Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 17/06/2004 03:31, Philip Engmann wrote:

> ...
>
> But the question still remains:
>
> 1. How can one determine a corruption of the LXX Vorlage when it (the
> LXX Vorlage) is not extant?
>
> 2. Determining a corruption in translation is not clear to me when the
> LXX Vorlage is not extant.
>
> Philip Engmann
>
>
>
>
>  
OK, let's take some examples:

1) 2 Samuel 8:12,13: MT 'RM, LXX IDUMAIA. (In this case there is some 
Hebrew MSS support for 'DM, plus Syriac support). The LXX reading is 
clearly based on a Vorlage 'DM, and confusion between dalet and resh is 
a well attested process.

Genesis 1:9: MT MQWM, pointed MAQOWM, LXX SUNAGWGHN. The easiest 
reconstruction here (as in BHS) is that the LXX Vorlage was MQWH, 
MIQWEH, which also makes sense in the context and is used in the next 
verse. MQWM and MQWH are plausible corruptions of one another, and we 
cannot be sure which was original.

We can be reasonably sure that these discrepancies do not result from 
translation errors (although just possibly from the translator's 
misreading of the Vorlage), nor from transmission problems with the 
Greek text. So we can reliably reconstruct the missing (in fact in the 
first case only partly missing) LXX Vorlage.

2) At Jonah 4:6,7,9,10 MT has QIQAYON and LXX has KOLOKUNQA = "gourd". 
Modern scholars understand this plant to be the castor oil plant. The 
LXX rendering is clearly because the translator misunderstood (or at 
least understood differently from modern scholars) QIQAYON, and is 
nothing to do with a textual difference in the Vorlage.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/