Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 01/10/2004 20:35, Christopher V. Kimball wrote:

> Here's a puzzle to me in Mark 12:29 (NRSV):
>
> Jesus answered, "The first is this: 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, 
> the Lord is one;  you shall love the Lord your God with all your 
> heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your 
> strength.'
>
> 4 objects end the "with all your ..." clause, the Hebrew Bible has 
> only 3 objects ending the clause in Deut 6:5.
>
> The difference is trivial, but does it say something about the text 
> available to Mark or his knowledge of the Shema? Is it a 
> Septuagint/Hebrew Bible difference?
No, LXX matches MT here in having three objects. But there are several 
different NT versions of this commandment with different lists of 
objects. I remember looking at the some time ago and suspecting that 
they were trying to cover the semantic range covered by LXX and MT 
together. In other words, in rough terms, MT was understood to say 
"heart, soul, mind", and LXX says "heart, soul, strength", so NT 
combines them as "heart, soul, mind, strength". But I can't find my 
study now. The problem is, what does MT M:)OD really mean here?

Anyway, this is not the place to get into NT textual criticism.

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