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New Evidence For an Old Recension of Reigns

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Ralph W. Klein
Ralph W. Klein
Affiliation:
Concordia Senior College, Fort Wayne, Indiana
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Extract

Scholars have explained a series of supplements in Paraleipomena B′ (hereafter Par) containing material not in the Massoretic Text of Chronicles by one of the following alternatives: (a) the translator of Chronicles had a Hebrew text expanded with passages from 2 Kings; or (b) Greek passages related in some undefinable fashion to 4 Reigns were added to Par. The supplements in Par do, in fact, bear a tantalizing resemblance to Reigns, but they also differ considerably in vocabulary, grammatical forms, and length; and they presuppose independent contact with a Hebrew text distinct from the Massoretic Text of Kings. The debate still stands at this impasse.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 60 , Issue 1 , January 1967 , pp. 93 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1967

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References

1 Par 35:10a-d, 36:2a-e, 36:4*, and 36:5a-d = 2 Kings-4 Reigns 23:24-27, 23:31B-33A, 23:35, and 24:1-4 respectively.

2 This is essentially the position of Torrey, C. C., Ezra Studies (Chicago, 1910), 88fGoogle Scholar. and Walde, Bernhard, Die Esdrasbücher der Septuaginta, Biblische Studien 18(1913), 50Google Scholar.

3 Cf. the remarks of Swete, H. B., An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek (Cambridge, 1914), 249Google Scholar.

4 The transliteration τὰ καρασɛίμ, apparently a miswritten form of םישדקח, provides a convenient example of a non-Massoretic reading. In the MT of 2 Kings 23:27, this noun has been replaced by םיעקשה (a euphemism?).

5 The theories here presented are essentially the contribution of Frank M. Cross, JR. See especially his most recent discussion and the literature there cited, in The History of the Biblical Text in the Light of Discoveries in the Desert, Judean, HTR 57(1964). 281–99Google Scholar.

6 For a discussion of the history and character of kaige, see Barthélemy, D., Les devanciers d'Aquila: Première publication intégrale du texte des fragments du Dodecaprophéton (Leiden, 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cross, op. cit.; and the unpublished Harvard dissertation of Shenkel, James Donald, Chronology and Recensional Development in the Greek Text of Kings (Cambridge, 1964)Google Scholar.

7 We have omitted the last four words in 2 Chronicles 36:8 = 2 Kings 24:6, since the Hebrew texts are identical in Chronicles and Kings. The passages corresponding to the four Par passages are 2 Kings 23:2gA, 33B-34A, 36B-37 and 24:5, 6A respectively. Perhaps Par 36:1 and 4B are also borrowed from the Kings-Reigns text. Note that Par 36:1, Kings MT, and Reigns read “and they anointed him,” but lack “in Jerusalem.” Since the latter expression is also absent in Esdras A′, the similarity to Reigns stands or falls merely with the first expression. In Par 36:4B ἀδελΦὸν αὐτοῦ seems to presuppose a text like Chronicles MT although an original ויחא could have fallen out of Kings after זחאזהי; the reading Φαραὼ ΝεΧαὼ agrees exactly with neither Kings nor Chronicles. Since both the preceding (4A) and following (4a) sections are from Kings-Reigns, Par 4B may also stem from there. The last three words in Par 4B, although contained neither in Chronicles MT nor in Esdras A′, do appear in the Syriac text of Chronicles. Because of these uncertainties in Par 36:1 and 4B, we prefer to exclude these passages from the present discussion.

8 Of the readings listed here, Esdras A′ lacks היבה חא and substitutes Φαραὼ for זבנ in 35:20; lacks זיהלא in 36:5 and adds םימיה יוכד in 36:8. See below, note 12.

9 Reigns is defective due to haplography (homoioteleuton) in its Vorlage.

10 The Vaticanus manuscript of Reigns is defective here (homoioteleuton in Greek?); cf. below, note 13.

11 The expression, lacking in Kings MT, occurs both in Reigns and Par, but is removed in the late Lucianic text.

12 Par and Reigns apparently read a text slightly different from MT (םגה אלה?.); Esdras A′ lacks this reading altogether, but its text in this verse presupposes a very complicated history.

13 A word is needed on our method of tabulation. The Vaticanus text of both Reigns and Par served as the primary basis of comparison, but to simplify and clarify the presentation of statistics, we have made the following emendations: (a) added to Par: 35:19b αὐτῷ (a form of this pronoun is in all manuscripts but B); 35:20 δ (with all manuscripts but Bh); 36:2c αὐτὸν (with all manuscripts but B*); 36:5d καὶ (in all manuscripts but Bh); 36:5c τὰς ἀμαρτίας (in all manuscripts but B*). (b) added to Reigns: 23:34 ζημίαν ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν (cf. manuscripts Adefjmp — twxyz (txt) ) 24:2 Kύριος ἐν (this is a reconstruction, supposing, however, an haplography from — ɛν to ἐν); 24:3 αὐτοῦ (with all manuscripts but B). We have read μου as the pronoun after προσώπον in Reigns 23:27 and Par 35:19d (with all manuscripts of both except B). The lack of the final nu on Ιούδα in Reigns 23:27, as well as the various spellings given for the Greek word for “Teraphim” in Reigns 23:24 and Par 35:19a, can safely be discounted. Also to be discounted are the readings of B in Par 36:5c and 5d ἀποστῆναι and ένέπληςɛν where the reading in Alexandrinus agrees with Reigns. The plus of το ῦ in Reigns 24:3 (Biy only!) has not been included in our statistics. The slight spelling variations on proper names have no doubt occurred independently: Reigns 23:31 = Par 36:2a Hamutal and Libnah; Reigns 23:33 = Par 36:2e Riblah and Hamath; Reigns 23:36 = Par 36:5 Zebidah, Pedaiah, and Rumah — in any case, they are counted here as identical readings. In addition, the following differences have been discounted, since they are the result of variants elsewhere in the context (e.g., a preceding plus, prepositions governing different cases, etc.) and are, therefore, of no independent importance in distinguishing the texts. Reigns 23:33 τάλαντα, Par 36:3 τάλαντον Reigns 23:35 τὴν γῆν, Par 36:4a ἡ γῆ; Reigns 24:1 Ι ἐν αὐτῷ, Par 36:5b ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ Reigns 24:2 αὐτοῦ, Par 36:5bαὐτοῦ Reigns 24:2 αὐτῷ, Par 36:5bαὐτοῦ; Reigns 24:3 πάνταὅσα, Par 36:5b πᾶσιν οἶς. Since in the second last example two words in Reigns equal one in Par, only 102 words (instead of 103) must still be explained in Reigns. In Par 35:19b Par inverts the order of two clauses beginning with κα ὶ.

14 In fact, in all but BAbic2e2

15 As indication that such variations can independently arise, note that Reigns manuscript x has the Par reading.

16 Cf. Reigns 23:36 = Par 36:5, where Par and RL stand against Reigns kaige.

17 Par manuscripts bf jz agree with Reigns!

18 The variant reading on the noun in Par B (alone) is to be rejected.

19 Note that some manuscripts of Par — b, m in the former case and d, e in the latter — share the Reigns reading.

20 This is probably an assimilation to the previous phrase, although RL, strangely enough, reads “ten.”

21 That the Par supplements are typologically earlier than Reigns kaige is shown by their greater distance — particularly in length — from Kings MT.

22 In those Hebrew readings marked with an asterisk, only the crucial part of the Greek readings is given.

23 For copious examples in the text of Jeremiah — where no confusion with Proto-Lucianic readings is possible — see Joseph Ziegler, Beiträge zur Jeremias-Septuaginta (Göttingen, 1958), 162–64. Ziegler's observations are sustained at least in part in the present case. Outside of items discussed in (a) and (b), the article is added five times in RL against Reigns kaige and Par, but it is also omitted twice.

24 Manuscript e substitutes “the king of Judah” for “Josiah.”

25 Cf. also x and y. The hexaplaric asterisk is added on the RL reading in c2 and .

26 The phrase occurs after “Nebuchadnezzar” in bofe, but in the proper place in the Ethiopic. Hence, the former may be secondary displacement.

27 Manuscripts Nhinovxy attest a reading ὃ.

28 Homoioteleuton in Hebrew explains numbers three and six; number thirteen probably was omitted by a Greek scribe.

29 Lacking in manuscripts oc2e2 in Reigns and in ANacefgjn in Par, the article is an uncertain element here.

30 More extensive documentation of this type of change and the rationale behind it is discussed for a portion of the Minor Prophets by Barthélemy, op. cit., 179–98.

31 The Reigns verb has alternate spelling in Bij and gve2*; we have selected the spelling of Ane2*rell. Note that manuscript b in Par betrays a similar correction.

32 In the former pair the use of the verb “to be” instead of the verb “to appear” in both Greek texts may in itself show a connection between the two texts.

33 Note ἐφορολόγησɛ in boc2e2, using the same Greek root as we find in Par. Does this betray another facet of the relationship between RL and Par?

34 In their works already cited, Barthélemy and Shenkel have refined the insights of Thackeray, H. ST. John, The Septuagint and Jewish Worship [Schweich Lectures, 1920] (London, 1921)Google Scholar.

35 The addition of γɛ in all manuscripts of Par except Bm in 35:19d is rather puzzling.

36 Cf. Barthélemy, op. cit., 78–80, where he notes that ἀπαντήν is virtually the exclusive property of the kaige recensor. συνάντησιν occurs several times as the translation for הארקל in the Old Greek sections of Reigns.

37 Note that Par manuscript b reads ἐνώπιον and compare Abdc2e2 in Reigns. ἐναντίον is rare in the Old Greek text of Reigns.

38 As Barthélemy has noted, many Greek words were used in older Greek texts to translate דודג, op. cit., λῃστήριον, to be sure, only occurs elsewhere in 2 Par 22:1 — but it is by no means the characteristic translation in Par. Note also λῃστής in Jer. 18:22 and Hosea 7:1.

39 Earlier in the same verse RL agrees with Par in translating זפא with the Greek word θυμοῦ.

40 This Greek word is used only here and in Par 36:1 (for the relation of this passage to Reigns, see footnote 7) in the sense of “establishing … as king.” For this to be replaced with the more literal — and more usual — translation in all manuscripts of Reigns makes perfect sense.

41 “Lucian” adds “all” in 24:3 and “in” in 23:26 (cf. also “10” for “100” in 23:33 and the plus “in Jerusalem” in manuscript b of 23:26), but these alternate readings are so common that they are insufficient to establish different text types.

42 Cross identified the first in the sixth column of the Septuagint of 2 Samuel, beginning at 11:2, op. cit., 295. One of the distinguishing marks of the Lucianic versus the Proto-Lucianic text, as observed by Cross, is that the former sometimes resolves the transliterations of the latter into purely Greek vocabulary. In this regard contrast κήπῳ Ὀζά in RL 24:6 (here = late Lucian) with γανοζαή in Par 36:8. See above (b), reading 15.