version, or more accurately, the Old Greek (, *) version. To my knowledge there has yet to be written a thoroughassessment of the version of these psalms. More specically, the present

analysis shallbe aimed at understanding the semantic meaning of these psalmsat the point of their inception, or composition, i.e. as translated literary unitsderivative of a presumed Semitic parent text (Vorlage). Put diferently, thisstudy sets out to understand how these psalms were interpreted in translationby the translator(s).

I shall not readdress the diculties of terminology (“the ,” Septuagint, Old Greek, etc.)beyond this point, since this has been adequately and abundantly discussed elsewhere (see

also the list of abbreviations). Notable discussions include: Henry Barclay Swete, An Introduc-

tiontotheOldTestamentinGreek (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,1902),9–10;RobertKraft, “Septuagint,” in The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (supplementary volume; eds.Emmanuel Tov and Robert Kraft; Nashville: Abingdon, 1976), 807–815; Leonard Greenspoon,

“The Use and Abuse of the Term “” and Related Terminology in Recent Scholarship,” 20 (1987): 21–29; Melvin K.H. Peters, “Septuagint,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (ed.

David Noel Freedman; New York: Doubleday, 1992), 1093–1104; Karen Jobes and Moises Silva, Invitationto the Septuagint (GrandRapids: Baker, 2000); R. Timothy McLay, TheUseoftheSep-

tuagintinNewTestamentResearch (GrandRapids:Eerdmans,2003),5–7.Toavoidterminolog-ical confusion I shall at times refer to “Rahlfs’s ” rather than merely “the .” This refersto Rahlfs’s Handausgabe, the books of the published in Alfred Rahlfs, Septuaginta id est Vetus Testamentum Graece Iuxta Interpretes (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1935,1979), which shall serve as a delimited corpus for the sake of Septuagintal cross-referencesthroughout the course of this study. Admitting all the while that the ner points as to what

actually constitutes the “Septuagint” are not settled, Eugene Ulrich states: “there is no fully

acceptable or consistent usage of the term.” Eugene Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Ori- gins of the Bible (StudiesintheDeadSeaScrollsandRelatedLiterature;GrandRapids:WilliamB. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), 205. Unless otherwise stated, I shall not refer to the

“Septuagint” (, ) in its more technical and precise usage as only pertaining to the Greek Pentateuch, but generically, referring to the Jewish Greekscriptures. Further, * shall be usedto represent either the translation, or the translator(s), depending on the context.


19/412


20/412

3

of the Greek Psalter (and other translated books of the ) is a rather formaladherence to its presumed Semitic source. At the broadest level we might say

with little controversy that the Greek tends to represent its Vorlage word for

word, even morpheme for morpheme. Consider Ps 1:1 and 47(48):6–7 whereeach Hebrew morpheme nds a corresponding formal representation in theGreek.

Ps 1:1

ו

ו

μακάριος ἀνήρ ὃς οὐκ ἐπορεύθηἐν βουλῇ ἀσεβῶν

καὶ ἐν ὁδῷ ἁμαρτωλῶν οὐκ ἔστηκαὶ ἐπὶ καθέδραν λοιμῶν οὐκ ἐκάθισεν

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the council of the wicked and doesnot stand in the way of sinners anddoes not sit in the seat of scofers.

Blessed is the man who did not walk in the counsel of the ungodly and didnot stand in the way of sinners anddid not sit in the seat of evil men.

Ps 47(48):6–7

ה

נ

ר

ח

αὐτοὶ ἰδόντες οὕτως ἐθαύμασανἐταράχθησαν ἐσαλεύθησαντρόμος ἐπελάβετο αὐτῶν ἐκεῖ ὠδῖνες ὡς τικτούσης

They saw it , so they were astounded;they were in panic, they took to ight;trembling took hold of them there,pains as of a woman in labor.

When they saw, so they wereastounded; they were troubled; they

were shaken; trembling took hold of them there, pains as of a woman inlabor.

Along with formal replication, one may observe in the previous examplesthat each morpheme is also represented with a relatively predictable seman-tic expression. In contrast, however, are instances that betray more signi-cant levels of lexical-semantic variation. Take for example Ps 54(55):9, and

verse 22:

All translations provided are my own, unless specied otherwise.


21/412

4 1

Verse 9

מ

προσεδεχόμην τὸν σῴζοντά με

ἀπὸ ὀλιγοψυχίας καὶ καταιγίδος

I would hurry to my place of shelter,from the raging wind and tempest.

I was waiting for the one who wouldsave me from discouragement andtempest.

Verse 22

ח

ו

ר

ו

διεμερίσθησαν ἀπὸ ὀργῆς τοῦ προσώπουαὐτοῦκαὶ ἤισεν ἡ καρδία αὐτοῦἡπαλύνθησαν οἱ λόγοι αὐτοῦ ὑπὲρ ἔλαιονκαὶ αὐτοί εἰσιν βολίδες

His mouth was smoother than butter,but his heart was war; his words were

softer than oil, but they were drawnswords.

They were divided because of theanger of his face, and his heart drew

near; his words were softer than oil,and they are missiles.

In all four examples it is observable that the translator garnered structuralcues, i.e. word order, grammar, even syntax, etc., from the formal features of the Hebrew itself, minor diferences notwithstanding. With the proviso that is representative of the Vorlage in Ps 54(55):9, 22 and that the lexical-semanticdiferences can be attributed to the translation process itself, it becomes appar-ent that the linguistic relationship of isomorphism, which generally entailsa near one-to-one correspondence on the level of morphological represen-tation, does not ipso facto entail the same degree of correspondenceor exactitude with respect to the lexical-semantic choices during thatprocess.

For a more detailed examination of the translational issues in the Psalm, see Randall X. Gau-

thier, “Psalm 54 (The Septuagint): He Who Saves from Discouragement and Tempest,” in The

Psalms: Languagefor All Seasons of the Soul (eds. DavidM. HowardJr. andAndrewSchmutzer;Chicago: Moody Press, 2013), 165–182.


22/412

5

2.1.1 Isomorphism and IsosemantismIndeed, James Barr articulated and illustrated this point long ago in his seminalmonograph The Typology of Literalism in Ancient Biblical Translations when

he noted: “there are diferent ways of being literal and of being free, so that atranslation can be literal and free at the same time but in diferent modes or ondiferent levels.” Integral to the notion of Barr’s “typology of literalism” is thefact that formal correspondence (source orientation) and semantic “adequacy”are two separate issues. Put in other terms, isomorphism does not necessarily secure or entail isosemantism, or equivalence in lexical-semantic choice ormeaning in translation, on the level of isomorphism.

Even though παρ’ ἀέλους is an isomorphic representation of מ/ in

Ps 8:5, it is not isosemantic; ἄελος does not clearly ofer the same semanticcontribution to the verse in Greek that may in Hebrew, since θεός nor-mally lls this slot as a near-equivalent of . This is supported statistically insofar as is represented with θεός over 350 times in the Greek Psalter,κύριος 3×, and ἄελος 3×. Moreover, even some stereotyped equivalents andcalques do not comport as near-synonymous terms (e.g. διαφθορά “corruption”/ ׁש “grave”; δύναμις “power, strength” / צ “army”), and these too play animportant role in the lexical make-up of the Psalter. In any case the lexical

make-up of the Greek Psalter in relation to the Hebrew Vorlage is integrally related to translation technique.

To be sure, an explanation for many instances of non-isosemantic corre-spondence can be quickly attained with recourse to the presumed Vorlage. InPs 7:7 (see appendix) it is obvious that * understood as derivative of (=ὁ θεός μου) instead of the preposition as it was rendered in Jerome’s iuxta Hebraeos (= adme). Simple examples like these concretize our condence that

James Barr, The Typology of Literalism in Ancient Biblical Translations (Nachrichten der Aka-demie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen; Jr 1979; . Philologisch-historische Klasse; Mitteilun-gen des Septuaginta-Unternehmens 15; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979), 280. In

this essay Barr elaborates on six features of translation: 1. segmentation, 2. quantitative addi-tion/subtraction, 3. consistency/non-consistency in rendering, 4. semantic accuracy, 5. “ety-mological” rendering, 6. level of text analysis. Barr shows that each of these features exists

in the full range of translations that are considered literal (e.g. Aquila) and free (e.g. Job,

Proverbs). While there is no such word as “isosemantic/isosemantism” that I know of, it is coined here

as an analogous complement to “isomorphic/isomorphism.” What isomorphism is to formal

features, isosemantism is to meaning. Ps 52(53):7; 55(56):2; 76(77):2. Ps 8:6; 96(97):7; 137(138):1.


23/412

6 1

the Vorlage must have been . Other instances must be explained in other ways. For example, in 31(32):2 * interpreted ר notas“spirit”orπνεῦμα,butas“breath,” hence we nd στόμα employed as a metonymy. Or again, in Ps 30(31):3

θεός renders withצ a “non-literal” translation technique that conveys the sub-stance of the Hebrew metaphor at the sacrice of the metaphor itself. Basedon that premise, it is reasonable to imagine that צ “neck” in 74(75):6 wasread as צ “rock,” hence the translator’s identication with θεός. In the caseof the latter three examples, the modern interpreter must have recourse totranslation technique to broach something of a rationale behind the varia-tion.

2.1.2 Ps 38 and 145 as ExemplarsOn the individual word level these types of isomorphic lexical switches are

voluminous and relatively easy to locate. As already indicated, the cause fortheir variation cannot be attributed toa single domain, say, of translation or tex-tual criticism. Rather, they reect a variety of phenomena that fall under bothdomains.Thesephenomenainclude:(a)textualambiguitiesandcorruptionsinan -type Vorlage,(b)diferencesinthe Vorlage (i.e.anon-reading),(c)sec-ondary variants in the transmission history of the Greek text, or (d) translation

technique, which includes but is not limited to intentional shifts in represen-tation / interpretation.

Where one such example can be isolated, it seems reasonable that most,if not all, such examples can be isolated in each psalm. The appendix oferssuch a list culled from the whole of the Psalter. By ordering each Greek psalmaccording to its percentage of lexical-semantic variation against , it canbe shown that Ps 38 and 145, neither the most extreme examples on eitherside of the spectrum, nevertheless fall representatively toward each of itsends.

0% Pss 12, 13, 26, 66, 81, 92, 97, 98, 99, 111, 112, 116, 121, 124, 134, 142, 147,149

> 0–.99% Pss 104, 135, 144, 24, 85, 105, 86, 35, 96, 6, 146, 65, 137, 108, 4, 110, 53,78, 42, 117, 1

1–1.99% Pss 113, 106, 123, 120, 101, 115, 33, 129, 29, 27, 14, 36, 148, 127, 125, 102,23, 122, 50, 150, 118, 32, 40, 93, 141, 145, 56, 20, 11, 68, 84, 60, 71, 107,77, 52, 3, 43, 76, 18

Stafan Olofson, The Version: A Guide to the Translation Technique of the Septuagint (ConBOT 30; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1990), 21.


24/412

7

2–2.99% Pss 37, 34, 88, 22, 103, 95, 5, 70, 16, 17, 139, 74, 30, 63, 133, 126, 136, 62,7, 100, 69, 39, 21, 143, 41, 119, 10, 9, 48, 46,

3–3.99% Pss 44, 109, 114, 8, 19, 80, 2, 82, 94, 132, 25, 130, 90, 128, 58, 55, 131, 89,

28 4–4.99% Pss 51, 47, 87, 45, 49, 73, 138, 15, 79, 75 5–5.99% Pss 59, 91, 67, 57, 1406–6.99% Pss 64, 317–7.99% Pss 83, 72, 61, 388–8.37% Ps 54

3 Textual Considerations

3.1 AnEclectic Approach

Believing that the establishment of a text must logically precede analyses of its meaning, the present work is framed by the more traditional concerns of textual criticism vis-à-vis the work of a translator or group of translators. Withthis in mind, Ps 38 and 145, as disparate, unrelated psalms, are deemed to be as

worthy as any other psalms for critical scrutiny.

Since the object of the present study consists of “texts” that are no longerknown to be extant in their autographs, the present analysis shall proceed onthe basic assumptions underlying the eclectic project of the Septuaginta-Unternehmen of Göttingen. Ultimatelystemming from thetext-critical insightsof Paul de Lagarde who said, “die manuscripte der griechischen übersetzungdesaltentestamentssindalleentwederunmittelbarodermittelbardasresultateines eklektischen verfahrens,” this commentary assumes that the recovery of * necessarily requires an eclectic approach. Thus, insofar as it is assumed

Paul de Lagarde, Anmerkungen zur griechischen Übersetzung der Proverbien (Leipzig:

F.A. Brockhaus, 1863), 3. Note that de Lagarde does not capitalize nouns! De Lagarde continues his rst principle: “darum mufs (sic), wer den echten text wieder-

nden will, ebenfalls eklektiker sein, sein maafsstab (sic) kann nur die kenntniss des

stylesdereinzelnenübersetzer, sein haupthilfsmittel mufs diefähigkeitsein, die ihmvork-

ommenden lesarten auf ihr semitisches original zurückzuführen oder aber als original-griechische verderbnisse zu erkennen.” De Lagarde, Anmerkungen zur griechischen Über-setzung der Proverbien, 3. However, de Lagarde’s programmatic search for the trifaria

varietas has not been productive. Not only has his undertaking to isolate the Hesychian,Lucianic, and Origenic recensions not entirely come to fruition (parts of and havecome to light), but the Hesychian, being the most elusive, is apparently unrecoverable.


25/412

8 1

that the multiple witnesses of the Greek Psalter reect a theoretical “original”in mixed form, which is accepted by the majority of scholars, the authoralso assumes that the meaning of * is integrally related to its text-critical

recovery.However, ideally speaking * refers to the assumed “original” form of the

translated text in its theoretical purity, but in more practical and realisticterms it refers to the oldest recoverable version of the text, which is assumedto more or less represent the original. Of course related to the form andmeaning of * as translational literature is the underlying Vorlage. The present

work is therefore unconcerned with whether or not there was a single ororiginal “Urtext” of the Hebrew Bible, but with what the Vorlage for the Greek

translation might have been.

3.2 TheOld Greek

3.2.1 Psalmi cum Odis ()Since one cannot wait for the reworked editio maior of the Göttingen Septu-aginta, Alfred Rahlfs’s semi-critical edition Psalmi cum Odis (hereafter )—publishedin1931andreprintedin1979—shallbeusedasthebestavailablebasetext and starting point for a commentary on the .

For a discussion on this see Ernst Würthwein, The Text of the Old Testament: An Introduc-tion to the Biblica Hebraica (second edition, revised and enlarged; trans. Erroll F. Rhodes;

Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 62. In fact Alfred Rahlfs himself had already abandonedhis classications of the Hesychian recension by the time he published Psalmi cum

Odis in 1931, even though he refers to “die Rezension Hesychs” throughout its monumen-tal predecessor monograph, Septuaginta-Studien, Der Text des Septuaginta-Psalters (vol 2;Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1907), 235–236. Finally, in the 20th century the iden-tication of the proto-Lucian and kaige-Theodotion recensions that predate the trifaria

varietas by centuries has since refocused many of the questions of textual criticism.

See especially Dominique Barthélemy, Les Devanciers d’Aquila (VTSup 10; Leiden: Brill,1963).

Würthwein, The Text of the Old Testament , 65.

For a distinction between the ideal original text that came from the hand of the translator

andthe oldestrecoverable text,seeespecially Emanuel Tov, TextualCriticismoftheHebrew Bible (second revised edition; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 164–180, esp. 164–167;Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls, 205–207; and Würthwein, The Text of the Old Testament ,

xiii–xiv. Alfred Rahlfs, Psalmi cum Odis (Septuaginta Societatis Scientiarum Gottingensis Auctori-

tate; . Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979).


26/412

9

3.2.2 Overview of Rahlfs’s Text FormsHowever, Rahlfs compiled relatively quickly because he chose to notreevaluate the more than 900 Byzantine manuscripts ( ) collated previously

by Holmes and Parsons in 1798–1823, nor did he thoroughly collate numer-ous apostolic/patristic commentaries. Instead he reasoned that an editionof the Psalms would be of greater benet if it was available sooner ratherthan later. Building upon the work of Baethgen who had originally isolatedtwo “Rezensionen”—on the one hand readings from the Sixtine edition of 1587, which is largely based on , and “den Text der großen Masse der beiHoP [Holmes-Parsons] verglichenen Hss” mentioned above—Rahlfs soughtto establish text “groups” that were aligned with either of these two representa-

Inaddition tothe citations in Rahlfs’s primary literaturethroughout, thissectionhas bene-ted particularly from the more extensive andcritical overviews andevaluations in Albert

Pietersma, “The Present State of the Critical Text of the Greek Psalter,” in Der Septuaginta-

Psalter und seine Tochterübersetzungen (ed. Anneli Aejmelaeus and Udo Quast; Göttin-gen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000), 12–32; Cameron Boyd-Taylor, Peter C. Austin, and Andrey Feuerverger, “The Assessment of Manuscript Aliation within a Probabilistic

Framework: A Study of Alfred Rahlfs’s Core Manuscript Groupings for the Greek Psalter,”in The Old Greek Psalter: Studies in Honour of Albert Pietersma (JSOTSupp 332; eds. Robert J.V. Hiebert, Claude Cox, and Peter J. Gentry; Sheeld: Sheeld AcademicPress, 2001), 98–

124; and Gregor Emmenegger, Der Text des koptischen Psalters aus Al-Mudil: Ein

Beitrag zur Textgeschichte der Septuaginta und zur Textkritik koptischer Bibelhand-

schriften, mit der Kritischen Neuausgabe der Papyri 37 der British Library London () und

des Papyrus 39 der Leipziger Universitätsbibliothek (2013) (Text und Untersuchungen

zur Geschichte der Altchristlichen Literatur 159; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2007),3–11.

The Lucianic recension called in and in Rahlfs’ Septuaginta Studien (pages40–53) is comprised of some 119 M of more than 900 collated by Holmes-Parsons. SeeRahlfs, Psalmi cum Odis, 61.

Although Rahlfs only collated the commentaries on the Psalms by Augustine, Hesychiusof Jerusalem, Jerome (Sunnia et Fretela), and Theodoret in their entirety, he also sporad-

ically cites Ambrose, Barnabas, Chrysostom, Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Rome, Apostolic Constitutions, Cyprian, Cyril of Alexandria, the Didascalia, Irenaeus, Justin Mar-tyr, Origen, Tertullian, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Theophilusof Antioch. Rahlfs, Psalmi cum Odis, 19–21, 32–70.

Rahlfs admitted to the rushed nature of (Rahlfs, Psalmi cum Odis, 5). For Rahlfs,re-collating all of the available late manuscripts, most of which Holmes and Parsons hadalready done, required, in his estimation, more processing efort and time than would be

worth the return in terms of what these manuscripts would clarify of the . Rahlfs, Psalmi

cum Odis, 61–63. Rahlfs, Septuaginta-Studien , 39.


27/412

10 1

tives. Trading the Sixtine edition for and labeling the vulgar readings ()of the Holmes and Parsons collation (after the so-called Lucianic recen-sion), Rahlfs proceeded by selecting 129 “charakteristische Lesarten” with equi-

table representation in both the daughter versions and collations of Holmesand Parsons for the basis of his selections. From these alignments, Rahlfsformulated his “drei alten Textformen” by assigning them similar geograph-ical locations—the Lower Egyptian, Upper Egyptian, Western—basedupon a majority count of shared readings. Rahlfs’s four-fold text-critical hier-archy for determining * centered around the three old text groups, for (1)

when the , , and text forms agree, the agreement is assumed toreect the . (2) However, when the , , and text forms do

not agree, the reading that agrees with is regarded as the . Inaddition to the three text groupings, Rahlfs also assigned a fourth “mix-ed,” or unclassied group, and two additional “recensions”: the Lucianic

Pietersma refers to this as a “bi-polar” model. Pietersma, “The Present State,” 19. More specically, Rahlfs states: “Bei der Auswahl der Varianten ist besonders darauf

geachtet, daß sie 1) sich auch in den übersetzungen deutlich verfolgen lassen und 2) selbst

ex sil. höchstens in etwa 1/8 der bei HoP verglichenen Minuskeln vorkommen.” Rahlfs,Septuaginta-Studien , 40.

Rahlfs, Psalmi cum Odis, 21.

The Lower Egyptian group consists of , , Bo, fragments 2008, 2014, 2019, 2037, 2039, 2042,2044, 2049, 2051. See Rahlfs, Psalmi cum Odis, 6, 26, 28.

The Upper Egyptian group consists of + 2013 + Sa (= Sa & Sa) + fragments 1221, 2009,2015, 2017, 2018, 2033, 2034, 2035, 2038, 2046, 2050, 2052; excerpts 1093, 1119, 2032; fragment

1220. See Rahlfs, Psalmi cum Odis, 6, 28, 29. The Western group consists of , La, La, Aug, Tert, Cyp. See Rahlfs, Psalmi cum Odis, 6,

32. See Boyd-Taylor, Austin and Feuerverger, “The Assessment of Manuscript Aliation,” 102

for a lucid overview of this process. Rahlfs states, “Wenn die drei alten Textformen, die unteräg., oberäg. und abendland,

zusammengehn, ist ihre Lesart in der Regel aufgenommen.” Rahlfs, Psalmi cum Odis,

71–72. Rahlfs does warn however that the “three” do at times share secondary readings.See especially Pietersma, “The Present State,” 23–24 for a clear presentation of Rahlfs’sdecisions.

Rahlfs states, “Da die alten Zeugen sehr oft gegen die jüngeren mit zusammengehn,

habeichinFällen,wosievoneinanderabweichen,inderRegeldiejenigeLesartbevorzugt,die mit übereinstimmt.” Rahlfs, Psalmi cum Odis, 72.

, 1219, 55, fragments: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2016, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2025,

2027, 2029, 2030, 2031, 2036, 2043, 2047, 2048, 2054. See Rahlfs, Psalmi cum Odis, 70–71. Tht, Syh, , , He; , , , Su, Th, Ch, 1046, 2040, plus the following fragments listed in

Rahlfs, Septuaginta-Studien ,20:215565–676970808199–102104106111–115140–146150–


28/412

11

and Origenic. Boyd-Taylor, Austin and Feuerverger assess Rahlfs’s assump-tions as follows:

Since it is assumed that the old text forms are relatively independent of one another, and relatively free of assimilation to what would becomethe Masoretic text (), they count as independent witnesses to the ,and may therefore be contrasted with the younger recensions which, by denition, lack such independence.

Thus Rahlfs’s third hierarchical principle also accounts for the younger recen-sions ( and ). (3) When , , and disagree with while the younger

recensions agree with it, the older forms are to be regarded as the . In thiscase Rahlfs treats and as corrections toward . Finally, (4) when noneof the above principles applies, Rahlfs regards ’ (= + ) as the , whichbetrays his preference for the group as both geographically and textually closer to the .

Pietersma’s trenchant critique of Rahlfs’s groupings exposes the fact that by juxtaposing two supposedly competing textual groups ( and ) in order todetermine manuscript aliation, Rahlfs has obscured the fact that the com-

mon denominator between the two may well be the itself. Since is by denition a younger recension than , its supposed opposition to “tends toobscure the long trail of what became the Vulgar text, extending backwardsto the early transmission of the Septuagintal text.” Thus Pietersma calls intoquestion the basis for Rahlfs’s text forms altogether. In his 1933 review of ,Hedley also underscored the deciency in Rahlfs’s designation, use, and weightgranted to the so-called Lucianic recension in his compilation of when

152 154 162–186 189 191–197 199–206 208 210–219 222 223 225–227 263–294. See Pietersma,“The Present State,” 23 for an update, and Rahlfs, Psalmi cum Odis, 6, 70–71 for further dis-cussion.

2005+ 1098 + GaHi(+). See Rahlfs, Psalmi cum Odis, 2, 6, 52. Boyd-Taylor, Austin and Feuerverger, “The Assessment of Manuscript Aliation,” 100. Rahlfs states, “Wenn die alten Textformen von abweichen, aber die jüngeren (Origenes,

Lukian, öfters auch die von der Hexapla beeinußte Hs. ) mit zusammengehn, folge

ich den alten Zeugen, da Origenes und Lukian sicher nach korrigiert haben.” Rahlfs, Psalmi cum Odis, 72.

Rahlfs states, “In zweifelhaften Fällen schließe ich mich an ’ an. Wenn aber ’ alleinste-

hen, stelle ich sie hinter den übrigen zurück.” Rahlfs, Psalmi cum Odis, 72. Pietersma, “The Present State,” 15. Pietersma, “The Present State,” 16.


29/412

12 1

he said: “No more important piece of work remains to be done on the Greek text of the Psalms than the disentanglement of the ancient element in theLucianic text and the estimation of its value.” Preferring the term Byzantine

over Lucianic, Pietersma states:

… the identication of Proto-Lucianic readings presupposes the iden-tication of Lucian. In the case of the Psalter, it is well known that,according to Jerome, the κοινή text was widely associated with the nameof Lucian … Whether in fact the numerically vast textual family whichRahlfs designated with the siglum has any connection with Lucianthe martyr of Antioch is not at all clear. It is readily apparent upon

even limited investigation that of the Psalter does not manifest thedistinctive characteristics of Lucian in Samuel-Kings. It would, there-fore, perhaps be advisable to speak of the Byzantine text of the Psalterin place of Rahlfs’s until the question has been more fully investi-gated.

In the present work there shall be no attempt to re-collate or solve theproblem of the so-called Lucianic recension for the Psalms, no doubt work

crucial to the eagerly awaited and reworked editio maior of the GöttingenSeptuaginta, but well beyond the scope of the present work. Rather, the task at hand with respect to Ps 38 and Ps 145 is to comment on the text of *

with the goal of elucidating its semantic meaning, using the best text withthe requisite and necessary critical inquiry. This may entail adjusting if deemed plausible or necessary. Important manuscript evidence will also bereviewed and collated against when available and necessary. However,

while operating within Rahlfs’s framework of textual groupings in terms of external evidence—for lack of a better alternative at present—text-criticaldecisions shall be additionally weighed against the main text of in the

P.L. Hedley, “The Göttingen Investigation and Edition of the Septuagint,” 26/1 (1933):71.

AlbertPietersma, “Proto-Lucian andthe GreekPsalter,” 28/1(1978):68.Foradescription

of Rahlfs’s methodological bias against , see also Albert Pietersma, “Septuagint Research: A Plea for a Return to Basic Issues,” 35/3 (1985): 300–301, and Pietersma, “The PresentState,” 12–32.

See Robert J.V. Hiebert, The “Syrohexaplaric” Psalter ( 27; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989),235–246 for an excellent preliminary study that subdivides into 40 groups, based on 299test readings from 318 M, representing all ve books of the Psalter.


30/412

13

light of (internal) interpretive possibilities generally claried by the study of translation technique.

3.2.3 The Greek MThe Bodmer Papyrus (numbered 2110 in Rahlfs’s system even though it

was unavailable to Rahlfs for the production of ) shall be collated whenavailable for the Greek M of Ps 38 and 145. 2110 is not only the largest papyrusdiscovered for the Psalms, with 2013, , and 2149 following respectively, butit is considered one of the most important witnesses to the , being datedto the / century .. according to its editors, and to the century by Dominique Barthélemy. Further, although Rahlfs collated 1219, he did

not do so comprehensively; instances that Rahlfs neglected shall be noted where appropriate based upon the edition published by Henry A. Sanders. In

As a partial alternative to Rahlfs’s text-critical methodology, which consisted primarily of assigning manuscripts to textual groups based upon external criteria, Pietersma has longsince advocated the use of translation technique (internal criteria) in the establishmentof the critical text. Pietersma states at length: “I have argued elsewhere that rather than

assigning congurations of manuscript groupings—or for that matter congurations of individual manuscripts—pride of place in one’s list of criteria for establishing the criticaltext, one ought to begin with an exhaustive analysis of translation technique in the

broadest possible sense of that term. Whatever in the way of Hebrew-Greek equationsand Greek detail not linked to Hebrew can thus be uncovered as a footprint of thetranslator becomes, for a modern editor, the Archimedean point in text-criticism, thatallows him/her to move the earth of variants. Only when the quest for the Archimedean

point fails should other criteria come into play, such as general (demonstrated) reliability of manuscripts (or possibly manuscript groupings), age of individual witnesses, what

earliermoderneditionsread,andperhapseventheippingofacoin,whenwedowhatwedo because we must do something. But there is, in my view, a strict hierarchy in the stepsthat one takes, and failing to heed that hierarchy is liable to produce a picture that is outof focus.” Pietersma, “The Present State,” 24–25. He cites Pietersma, “Septuagint Research,”298–300.

Rodolphe Kasser and Michel Testuz, Papyrus Bodmer : Psaumes – (Colog-ny-Genève: Biblothèque Bodmer, 1967).

Albert Pietersma, Two Manuscripts of the Greek Psalter in the Chester Beatty Library Dublin

(Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1978), 5–6.

Kasser and Testuz, Papyrus Bodmer , 5. Dominique Barthélemy, “Le Psautier Grec et Le Papyrus Bodmer 24,” 19 (1969): 106–

110.

Henry A. Sanders, ed., The Old Testament Manuscripts in the Freer Collection: Part ,

The Washington Manuscript of the Psalms (University of Michigan Studies HumanisticSeries ; New York: The Macmillian Company, 1917).


31/412

14 1

instances in which the M or facsimile editions below could not be physically reviewed, I rely instead upon .

According to the manuscript indices published by Rahlfs in the introduction

to , and in a later publication by Pietersma, the only Greek M extantthat attest Psalm 38 are 2013, , , 55, 1219, 1220 and 2034. Likewise for Psalm145 there are , , , 55, and 1219. To these may be added the following fromthe updated 2004 edition of Rahlfs’s Verzeichnis, originally published in 1914:For Ps 145 see 1240, 2055, 2177, oS-49 and for both Ps 38 and Ps 145, see 1205,1208, 1250. These M are listed below in accordance with Rahlfs’s six textualgroupings, when applicable.

1. = Upper Egyptian 4. = Lucianic recension2. = Lower Egyptian 5. = Origenic recension3. = Western 6. = Mixed texts

3.2.4 The Individual Greek for Ps 38 & 145

– Vaticanus () ( cent); missing Ps 105:27–137:6.1; – Sinaiticus () ( cent); complete;

– Alexandrinus () ( cent); missing Ps 49:20–2nd occurrence of αυτης in 79:11;

– ( cent); missing Ps 1–25:2 χρισθηναι; 30:2.2–36:20 (και); 41:6.2–43:3 (εξω-λεθρευ…);58:14.2–59:5;59:9–10.1;59:13.2–60.1(ψαλ…);64:12(…στοτητος)-71:4πτωχους; 92:3 (… νας)-93:7 (του); 96:12 (… νης)-97:8 αγαιασονται;

– 55 ( cent); complete; – 1205 (? cent); Sinai, Alte Slg., Cod. gr. 237; Ps.– 1208 ( cent); Turin, BibI. Naz., . . 30; Cat. in Ps., Od– 1219 Washington Freer ( cent); though mutilated, complete up to Ps 142:8.1;

Pietersma, Two Manuscripts, and Rahlfs, Psalmi cum Odis, 10–21. Albert Pietersma, Two Manuscripts of the Greek Psalter in the Chester Beatty Library Dublin

(Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1978), and Alfred Rahlfs, Psalmi cum Odis (SeptuagintaSocietatis Scientiarum Gottingensis Auctoritate. . Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,1979), 10–21.

Alfred Rahlfs and Detlef Fraenkel, ed., Verzeichnis der griechischen Handschriften des Alten Testaments (Septuaginta Vetus Testamentum Graecum Auctoritate Academiae Sci-entiarum Gottingensis editum Supplementum; Die Überlieferung bis zum . Jahrhun-dert; Band ,1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004), 489–491.

Also called the Byzantine, vulgar, or majority group. A digital facsimile is now available at http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en. The text used here comes from Sanders, The Old Testament Manuscripts, 1917.

http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/enhttp://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en


32/412

15

– 1219 ( cent); a suppleted text that had Ps 142:5.3–149:2.1, but 148:2–149:2.1 has since been lost.

– 1220 ( cent); Greek/Sahidic Psalter includes Ps 3:8–4:9; 6:9–7:2; 16:4–7,14 f.;

25:6–9, 11:1; 26:1–3; 281–210; 29; 30:19–25, 31:1–7, 11; 38:1–10, 40:1–3, 7–13; 48:2–19; 50:11–21; 53:1 f., 5–9; 54:4–12, 15–23; 55:1f., 7–9, 13f.; 56:1–9, 67:13–15, 21–24,30–35; 68:18–26, 28–37;

– 1240 (/ cent); Damaskus, Om.-Mosch., Treu Nr. , vermisst; Ps 143:7–13;145:8–146:6

– 1250 (/ cent); Prag, Nat.-BibI.; Gr. 127; Ps.Od [Zitate]– 2013 ( cent); incomplete parts of Ps 30:5–14; 30:18–31:1; 32:18–33:9; 33:13–

34:2; 34:9–17, 34:24–35:31; full text of 35:3.2–55:14;

– 2034 ( cent); Greek/Sahidic Psalter fragment, includes Ps 38:8–39:3;

– 2055 (/ cent); Florenz, BibI. Laur., 980; Ps. 143:14–148:3– 2110 (/ cent); includes Ps 17:46–31:8; 32:3–10, 12–19; 33:2–9, 11–18, 21–

34:13, 15–53:5; 55:8–72:28; 73:2–88:10, 47–105:32; 106:28–111.1, 10–113:1, 9–117:6,9–118:11, 20, 26–29, 37–44;

– 2177 ( cent); Berlin, Ägypt. Mus., . 21265; Ps. 144:1–10; 144:16–145:4– oS-49 (/ cent); Oxyrhynchus, . Oxy. 407; Ps. 50:3,11; 145:6

– The readings of Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, and or other Hexaplaric witnesses (e.g. Quinta, Sexta) shall be considered throughout, although notexhaustively. The primary sources for this information come from Freder-ick Field’s 1875 study on Origen’s Hexapla, against which the hexaplaricmarginal readings found in Codex Syro-Hexaplaris Ambrosianus shall becross checked. Joseph Reider’s and Nigel Turner’s index to Aquila will alsobe used.

Kent D. Clarke dates the second hand to the 6th century. Kent D. Clarke, “Paleography andPhilanthropy: Charles Lang Freer and His Aquisition of the Freer Biblical Manuscripts,”in The Freer Biblical Manuscripts: Fresh Studies of an American Treasure Trove (ed. Larry

Hurtado; Text-Critical Studies 6; Atlanta: , 2006), 17–73, here 37. The text used here comes from Emmenegger’s “re-edition.” See Emmenegger, Der Text des

koptischen Psalters.

The text used here comes from Kasser and Testuz, Papyrus Bodmer .

Frederick Field, Origenis Hexaplorum Quae Supersunt: Sive Veterum Interpretum Graeco-rum in Totum Vetus Testamentum Fragmenta (vol 2; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1875).

Antonio Maria Ceriani, ed., Codex Syro-Hexaplaris Ambrosianus Photolithographice Editus

(Monumenta Sacra et Profana Vol 7; Milan: Typis et impensis Bibliothecae Ambrosianae,1874).

Joseph Reider and Nigel Turner, An Index to Aquila (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1966).


33/412

16 1

3.3 The Vorlage

It is no secret among the guild of Septuagint specialists that to understand theancient Jewish Greek scriptures, as translational literature and/or recensional

literature (i.e. systematic revisions of existing translations), one must also grap-plewiththe Vorlagen (parent texts) from which they were ultimately derived.In a seminal collection of essays published in 1975, Frank Moore Cross appro-priately noted that the history of the development of the Hebrew text mirrorsthat of the Greek.

Each sequence or development in one has its reex in the other and fur-nishes data to date the parallel sequence. Any theory of the development

of the history of the Greek text must comprehend the data supplied by both the history of the Hebrew text and the history of the Greek text if itis to be adequate.

Even though Cross’s concern was programmatic, that is to say, it concerned atheoryofdevelopmentakintohisowntheoryof“localtexts,”itisnonethelesstrue that textual criticism and interpretation of the Septuagint are integral totextual criticism of the Hebrew Bible more generally. To that end the Dead

Sea Scrolls () are part and parcel of textual criticism of the . Indeed, with the near completion of the massive Discoveries in the Judean Desert ()series, the editio princeps of the now some 59 years in the making, onecan say without controversy that Hebrew textual criticism has been foreveralteredin its wake. Thoseespeciallywho have workedwiththe manuscriptshave brought critical insights to bear on the development of the Hebrew Bible,

For a discussion regarding the quest for the Vorlage as a goal in Septuagint research, seeSidney Jellicoe, The Septuagint and Modern Study (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1968),359.

Frank Moore Cross, “The Evolution of a Theory of Local Texts,” in Qumran and the HistoryoftheBiblicalText (eds. Frank Moore Cross and Shemaryahu Talmon; Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1975), 306–307.

See a discussion of Cross’s “local text theory” in Frank Moore Cross, The Ancient Libraryof Qumran (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1958), 140–145; idem, “The History of the

Biblical Text in the Light of Discoveries in the Judaean Desert,” 57 (1964): 281–299;idem, “The Evolution of a Theory of Local Texts,” 306–320.

See especially Emanuel Tov, Text-Critical Use of the Septuagint in Biblical Research (Jerusa-

lem: Simor Ltd., 1981), 29–72. The rst volume, recording materials from Cave 1, was published in Dominique Barthé-

lemy and Jozef Tadeusz Milik, Qumran Cave 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955).


34/412

17

not the least of which has furthered a reformation of sorts regarding long-heldassumptions about the privileged status of the toward the end of SecondTemple Judaism (to be discussed).

If Cross’s sentiment above is accepted, though with the proviso that the goalis to understand the Greek, then it would be careless to operate with uncriticalassumptions regarding the character and stability of the Semitic parent for any translation. Continuing, Cross warned against the “anachronistic assump-tion that a single Hebrew textual tradition prevailed throughout the intervalof the development of the Greek Bible,” since this assumption had previously brought about an impasse among modern scholars regarding the nature of thetranslation of the Septuagint and its subsequent recensions. In short, if the

Hebrew parent is a known, static, quantity, for example , then diferencesbetween it and the Greek should be explained as diferences in the Greek. If both Greek and Hebrew texts are questionable, then the matter becomes farmore complex.

Greaterattentiontothisrealization,infact,promptedEmanuelTovtoadjustthe underlying assumptions in his 1992 monograph regarding the virtual supre-macy of during Second Temple Judaism, to a more positive appreciationof legitimately competing textual traditions in the second revised edition.

EveninantiquitytheerrorofassumingasingularHebrewtraditionhadalready been committed with grave consequences for the transmission history of the

Cross, “The Evolution of a Theory of Local Texts,” 306. Tov explains his change in view: “In the rst edition of this monograph (1992), such textual

evidence, which is mainly from (such as the short text of Jeremiah), was not takeninto consideration in the reconstruction of the original text, and was presented as (a)

layer(s) of literary growth preceding the nal composition, in other words, as mere drafts.Such thinking, however, attaches too much importance to the canonical status of ,disregarding the signicance of other textual traditions which at the time must have beenas authoritative as was at a later stage. Phrased diferently, while the denition of the original text in the rst edition of this monograph is still considered valid, it is now

expanded by considering the literary evidence discovered in the and some Qumrantexts more positively. In this new understanding it is suggested that some biblical books,like Jeremiah, reached a nal status not just once, in , but also previously, as attested

by some witnesses. Thus, when at an early stage the edition incorporated in the short

texts of 4QJer, and (‘edition ’) was completed, it was considered authoritative and was circulated in ancient Israel (cf. pp. 325–327). Otherwise that edition would not havebeen made the basis for the translation at a later period, and would not have found

its way to Qumran.” Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (second revisededition; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 177–178; emphasis original. See also EmanuelTov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992).


35/412


36/412

19

posit at the center of our textual thinking.” In reality, when we considerthe ndings among the Dead Sea Scrolls, we must contend with the fact thatevidence, especially from Qumran, has caused some to question seriously the

shape of the Hebrew Psalter at the close of the rst century ..., with rami-cations for understanding the Greek Psalter. Even though our particular psalms(38[39] and 145[146]) have a meager presence among the scrolls and fragmentsof the and therefore can only play a small role in actual comparisons withthe textus receptus, one would be remiss to overlook the extent to which the have opened a window to the pluriform nature of the Hebrew textual tra-ditions roughly concurrent with so many of our Septuagint translations. Thispoint, especially with respect to the Psalms, has sparked a erce debate among

scholars that has yet to nd resolution.

3.3.1 The Settlement of the Hebrew Psalter While it is not in the scope of the present treatment to “solve” the canonicalconundrum of the Hebrew Psalter, or the Greek for that matter, I shall briey overviewthe debate that has arisen inthe light of the discovery of the , espe-cially 11QPs, since one must contend with these texts when considering theVorlage of the . Central to the present discussion is whether the (proto-)

Psalter (-150 Psalter, or merely -150) had already been compiled andsettled before the rst century .. (so Goshen-Gottstein, Talmon, Wacholder,Haran, Schifman, and Tov), and more specically, the 4th century ... (soSkehan), or whether it was nally settled during the rst century .., only after a gradual period of editorial development that may have had roots in the2nd century ... (so Sanders, Wilson, Flint, Ulrich, and Charlesworth). Both

views have polarized the literature and have been distilled as fact. For example,Lawrence Schifman remarks:

Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls, 85, citing Emanuel Tov, “Hebrew Biblical Manuscripts from

the Judean Desert: Their Contribution to Textual Criticism,” 39 (1988): 5–37, here7.

Among the , Psalms 39( 38) and 146( 145) are represented only scantily among

the fragments found at Qumran: Ps 39:13–14 is represented in 11QPs and, with lacunae,

Ps 146:9–10 from 11QPs. There is also a highly questionable presence of a single word( ) from Ps 146 in 4QPs. See the general introduction to each psalm in chapters 4הand 5 for specics regarding the Qumran fragments mentioned here.

For the sake of coherence, my methodological considerations apply to the entire Psalter,not just two isolated psalms.

In the present section, stands for the “proto-” for the sake of convenience.


37/412

20 1

Regarding both canon and text, a number of exaggerated claims havebeenmadeabouttheQumrancorpus,chiefamongthemthattheQumransect had an open canon … and that the scrolls show that the Hebrew text

found in our Bibles today—the Masoretic (= received) Text—was only one of three equally prominent text types in Second Temple times. Intruth, there was a specic canon of holy texts, and the Masoretic text wasthe dominant text type.

James Charlesworth, on the other hand, states with rival conviction:

While we know that “the psalms” are categorized among the writings,

perhaps it is not widely perceived that the Psalter—as we learn from astudy of the Qumran Psalter—was not yet closed and the order of thepsalms not yet established during the time of Jesus.

Positions representative of both Schifman’s view and Charlesworth’s view alsocarefully consider the unique macro-structure of the most extensive Psalmsscroll discovered at Qumran, namely, 11QPs, dated to the rst century ..Hence the Psalter found in 11 has been dubbed the “11QPs-Psalter” (or merely

11-Psalter),which,basedoncommonsequences,isreallyagroupingof11QPs ,and 4QPs.

3.3.2 Hebrew “Psalters” in Relation to a Date of the PsalterEven though Septuagint scholars have rarely weighed into this aspect of thediscussion, both positions also have ramications for the Psalter, for it

Lawrence H. Schifman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: The History of Judaism, the Back-

ground of Christianity, the Lost Library at Qumran (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Soci-ety, 1994), 161.

James H. Charlesworth, “Writings Ostensibly Outside the Canon,” in Exploring the Ori- gins of the Bible: Canon Formation in Historical, Literary, and Theological Perspective (eds.Craig C. Evans and Emanuel Tov; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), 57–85, here 62.

JamesA.Sanders, ThePsalmsScrollofQumranCave11(11QPsa)( ;Oxford:Clarendon

Press, 1965), 9.

See discussions regarding this grouping in Peter W. Flint, “The Book of Psalms in theLight of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” 48/4 (1998): 453–472, here 462; Eugene Ulrich, et al.eds, Qumran Cave 4.: Psalms to Chronicles ( ; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000),

76; James C. VanderKam and Peter W. Flint, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their

SignicanceforUnderstandingtheBible,Judaism,Jesus,andChristianity (NewYork:HarperSan Francisco, 2002), 122.


38/412

21

has been widely accepted by Septuagint specialists that the Greek Psalter wascompleted en toto by the second century ... (e.g. Henry Barclay Swete,Marguerite Harl, Gilles Dorival and Olivier Munnich, Joachim Schaper, and

Tyler Williams) or at least prior to the turn of the era (e.g. Arie Van der Kooij,1st cent. ...).

The position holding to an early nalization of the Hebrew Psalter is sup-portive of the view that the Psalter could have been translated as an integralliterary corpus in the order of the -150, possibly by a single translator or teamof translators, whereas a post-Christian nalization of the Hebrew Psalter(-150) would suggest that * was translated over a longer period of time, inpiece-meal fashion or even by competing editions, only to be sewn together

in the shape of the -150 by a Christian-era editor.

3.3.3 The 11QPs-Psalter, the -150 Psalter, and the Psalter As noted, it is the evidence from the that has most recently added new dimensions to this discussion. The order of the 11 Psalter difers signicantly from the order found in the -150, especially in book ve (Pss 107–150) andto a lesser degree book four (Pss 90–106). The order of the 11-Psalter is asfollows:

Henry Barclay Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 1902), 25.

Marguerite Harl, Gilles Dorival and Olivier Munnich, La Bible grecque des Septante: Du Judaïsme hellénistique au Christianisme ancien ( Initiations au Christianisme ancien; Paris:

Éditions du Cerf, 1983), 104, 111. Joachim Schaper, Eschatology in the Greek Psalter ( ; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995),

34–45, 150 Tyler Williams, “Toward a Date for the Old Greek Psalter,” in The Old Greek Psalter: Studies

in Honour of Albert Pietersma (eds. Robert J.V. Hiebert, Claude Cox, and Peter Gentry;Sheeld: Sheeld Academic Press, 2001), 248–276.

Arie Van der Kooij, “On the Place of Origin of the Old Greek of Psalms,” 33 (1983): 67–

74. A similar argument has been put forth by Martin Flashar, “Exegetische Studienzum Sep-

tuagintapsalter,” 32 (1912): 81–116, 161–189, 241–268, here 85.

A similar argument has been put forth by Paul E. Kahle, The Cairo Geniza (Oxford: Basil

Blackwell, 1959). Whereas Psalms 1–100 show little uctuation in the Psalms witnesses, the remain-

ing psalms are dramatically reordered. See especially the discussions in Gerald H. Wilson,

“The Qumran Psalms Manuscripts and the Consecutive Arrangement of Psalms in theMasoretic Psalter,” 45 (1983): 377–388; idem, “The Qumran Psalms Scroll Reconsid-ered: Analysis of the Debate,” 47 (1985): 624–642, here 642.


39/412

22 1

Pss 101–103, 109, 118, 104, 147, 105, 146, 148, 120–132, 119, 135, 136 (withCatena), 145 (with postscript), 154, Plea of Deliverance, 139, 137, 138, Sirach51, Apostrophe of Zion, 93, 141, 133, 144, 155, 142, 143, 149, 150, Hymn to

the Creator, David’s Last Words, David’s Compositions, 140, 134, 151, 151,blank column [end].

Peter Flint states with respect to the Psalms scrolls/fragments of the :

When all forty Psalms scrolls have been carefully collated, a comparativeanalysis indicates the existence of three major collections, as well as sev-eral minor ones. The three main groups are: an early Psalter comprising

Psalms i to lxxxix (or thereabouts), the -150 Psalter, and the 11QPs-Psalter.

The following paragraphs survey the positions of the chief proponents regard-ing the view that the 11QPs-Psalter had not yet been nalized prior to the 1stcentury .. (so Sanders, Wilson, Ulrich, Flint) versus an earlier completion (soGoshen-Gottstein, Talmon, Skehan).

SandersBeginning with the initial publication of the 11 Psalms scroll in 1965, its morepopular 1967 edition with English translation, and a spate of articles spanning1965 to 1974, James Sanders has argued extensively that the 11-Psalter was agenuine Psalter edition that reected a stage in the evolution of the Hebrew Psalter in which the arrangement of (i.e. -150) had yet to become stan-dardized. As such the 11-Psalter witnesses a pre-standardized, that is, a pre-

This order is modied from Sanders, The Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11, 5; Flint, “TheBook of Psalms in the Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” 458; and VanderKam and Flint, The

Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 122.

Flint, “The Book of Psalms in the Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” 462. Similarly, see Peter W. Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls and the Book of Psalms (Studies on the Texts of theDesert of Judah; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 156.

See especially the summaries of the 11/-150 debate in Gerald H. Wilson, The Editing

of the Hebrew Psalter ( Dissertation Series; Chico: Scholars Press, 1985), idem, “TheQumran Psalms Scroll Reconsidered,” 624–642; andFlint, “The Book of Psalms in the Lightof the Dead Sea Scrolls,” 453–472.

For a brief overviewof the nding of 11QPsand its dimensions, see James A.Sanders, “TheScrolls of Psalms (11QPss) from Cave 11: A Preliminary Report,” 165 (1962): 11–15. ForSanders’ ouptut from 1965 to 1974, see especially James A. Sanders, “Pre-Masoretic Psalter


40/412

23

MasoreticphaseoftheHebrewPsalterratherthanan“aberration”ordepar-ture from an existing -150. For Sanders, this “Qumran Psalter” was deemedboth canonical and uid (i.e. open-ended), even though he likewise conceded

that the scrolls also betray, interalia, a parallel, concomitant, edition that couldrepresent the -150 Psalter, particularly in the fragments of 4(,,,, ,,).

Texts,” 27(1965):114–123,idem,ThePsalmsScrollofQumranCave11 ,idem,“Variorum inthe Psalms Scroll (11QPs),” 59(1966):83–94,idem, TheDeadSeaPsalmsScroll (Ithaca:

Cornell University Press, 1967), idem, “Cave 11 Surprises and the Question of Canon,” McCormick Quarterly 21 (1968): 284–298, idem, “TheDead Sea Scrolls—AQuarter Century

of Study,” 36 (1973): 110–148, idem, “The Qumran Psalms Scroll (11QPs),” reviewed,in On Language, Culture, and Religion: In Honor of Eugene A. Nida (eds. M. Black and

W.A. Smalley; Paris: Mouton, 1974), 79–99. Sanders, “Pre-Masoretic Psalter Texts,” 114–123. Sanders, “Cave 11 Surprises,” 284–298, and idem, “The Qumran Psalms Scroll (11QPs),”

95–96. As opposed to reecting variation within a standardized order, Sanders initially appealed

to Cross’s “local text theory” as a means to explain that 11QPs was a legitimate Psaltertradition, and a snapshot of the Hebrew Psalter in an ongoing and complex process of

canonization. Sanders, “Variorum,” 83–94. See Frank Moore Cross, “The History of theBiblical Text in the Light of Discoveries in the Judaean Desert,” 57 (1964): 281–299.Cross’s theory, a revision of Albright’s original formulations, consisted of only three text

types, the Palestinian (), Babylonian (proto-), and Egyptian (). See Frank MooreCross, TheAncientLibraryofQumran (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1958), 140. Ongo-ing research of the indicates that there must have been many more than three texttypes.SeeShemaryahuTalmon,“TheTextualStudyoftheBible—ANewOutlook,”inQum-ran and the History of the Biblical Text (eds. Frank Moore Cross and Shemaryahu Talmon;Cambridge Harvard University Press, 1975), 321–400, here 380–381; and Emanuel Tov “The

Biblical Texts from the Judean Desert—An Overview and Analysis of all the PublishedTexts,” in The Bible as a Book: The Hebrew Bible and Judean Desert Discoveries (Proceedingsof the Conference held at Hampton Court, Herefordshire, 18–21 June 2000; eds. E.D. Her-bert and Emanuel Tov; London: The British Library, 2002), 139–165. Among Tov’s broad,ve-fold, categorization of Qumran scrolls, which assumes many more subcategories—

(1) Pre-Samaritan, (2) Proto-Masoretic, (3) Texts close to the presumed Vorlage ofthe,(4) Non-aligned texts, (5) Texts written in the “Qumran Practice”—he classies 11QPs as a“non-aligned text,” meaning that it shows no consistent closeness to the Masoretic text, or

Septuagint. Eugene Ulrich contends that the pluriform nature of Hebrewtexts at the close

of the Second Temple period bespeaks successive literary editions that are identiable by their large scale patterns of variations (Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origins of the

Bible).

According to Sanders, the scrolls from Murabbaʾat, Naḥal Ḥever, and Masada betray astandardization toward thewhereastheQumranmaterialispre-standardized.Seealsothe discussion of the standardization of 8ḤevXII gr toward the Hebrew in Dominique


41/412

24 1

Goshen-Gottstein, Talmon, SkehanIn contrast both Moshe Goshen-Gottstein and Shemaryahu Talmon ofer varia-tions on the view that the 11-Psalter was a “Jewish prayer book” and admixture

of canonical and non-canonical works compiled for liturgical purposes. Bothreject the extended prose composition at the end of 11QPs (David’s Composi-tions) as canonically incompatible. Schifman regards 11QPs as a sectarian“prayerbook” or “liturgical text, not a literary collection like the canonical Book of Psalms,” and therefore not a biblical scroll. Skehan, arguing strongly for

Barthélemy’s Les Devanciers d’Aquila, whether it be (proto-) or not. Sanders, “The

Dead Sea Scrolls—A Quarter Century of Study,” 138–140; Sebastian P. Brock, “To Reviseor Not to Revise: Attitudes to Jewish Biblical Translation,” in Septuagint, Scrolls, and Cognate Writings: Papers Presented to the International Symposium on the Septuagint and

its Relations to the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Writings ( 33; eds. George Brooke andBarnabas J. Lindars; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), 301–338.

Moshe H. Goshen-Gottstein, “The Psalms Scroll (11QPs): A Problem of Canon and Text,”Textus 5 (1966): 22–33. Shemaryahu Talmon, “Pisqah Beemsa Pasuq and 11QPs,” Textus 5(1966): 11–21. Sanders, however, states: “Talmon, at least, has abandoned this position andin a public conference in Jerusalem on May, 30, 1973, announced that he now agrees with

thepositionIhadadvancedthattheQumranPsalterwasviewedatQumranas“canonical”andthatitwas,asweknowit,anopen-endedPsalter.”Sanders,“TheQumranPsalmsScroll(11QPs),” 96.

DavComp, Col. xxvii, ll. 2–11 (here line 11) indicates that at Qumran, the Psalms weredeemed prophetic: כ “All these he spoke throughprophecy which was given him from before the Most High” (translation from Sanders,The Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11, 92). According to this passage, “David wrote not only

Psalms but also ‘songs’. Of the former he composed 3,600, and of the latter, 450,” thusequaling 4,050 in David’s total catalog. See Sanders, ThePsalmsScrollofQumranCave11, 91

andidem,“Variorum,” 84. Hence, the Qumran sect believed in a massive Davidic traditionthat even superseded Solomon’s putative output of 4,005 (cf. 1 Kg 5:12). Accordingly,Sanders contends that since the Qumran sect was, if anything, religiously “conservative,”they would not have invented “library editions” or “prayer books,” but regarded theirPsalter as canonical, not wishing to eliminate any work that might have come from David.

Sanders, “The Dead Sea Scrolls—A Quarter Century of Study,” 140. Goshen-Gottsteincontends that a Davidic attribution, however, does not mean that a work is necessarily canonical and Skehan argues that the 11 Psalter presupposes the -150 in that each of

these numbers, 3,600, 450, and 4,050, is divisible by 150. He states, “My explanation for the

3,600 psalms is, that the cataloguer, too, has read Chronicles; he has given each of the 24courses of Levitical singers from the days of David in 1Chr 25 a collection of 150 psalms tosing.” Goshen-Gottstein, “The Psalms Scroll (11QPs),” 22–33; Patrick W. Skehan, “Qumran

and Old Testament Criticism,” in Qumrân: Sa piété, sa théologie et son milieu ( 46; ed.M. Delcor; Gembloux: Duculot, 1978), 163–182, here 169.

Schifman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls, 165, 169, 178–180.


42/412

25

a fourth century ... standardization of the Hebrew Psalter, has posited thatthe11-Psalterisa“libraryeditionoftheputativeworksofDavid,whetherlitur-gical or not,” and later a liturgical “instruction manual” based on an already

standardized -150 Psalter. B.Z. Wacholder, M. Haran, and Emanuel Tov have followed suit with views that the 11QPs-Psalter is a deviation from a stan-dardized collection.

Wilson, Flint, and UlrichIn later developments, Wilson, Flint, and Ulrich have entered the discussionagain with modications and variations of Sanders’s original position. Ulrich,one of the most vocal scholars regarding the plurality of Hebrew textual wit-

nesses of those mentioned here, contends that 11QPs has all of the earmarksof a biblical scroll, albeit as a variant edition of the biblical book from .ContraEberhardBonswhocontendsthat“DieNähezwischendem-Psalterund dem masoretischen Konsonantentext wird von keinem Forscher ernsthaftbestritten,” Ulrich takes aim at Rahlfs’s manuscript selection in view of apotential non-Masoretic Vorlage and queries whether the “relative uniformity of the manuscript tradition of the Greek Psalter” might be a perception gained,in circular fashion, by Rahlfs’s selection of M known from the critical appara-

tus of . Rahlfs himself, however, did explain his criteria elsewhere. Ulrichstates,

Patrick W. Skehan, “A Liturgical Complex in 11QPs,” 35 (1973): 195–205, here 204, so

also idem, “Qumran and Old Testament Criticism,” 169. Patrick W. Skehan, “The Divine Name at Qumran, in the Masada Scroll, and in the Septu-

agint” 13 (1980): 14–44, here 42. B.Z. Wacholder, “David’s Eschatological Psalter: 11QPsalms,” 59 (1988): 23–72; M.

Haran, “11QPs and the Canonical Book of Psalms,” in Minhah le-Jahum: Biblical and Other Studies Presented to Nahum M. Sarna in Honour of his 70th Birthday (JSOTSup 154; eds.M. Brettler and Michael Fishbane; Sheeld: Sheeld Academic Press, 1993), 193–201;

Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 346, idem, “The Biblical Texts from the JudeanDesert—An Overview and Analysis,” 139–165.

The greatest innovations for the redaction of the Hebrew Psalter have been Wilson’s,

although Flint’s work, specic to the Psalms, has been more extensive.

Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origins of the Bible, 115–120. EberhardBons, “Der Septuaginta-Psalter—Übersetzung, Interpretation, Korrektur,” in Die

Septuaginta Texte, Kontexte, Lebenswelten: InternationaleFachtagung Veranstaltet vonSep-

tuaginta Deutsch (.), Wuppertal 20.-23. Juli 2006 (eds. Martin Karrer and WolfgangKraus; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 451–470, here 451.

See especially Alfred Rahlfs, Septuaginta-Studien , 39–53; idem, Psalmi cum Odis, 71–72.


43/412

26 1

That ‘relative uniformity of the manuscript tradition’ is in turn based on aperception gained from the critical apparatus for Rahlfs’ selection of in Psalmi cum Odis.Rahlfs,however,usedonlyaselectionofthecollection

of known , and it should be investigated whether perhaps a criterionfor the he selected was that they were aligned with the traditionalMassoretic edition of the Psalter.

Ulrich pushes his point further by considering it a desideratum to settle thequestion as to whether the extant Greek witnesses of the Psalter could in factpoint to a Hebrew revision. He states:

I would like to consider as a plausible hypothesis that, just as for many other books of the Jewish Scriptures, an original Greek translation madein the Ptolemaic or Hasmonaean period may have been subsequently revisedneartheturnoftheeratoreectwithgreaterlexicalandgrammat-ical exactness the Hebrew textual form of the book that the Rabbis used,the so-called proto-Massoretic text. Thus, it should be considered an openquestion, until demonstrated one way or the other, whether the mainGreek manuscript tradition reects the original Old Greek translation or

a subsequent recension which totally or virtually totally supplanted theOld Greek.

Picking up on Sander’s theories with primary interest in the macro-ordering of book ve of 11QPs, Gerald Wilson—whose views may be broadly representa-tive—has argued that the -150 Psalter was in ux well into the rst century .. Wilson contends that the Hebrew manuscripts from Qumran suggest

Eugene Ulrich, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and Their Implications for an Edition of the Sep-tuagint Psalter,” in Der Septuaginta-Psalter und seine Tochterübersetzungen: Symposium inGöttingen 1997 (Philologisch-historische Klasse Dritte Folge Nr. 230; eds. Anneli Aejme-laeus and Udo Quast; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000), 323–336, here 323.

Ulrich, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and Their Implications,” 323–324. Gerald H. Wilson, “Review of Peter W. Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls and the Book of

Psalms” New Ser. 90 no. 3/4 (2000): 515–521, here 517–518. In support of this, Flint has

noted that of all the Psalms fragments, only MasPs clearly supports