The Septuagint is a philological fraud

[Estro Felino]

I want to underline, before starting the thread that I only know ancient Greek...I have absolutely no knowledge of ancient Hebrew.
But speaking with some scholars (belonging to the Jewish Community of Rome) I understood there is a big lexical discrepancy between the OT present in the MT - Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (Genesis, particularly) and the Septuagint (Codex Vaticanus).

I will analyze some passages and the help of Hebrew experts is highly appreciated.

 

[Tumah]

I have heard that Jerome attests to their being more than one version of the LXX even in his day. Why are you surprised at the variance?

 

[Estro Felino]

I have heard that Jerome attests to their being more than one version of the LXX even in his day. Why are you surprised at the variance?

Well...I'm speaking of very specific words which turn out to be really mistranslated from Hebrew into Greek.

I will start by analyzing the very first passages of the Genesis and with the word bara that was translated with the recurring Greek ἐποίησεν

I'm with my phone rn...
AS soon as I go back home, I will give more detailed answers

 

[GoodbyeDave]

You are comparing a translation with a text made about 1000 years later! In other words, the scholars who made the LXX did not necessarily work from something like the Masoretic text. If you look at the Dead Sea Scrolls and Samaritan texts, they show many differences with the Masoretic version and many agreements with the Septuagint. An extreme case is Deuteronomy 32.8 where the Masoretes clearly altered an embarrassing text, even at the expense of making nonsense of it; modern translators follow the Septuagint.

 

[Estro Felino]

You are comparing a translation with a text made about 1000 years later! In other words, the scholars who made the LXX did not necessarily work from something like the Masoretic text. If you look at the Dead Sea Scrolls and Samaritan texts, they show many differences with the Masoretic version and many agreements with the Septuagint.

Indeed...the Septuagint is the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible of the II century BC...since it was translated by Jewish scholars many centuries before the Masoretic school.

An extreme case is Deuteronomy 32.8 where the Masoretes clearly altered an embarrassing text, even at the expense of making nonsense of it; modern translators follow the Septuagint.

Let's see the Septuagint
ὅτε διεμέριζεν ὁ ῞Υψιστος ἔθνη, ὡς διέσπειρεν υἱοὺς ᾿Αδάμ, ἔστησεν ὅρια ἐθνῶν κατὰ ἀριθμὸν ἀγγέλων Θεοῦ,

It says: When the most high divided the peoples by spreading Adam's children, he established the bonds of the peoples according to the number of the angels of God

 

[OtherSheep]

I want to underline, before starting the thread that I only know ancient Greek.

Jesus quotes the LXX.

 

[pearl]

If you look at the Dead Sea Scrolls and Samaritan texts, they show many differences with the Masoretic version and many agreements with the Septuagint.

I would think that a much better starting point than the
Codex Vaticanus for comparison.

 

[Tumah]

You are comparing a translation with a text made about 1000 years later! In other words, the scholars who made the LXX did not necessarily work from something like the Masoretic text. If you look at the Dead Sea Scrolls and Samaritan texts, they show many differences with the Masoretic version and many agreements with the Septuagint. An extreme case is Deuteronomy 32.8 where the Masoretes clearly altered an embarrassing text, even at the expense of making nonsense of it; modern translators follow the Septuagint.

I do not see anything nonsensical about the MT's version of Deut. 32:8. Actually, the LXX's version makes less sense to me.

 

[Estro Felino]

I do not see anything nonsensical about the MT's version of Deut. 32:8. Actually, the LXX's version makes less sense to me.

Could you quote that passage from the MT?
So we could make a comparison with the Septuagint

 

[Tumah]

Could you quote that passage from the MT?
So we could make a comparison with the Septuagint

It's hard to do a flowing translation on this, because it's kind of stilted poetry. I'll show you what I mean with a word for word translation:

בהנחל - with the [causing to] inherit (I don't know of an English word that's the active form of inherit, 'your father ... you and you inherit him)
עליון - most high
גוים - nations
בהפרידו - in his separating
בני - sons of
אדם - man
יצב - he [caused] to stand up
גבלת - boundaries of
עמים - nations
למספר - to the number
בני - sons of
ישראל - Israel

I believe the LXX changes the last word to "G-d".

 

[Estro Felino]

It's hard to do a flowing translation on this, because it's kind of stilted poetry. I'll show you what I mean with a word for word translation:

בהנחל - with the [causing to] inherit (I don't know of an English word that's the active form of inherit, 'your father ... you and you inherit him)
עליון - most high
גוים - nations
בהפרידו - in his separating
בני - sons of
אדם - man
יצב - he [caused] to stand up
גבלת - boundaries of
עמים - nations
למספר - to the number
בני - sons of
ישראל - Israel

I believe the LXX changes the last word to "G-d".

Thank you...I understood in Hebrew the word Adam= anthropos...so the sons of man should have been translated as uioi tou anthropou and not as uioi Adam ( υἱοἱ᾿Αδάμ).

Besides...the last word is Theoù which means of God, not of Israel...and is preceded by ἀγγέλων which is genitive plural of aggelos...so literally the messengers of God.

So the discrepancies are many, as you can see

ὅτε διεμέριζεν ὁ ῞Υψιστος ἔθνη, ὡς διέσπειρεν υἱοὺς ᾿Αδάμ, ἔστησεν ὅρια ἐθνῶν κατὰ ἀριθμὸν ἀγγέλων Θεοῦ,

 

[Duke_Leto]

I'm curious. I've left the faith many years ago, but, to me, the discrepancies here and those I've seen elsewhere really do not seem particularly major. Yes, they do at times diverge, but the meaning of the text does not seem substantially different. Given that the Tanach, as it stands, contains many contradictions and clearly impossible events (even in the context of divine miracles), which cannot be reconciled if you read it literally, why do the -- in my opinion -- relatively minor discrepancies between the Septuagint and the Masoretic matter to you so much that you go so far to call the Septuagint a "philological fraud"? Especially since the Septuagint was composed by Jewish authors familiar with Hebrew and Aramaic variations of the Masoretic, who presumably had an interest in preserving the text's integrity, and were not seen as heretical or using doctored texts at their time?

 

[Tumah]

Thank you...I understood in Hebrew the word Adam= anthropos...so the sons of man should have been translated as uioi tou anthropou and not as uioi Adam ( υἱοἱ᾿Αδάμ).

No, that's not technically true. Man is called "Adam" in Hebrew which is the name of the first man. I don't know if Adam is called "Adam" because it means "man" or if man is called "Adam" because they descend from him. But I suspect it's the second one, because another name for mankind is "Enosh", who's also a person. So you find "Adam", "Enosh" "sons of Ada" and "sons of Enosh" and they're all phrases for mankind. So I don't think this one is technically wrong.

Besides...the last word is Theoù which means of God, not of Israel...and is preceded by ἀγγέλων which is genitive plural of aggelos...so literally the messengers of God.

So the discrepancies are many, as you can see

ὅτε διεμέριζεν ὁ ῞Υψιστος ἔθνη, ὡς διέσπειρεν υἱοὺς ᾿Αδάμ, ἔστησεν ὅρια ἐθνῶν κατὰ ἀριθμὸν ἀγγέλων Θεοῦ,

So the "messengers" part isn't a literal translation, but one of the names for angels is the phrase "sons of G-d". Also angel in Hebrew mal'akh means "messenger". So it might just be coming from a change in the last word.

 

[Estro Felino]

So the "messengers" part isn't a literal translation, but one of the names for angels is the phrase "sons of G-d". Also angel in Hebrew mal'akh means "messenger". So it might just be coming from a change in the last word.

But "sons of Israel" is completely different than "messengers of God".
Besides aggelos means messenger...it's the exact translation of malach

 

[Tumah]

Especially since the Septuagint was composed by Jewish authors familiar with Hebrew and Aramaic variations of the Masoretic, who presumably had an interest in preserving the text's integrity, and were not seen as heretical or using doctored texts at their time?

The Septuagint we have today is not the one made by the Jews.

 

[Estro Felino]

Given that the Tanach, as it stands, contains many contradictions and clearly impossible events (even in the context of divine miracles), which cannot be reconciled if you read it literally, why do the -- in my opinion -- relatively minor discrepancies between the Septuagint and the Masoretic matter to you so much that you go so far to call the Septuagint a "philological fraud"? Especially since the Septuagint was composed by Jewish authors familiar with Hebrew and Aramaic variations of the Masoretic, who presumably had an interest in preserving the text's integrity, and were not seen as heretical or using doctored texts at their time?

Greek, unlike Hebrew is not a polysemic language. That is, words have univocal meanings...not subject to interpretation.

Hebrew is a polysemic language

 

[Tumah]

But "sons of Israel" is completely different than "messengers of God".
Besides aggelos means messenger...it's the exact translation of malach

Right, that part is different. I don't really get how to understand it with the LXX's version. "He set up the boundaries of nations, according to the number of angels"? What does that mean?

 

[Estro Felino]

Right, that part is different. I don't really get how to understand it with the LXX's version. "He set up the boundaries of nations, according to the number of angels"? What does that mean?

LOL...I have no idea but I assure you those are the Greek words of the LXX, Deut 32:8.

To prove you that Jerome directly translated from the MT in Bethlehem, the Vulgata says "sons of Israel" and not "messengers of God".


Quando dividebat Altissimus gentes,
quando separabat filios Adam,
constituit terminos populorum
iuxta numerum filiorum Israel;

 

[Tumah]

LOL...I have no idea but I assure you those are the Greek words of the LXX, Deut 32:8.

To prove you that Jerome directly translated from the MT in Bethlehem, the Vulgata says "sons of Israel" and not "messengers of God".


Quando dividebat Altissimus gentes,
quando separabat filios Adam,
constituit terminos populorum
iuxta numerum filiorum Israel;

I see that some modern Christian translations favor the Vaticanus.

 

[Estro Felino]

I see that some modern Christian translations favor the Vaticanus.

As far as I know the CEI (Italian Bishops' Conference) authorizes translations of the Old Testament only from the BHS (the Septuagint is used only for the books which are not present in the BHS like Maccabees 1-2 ).