On the Present State of Proto-Septuagint Studies

Abstract

FOR THE past four-five years I have been working, tempore volente, on what amounts to a revised edition of some of the more important and controversial chapters in Swete(-Ottley)'s Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek2 (1914). It has become increasingly clear to me that it may be several years more before I shall have all the material ready for publication. I have decided, therefore, to present at intervals a discussion of some specific phase of the field at large. Here I present, with some alterations and additions, the paper read two years ago (April, 1939) at the Baltimore meeting of the Society.' problem of the Proto-Septuagint, at no time since the days of Lagarde far from the background of Old Testament research, has come very much to the fore in the past decade, owing largely to the appearance of Montgomery's Daniel, Margolis' Greek Joshua, the publication of the Chester Beatty, Rylands, and Scheide papyri, and the writings of A. Sperber. I have discussed briefly the value of these groups of manuscripts in relation to our own specific problem in the course of a rather detailed review of Allgeier's Die Chester Beatty-Papyri in JQR 32 (1941-42). It is my purpose here to sketch summarily the recent history and nature of the problem, the decisive importance of the contributions of Montgomery and especially Margolis, and the character and value of Sperber's criticisms. basic result of Septuaginst studies down to the last quarter of the nineteenth century amounted essentially to this: there was one original, more or less official Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, known to us through the Letter of Aristeas as the Septuagint. best representative of this version is the rather imposing fourthcentury uncial, Codex Vaticanus. To find it, one has but to consult any edition of the Septuagint that has appeared since the days of the Renaissance and the invention of printing. This view is still held today by many students of the Bible, so that the texts edited, e. g., by Tischendorf (-Nestle), Swete, and now Rahlfs, have become for them the Septuagint itself. A great step forward in Septuagint studies was made in our own time when Brooke-McLean, following up the great, and still quite indispensable Vetus Testamentum Graecum cum variis lectionibus of Ho]mes-Parsons, began to make available in the Larger Cambridge Septuagint a mass of reliable evidence bearing on the history and text of the Septuagint. In the critical apparatus of these two works are to be found variants from practically all extant Greek manuscripts of the Old Testament, fronm the daughter and minor versions, and from the earlier patristic writings. * It is now nine years since this great teacher and scholar passed away. His contributions to biblical philology, especially to the Septuagint, are not as well known as they deserve to be; his magnus opus, the Greek Joshua, has not received even a fraction of the attention it merits. Perhaps this brief sketch of the Proto-Septuagint, which touches on the character and value of his work, may in some measure help to right this wrong. I may note here in passing that I entered the Dropsie College in October 1931 in order to specialize in biblical studies under Margolis. He was then already a very sick man. In November he was stricken and I never saw him again. Nevertheless, the influence of Margolis was felt in the College and it led me to become interested in the rather complex field of the Septuagint. This article has been made much clearer and more presentable by the many helpful suggestions of Prof. Albright and Dr. Louis L. Kaplan. Prof. Speiser's editorial hand is likewise in evidence. It is interesting that both Kaplan and Speiser studied under Margolis at the Dropsie College, and Albright has more than once alluded to his privilege of attending a course in the Greek of Joshua given by Margolis in the year 1924-5, while the latter was Annual Professor at the School in Jerusalem (JBL 56 (1937) 173; cf. also ZAW 3 (1926) 225 f. and n. 1). 1 See the abstract in JAOS 59 (1939), 401. paper read at the Society's meeting in Ann Arbor (April, 1935) on another phase, Columnar Order of the Hexapla, appeared in JQR 27 (1936-7) 137-49. My paper on The Priority of the Tetrapla to the Hexapla, read before the Society of Biblical Literature, Dec. 1936 (cf. JBL 56 (1937) p. x), is part of a much larger discussion, and has not been prepared as yet for publication.