Russ continues his analysis of the King Bible with a look at his translation of the Septuagint.
“In the beginning God made heaven and earth. And the earth
was invisible and unformed; and darkness was upon the abyss, and the Spirit of
God was rushing upon the water.”
So begins Fr. King’s translation of the Septuagint (LXX),
for which we should be thankful as there are very few English translations of
the Greek Old Testament in our bibles today. One is found in the Orthodox Study
Bible (OSB), which uses as its base text the Old Testament of the New King
James Version, and the other is the New English Translation of the Septuagint
(NETS), which uses the NRSV Old Testament as its base text. Now we have Fr.
King’s and it’s my intention to quote freely from his introductions and footnotes
to guide us through it. I don’t really consider this a review in the
conventional sense but more of a casual glancing through his translation and
the way it’s laid out. I simply haven’t had the time to read the entire
translation. However, I wanted to share some initial observations and what I
have found that I consider educational.
In his Preface he gives three reasons for using the LXX:
“In the first place, the LXX, and not the Hebrew text (what
we shall call the MT or ‘Masoretic Text’) is the version most used by our New
Testament authors, for whom the LXX, and not the MT, is ‘the bible’. Secondly,
and perhaps rather oddly, the manuscripts for the LXX are older than those of
the MT and in some cases preserve a superior reading; and they are good
evidence for how Greek-speaking Jews of the three centuries before the birth of
Christ read their sacred texts. Thirdly, it may be useful at this point to
recall that most Jews of the time will have spoken Greek rather than than
Hebrew, just as today more Jews speak English than Hebrew.”
And it’s in his presentation of the Old Testament (as
opposed to his NT section/text that I reviewed two weeks ago) that you get back
to more familiar ground as far as study bibles are concerned, and this is
advertized as a study bible. Here the verses are included in the text (wild
applause and cheering on my part), unlike the NT. Most of the introductions are more in-depth
than what is found in the NT but not overly so. In a lot of bibles you actually
feel like you’re drowning when it comes to all the theories and speculations about
this, that, and the other thing (and yes, there is a place for all the this,
that, and the other thing) but if you’re not careful you (me) can lose sight
that, when all is said and done, this is a book that is inspired by God and one
of the most beautiful ways he uses to communicate to us.
His footnotes are copious in the places that are needed, and
in many of them he demonstrates the differences between the Greek and Hebrew
and what the translator may have been thinking.
For example, Genesis 2:2 (I did the underling below):
LXX (King): “And God completed on the sixth day the
works which he made; and he rested on the seventh day…”
NABRE: “On the seventh
day God completed the work he had been doing; he rested on the seventh day…”
The RSV/NRSV/NJB all translate the same way as the NABRE as
they are all based on the MT as well.
Fr. King’s footnote for that verse: “here the translator
seems to have edited what he found in the Hebrew text, which at first blush
implies that God actually worked on the 7th day, and the translator
is evidently determined to preserve the Sabbath from divine labour.” Twenty
years into my reading and studying of the bible, and I’m just now discovering
this interesting little tidbit. And there are many other such notes that are
found scattered through each book.
And this is an example of why he states in his Introduction
to Genesis: “As you read this translation of the Septuagint, I should like to
encourage you to keep your Bibles open, and see some of the differences between
the Greek and the Hebrew versions from which your bibles will normally have
been translated.”
When you flip passed the books of Moses, Joshua and Judges you
find “four books that belong very closely together. The LXX signals this by
calling them 1-4 ‘Reigns’ or ‘Kingdom’. We shall call them by the conventional
titles, of 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings (the latter originates with
Jerome’s translation of the Hebrew text into Latin).”
Next are two books that “were just one volume in Hebrew; it
was only when they were translated into Greek that they were divided…the Greek
translator called it ‘Paralipomena’, or ‘things left out’.” Again, Fr. King
uses the traditional titles of 1 and 2 Chronicles for these books. I’m glad
because as hard as I try, I find it difficult to pronounce Paralipomena without
my tongue and mind becoming momentarily paralyzed.
Going forward to the Wisdom books you first come to the Book
of Job, personally one of my favorite books and one I admit I haven’t read in a
long time, so it’s a joy to read it again, this time from the Septuagint. Fr.
King: “the Greek text is notably shorter than the Hebrew, sometimes offering no
more than a paraphrase (though there are also occasional additions). This is
partly, one suspects, because in places the Hebrew is so very obscure, and
partly because it tends to be repetitious. The Greek translation makes various
theological emendations…This translation is particularly interesting as it is
our first evidence of how some Jews, from a different culture, read this
remarkable work.”
A sample introduction, this one from Psalms.
About the numbering of the Psalms, Fr. King notes, “This
Psalm (9) was originally an alphabetic psalm (although bits are now missing),
and Psalm 10 was its continuation, as LXX correctly observes. We shall continue
to number in accordance with the Masoretic Text, but with LXX in brackets after
the MT numeration.”
When you get to the prophets and specifically now to Isaiah
he writes, “the Greek translation is odd in places, for occasionally the
translator seems to have misunderstood the Hebrew (assuming that he had the
same text before him as we have), and his Greek is simply unintelligible at
times. At other times, however, he shows excellent translation skills, though
he sometimes feels free to suggest a different translation, often entirely
appropriate to the themes of the book as a whole.” Finally, “the reader is
warned that at times it is very difficult indeed to follow the order of the
Isaiah scroll; in particular how one passage leads into what follows. So do not
worry if it seems impossible to grasp; simply sit patiently with it.”
Above is an example of the page layout for the entire Old
Testament section. And considering the season we’re in, I wanted to display
that particular part of Isaiah.
Jeremiah is another book I haven’t read in a long time, so
when I started to flip through it I was immediately reminded and educated to
the difficulties scholars have when it comes to the proper order and
structuring of the book. In his translation, Fr. King uses the following
chapter order:
1-25/49-51/25-45/52.
He writes in the Introduction, “the Greek is about 12 per
cent shorter (than the MT). And the discoveries of fragments of Jeremiah in the
Qumran caves (especially the one known as 4QJer(b) suggests that there were
several editions of Jeremiah known to 1st century Jews; many
scholars think that LXX may be closer to the original, in particular in the
placing of the ‘oracles against the nations’, though in the circumstances that
is a tricky claim to sustain.”
When I first started to look into this translation, I saw
that it was roundly endorsed by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury,
Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Archbishop of Westminster, Desmund Tutu and Henry
Wansbrough, OSB, general editor of The New Jerusalem Bible and former member of
the Pontifical Biblical Commission. However, I didn’t buy it for that. I bought
it because he translated from the Septuagint. Had it not been for that I most
likely wouldn’t have purchased it.
In his mostly favorable review for the Methodist Recorder ,
The Rev Dr. Paul Ellingsworth wrote, “This is a version intended to be read
rather than analyzed, so detailed criticism is best left to academic journals.”
And while I hope that someday someone with the proper biblical and language
skills will do such a review, I can definitely say that I am reading this
translation. For me there’s nothing like a new translation of the bible to open
our eyes and spirit, or, as their advertisement says, to “shake off the dust
which often settles on passages which have become tired from over familiarity
or frequent quotation.”
This translation is a challenge and one that I honestly look
forward to reading every day. I believe it’s a wonderful resource and it’s my
hope that this translation will someday be readily available to an American
audience.
