Recognizing kaige-readings is necessary for recovering the Old Greek translation in Samuel-Kings.... more Recognizing kaige-readings is necessary for recovering the Old Greek translation in Samuel-Kings. Our article aims at establishing tangible criteria for recognizing such readings. Lexical criteria include considerations on the semantics and exegetical significance of the Greek equivalent of the underlying Hebrew lexeme, observations of the usage of the OG translator, as well as comparison with the usage in other Greek translations. Syntactic criteria touch upon verbal tenses and voices. External criteria relate to the attestation of the putative kaige reading. The criteria must be used together, and they must be balanced with knowledge of the OG translation technique as well as the traits of the Lucianic revision
The books of Kings have some of the most challenging text-historical problems in all of the Hebre... more The books of Kings have some of the most challenging text-historical problems in all of the Hebrew Bible. The Septuagint edition (known as 3–4 Kingdoms) differs widely from MT Kings in both individual readings and the ordering of the textual units. These differences can be traced to its Hebrew Vorlage. The translation from the Hebrew was made in a highly literal, albeit not slavish, style. The study of the Septuagint of Kings is further complicated by the fact that most of its text was later subjected to the Kaige revision and that this revised text form is now found in most Greek witnesses. Thus the Old Greek translation is best preserved in different Greek manuscript traditions in different sections of Kings. Often the daughter versions, especially the Old Latin, are of great significance for the text-critical study of both the Old Greek and also its probable Vorlage.
The MT form of the saying of the wise woman in 2 Sam 20:18–19 presents multiple text-critical pro... more The MT form of the saying of the wise woman in 2 Sam 20:18–19 presents multiple text-critical problems. Instead of “Let them inquire at Abel,” the LXX refers to “Abel and Dan.” The notion of the wise woman being “one of those who are peaceable and faithful in Israel” (NRSV) is grammatically difficult; the LXX reads differently: “what the faithful of Israel had established, had been abandoned.” This article seeks to bring textual criticism into discussion with an archaeological analysis, including a tradition-historical angle on the story, by: 1. Re-examining the textual evidence, with due consideration of the Septuagint; 2. Considering the archaeological findings of Iron Age sites at Tel Abel and Tel Dan; 3. Examining the textual and iconographic implications of the motif “woman on the wall;” and 4. Evaluating the plausibility of the historical settings implied in the story in light of the textual and archaeological evidence.
The Lucianic or Antiochian text of the Septuagint supposedly goes back to a recension dating to a... more The Lucianic or Antiochian text of the Septuagint supposedly goes back to a recension dating to around 300 ce. It is the text quoted by the Antiochian patristic authors and transmitted in a small group of Septuagint manuscripts that vary from book to book. Its notable trait is that it often presents the text in a slightly better Greek style than the rest of the witnesses. However, particularly in the so-called Kaige sections of Samuel–Kings, the Antiochian text has noteworthy agreements with pre-Lucianic witnesses such as the Qumran Samuel scrolls, Josephus, Old Latin translations, and early patristic authors. Thus it seems that the base text underlying the Lucianic recension, the proto-Lucianic text, was an old text near to the original translation.
Recognizing kaige-readings is necessary for recovering the Old Greek translation in Samuel-Kings.... more Recognizing kaige-readings is necessary for recovering the Old Greek translation in Samuel-Kings. Our article aims at establishing tangible criteria for recognizing such readings. Lexical criteria include considerations on the semantics and exegetical significance of the Greek equivalent of the underlying Hebrew lexeme, observations of the usage of the OG translator, as well as comparison with the usage in other Greek translations. Syntactic criteria touch upon verbal tenses and voices. External criteria relate to the attestation of the putative kaige reading. The criteria must be used together, and they must be balanced with knowledge of the OG translation technique as well as the traits of the Lucianic revision
The books of Kings have some of the most challenging text-historical problems in all of the Hebre... more The books of Kings have some of the most challenging text-historical problems in all of the Hebrew Bible. The Septuagint edition (known as 3–4 Kingdoms) differs widely from MT Kings in both individual readings and the ordering of the textual units. These differences can be traced to its Hebrew Vorlage. The translation from the Hebrew was made in a highly literal, albeit not slavish, style. The study of the Septuagint of Kings is further complicated by the fact that most of its text was later subjected to the Kaige revision and that this revised text form is now found in most Greek witnesses. Thus the Old Greek translation is best preserved in different Greek manuscript traditions in different sections of Kings. Often the daughter versions, especially the Old Latin, are of great significance for the text-critical study of both the Old Greek and also its probable Vorlage.
The MT form of the saying of the wise woman in 2 Sam 20:18–19 presents multiple text-critical pro... more The MT form of the saying of the wise woman in 2 Sam 20:18–19 presents multiple text-critical problems. Instead of “Let them inquire at Abel,” the LXX refers to “Abel and Dan.” The notion of the wise woman being “one of those who are peaceable and faithful in Israel” (NRSV) is grammatically difficult; the LXX reads differently: “what the faithful of Israel had established, had been abandoned.” This article seeks to bring textual criticism into discussion with an archaeological analysis, including a tradition-historical angle on the story, by: 1. Re-examining the textual evidence, with due consideration of the Septuagint; 2. Considering the archaeological findings of Iron Age sites at Tel Abel and Tel Dan; 3. Examining the textual and iconographic implications of the motif “woman on the wall;” and 4. Evaluating the plausibility of the historical settings implied in the story in light of the textual and archaeological evidence.
The Lucianic or Antiochian text of the Septuagint supposedly goes back to a recension dating to a... more The Lucianic or Antiochian text of the Septuagint supposedly goes back to a recension dating to around 300 ce. It is the text quoted by the Antiochian patristic authors and transmitted in a small group of Septuagint manuscripts that vary from book to book. Its notable trait is that it often presents the text in a slightly better Greek style than the rest of the witnesses. However, particularly in the so-called Kaige sections of Samuel–Kings, the Antiochian text has noteworthy agreements with pre-Lucianic witnesses such as the Qumran Samuel scrolls, Josephus, Old Latin translations, and early patristic authors. Thus it seems that the base text underlying the Lucianic recension, the proto-Lucianic text, was an old text near to the original translation.
Kings and Power: Exploring Jewish Texts in their Hellenistic Contexts is a two day workshop. The ... more Kings and Power: Exploring Jewish Texts in their Hellenistic Contexts is a two day workshop. The meeting days are December 3-4, 2016. The aim of this workshop is to provide the scholars of different levels (doctoral students, postdocs and senior researchers) with a forum where to interact beyond disciplinary boundaries. With this purpose in mind, we invite junior and senior researchers to submit a proposal for our meeting.
2 Sam 11:11 is the rhetorical culmination point in the story of David and Batsheba. David tries t... more 2 Sam 11:11 is the rhetorical culmination point in the story of David and Batsheba. David tries to make Uriah go home for night in order to cover his adultery with Batsheba. Uriah refuses and explains his behaviour by his high moral standards, high enough to make the king ashamed. Uriah’s virtue ultimately leads him being killed as a victim of a conspiracy. It is no wonder that such a pregnant verse would attract the attention of translators and revisers. Most notably, in the LXX of 2 Sam 11:11 there are 11 differences between the Lucianic text (L) and the B and the majority texts. In addition, there are several Old Latin and Coptic witnesses to the verse. With a text-critical analysis of this and the immediately surrounding verses, I will argue that 2 Sam 11:11 is the key verse in understanding the complexities of the textual history of the Greek 2 Samuel. Especially, it provides a fixed starting-point to position the secondary versions between the Old Greek, kaige, and Lucianic texts. The paper is based on my work in editing the Greek 2 Samuel for the Göttingen Septuagint.
While an electronic text for most of the apparatuses published in the series Septuaginta: Vetus T... more While an electronic text for most of the apparatuses published in the series Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum (SVTG) by the Göttingen Academy of Sciences is commercially available, to our knowledge there is no electronic version with a full semantic tagging. A full semantic tagging on an apparatus should distinguish between lemmas, textual operators, variants, manuscript symbols with specifications, notes, and other elements. In addition, it should create links between the main text and the apparatus, allow for searches by the base form of lemmas and variants, and, ultimately, be able to parse the continuous text of any given witness on the basis of the reported variation. We will present an automated tagging system that will convert an SVTG apparatus into a hierarchically ordered sequence of elements that can be presented as an XML document, following the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) guidelines, or converted into a database structure. The system requires an XML schema describing the rules governing the order and nesting of elements as well as a lexicon of the element markers, such as separators for lemmas and readings. In addition, the system attempts to isolate formatting (such as superscript) and metadata from textual information. Since the exact format of the SVTG apparatuses vary, the system will allow for modifying the XML schema and other input parameters.
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