UM's Series: Early Biblical Translations (part 1)

[UMSonOfMan7]

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This thread marks part one in the third phase of my series of threads (Phase One was How Does God Act in the World?; Phase Two was Apocrypha, Canon, Scripture: What makes up the Bible?—also see PF’s similar thread I believe in the Bible!--and Apocrypha, Canon, Scripture: How was the Bible formed?) aimed at addressing some of the underlying issues that surround the differences between conservative, moderate, and liberal Christians. These issues repeatedly come up throughout our discussions, and understanding them is integral to understanding our Tradition, each other, and where we are coming from in our interpretations. Specifically, this entire series of threads is a direct response to questions posed by Eeyore, LE, Don, Christie, Boston, Paladin and others regarding how myself and others understand scripture and how what I do is not the same as simply picking and choosing that which I like in the scriptures. The series of threads is my response to demonstrate that there is a method for how I understand scripture that does not result in me merely remaking God into whatever image I want him to fit. Throughout these threads, I will be providing pieces and information as well as at times giving a glimpse into how I understand that information (hopefully, I will be able to generally keep the two separate to facilitate each of you in being able to also analyze the information and come up with your own understandings of it.

Please keep the discussion civil and respectable at all times.
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In this thread, I am presenting an overview of ancient scriptural translations that are key in scholarly translations of the Bible today (transmission of the Bible prior to the first translation will be covered later).

Now that we have discussed what makes up the Bible and how the canon was formed, the next thing to talk about is how the texts that make up the Bible have been transmitted throughout history. This is a very complex topic, and so there are two aspects of it that I have intentionally attempted to avoid at this time (so as not to bite off more than we can chew at once); those aspects are related to the transmission of the texts prior to the first major translation and related to who wrote the Bible. In the next thread, I will cover the former issues; in the thread after that, I will cover the latter issue.

So to clarify, in this thread, I am covering the key ancient translations of the Bible (this covers up to the Medieval period but stops before the KJV translation because I am focusing on the oldest translations currently available that scholars turn to when they try to get at the original texts; the KJV is not important in this sense because no scriptural texts were originally written in English and the first language that the New Testament was completely translated to from Greek was Latin, which we have copies of; thus English KJ translations are much older and less reliable when seeking the original writings) and any issues that are related to that. I’m not certain, but I think this particular thread will not raise as many issues to discuss as the previous two have, and will instead leave most of the key questions regarding the writing/transmission of the Bible to be covered in the following two threads as soon as I can get to them (forgive me, it really does take a while to research this stuff and attempt to collect/share it in an understandable manner).


So, my point in this thread is to provide more background for future discussion, to describe the transmission/translation of the scriptures over time, to provide an opportunity for discussion of the issues related to the transmission and translation of the scriptures over time, and to TRY to answer whatever questions y'all throw at me.


Now for the meat.
(see below)

[UMSonOfMan7]

A few key points on that to begin with:

1) We do not have any original texts of the books within the Bible.

2) The Bible was not mass-translated and widely distributed until after the invention of the printing press in 1450 CE.

3) Comparisons of the ancient translations reveal that differences in the texts have appeared over time and it is likely that even the best translations of today, based on the oldest texts available, are not in perfect harmony with the original wording of the texts. Without any original texts to compare to, it is impossible for scholars to know how much the texts have changed over time, but it is easy to take texts from various periods and see significant differences in structure and content at times (see my discussion in a later thread on the ending of Mark for an example of this).

4) The Old Testament texts were originally written in Hebrew (with the exception of portions of Daniel, which were written in Aramaic); the New Testament Texts were originally written in Greek. Ancient Hebrew (which did not contain any vowels), as used in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible is different from modern day Hebrew (somewhat analogous to the difference between medieval English--like King James--and modern-day English).

5) The key ancient translations for the Old Testament texts are the Septuagint, the Peshitta, the Vulgate, the Targums, and the Masoretic; for the New Testament, the key ancient translations are Old Latin (Vulgate) and Syriac. The other key translations you will sometimes hear about at the Dead Sea Scrolls. I will explain those below as well.

[UMSonOfMan7]

The Septuagint/LXX was the first large-scale translation of a religion text into a different language. Initially, “word for word” translation was the norm, but that changed with Jerome when the Greek was translated into the Latin “sense for sense.” Translating an ancient text is very difficult, and unfortunately, good ancient Hebrew copies of the texts are not always available. When an ancient Hebrew copy is not available (because one hasn’t been found yet), a really good Bible will include a footnote informing you which of the below translations was consulted in the modern translation of the text.


Septuagint/LXX
According to Westminster’s Dictionary of Theological Terms, the Septuagint, also referred to as LXX (Latin for 70) is the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, which was completed approximately a century before Jesus’ life. The name derives from the tradition that this translation was the work of 70 (technically 72) men. This is the translation that the early Christian Church used.

The origin of the tradition regarding this translation is found in The Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates, which was written late in the second century BCE. According to this letter, Ptolemy II (Egyptian pharaoh from 282- 246 BCE) commissioned the translation of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament) into Greek. To accomplish this, the letter relates that an accurate Hebrew manuscript was sent from Jerusalem to Alexandria where it was translated by 72 elders of the 12 tribes of Israel (six elders from each tribe). Further expansions of this tradition state that the translating was done by 72 elders in 72 days in Alexandria. Later, LXX came to refer to the entire Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (OT).

Most biblical scholars, however, seriously doubt this tradition and believe that it is implausible that Ptolemy II commissioned this work. However, they do generally believe that it is likely this work did take place in the early third century in Egypt, but rather than as a directive of the Pharaoh, most scholars believe that it was more likely a response to the educational and liturgical needs of the large Jewish community in Egypt who spoke Greek. The rest of translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek took place in a piecemeal fashion over the next two centuries and also included the Apocryphal texts, which the Jews had not previously included as scriptural (and still don’t today). When the Old Testament is quoted in the New Testament, it is almost always quoted from the LXX. The earliest copies of the LXX were found in Qumran and dated to the second century BCE. Comparisons of various manuscripts reveal many variations between them.

(This information from Michael Coogan and S.P. Brock in The Oxford Companion to the Bible.)


The Peshitta
The Peshitta is the Syriac translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. Again, the various books were translated at different times and maybe even at different locations but probably in the first and second centuries CE. At least some were translated by Jews, but although the translators appear to have worked primarily from the Hebrew, it appears that in some books the LXX was consulted. Unlike the LXX, however, there does not appear to have been any subsequent revisions of the Peshitta text, as there is wide agreement amongst the various manuscripts. The Apocryphal books in the Peshitta translation, with the exception of Sirach that is based on Hebrew, were translated from Greek.

The Peshitta continues to be the authoritative biblical text of choice of the Syriac churches (Syrian Orthodox, Church of the East, Maronite). The oldest manuscripts date to around the 5th and 6th centuries, but the oldest complete manuscript (there are only five complete manuscripts that date to prior to the 17th century) is from the 6th/7th century.

(This information is from S.P. Brock in The Oxford Companion to the Bible.)


The Vulgate
The Vulgate is the Latin translation of the Bible. “It was the common version for the Western church from the 5th to the 16th century and was the basis for the official version in the Roman Catholic Church from the 16th to the 20th century” (Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms).

Originally, the Bible had been translated from Greek to Latin, but this was done in a piecemeal fashion and was not always reliable. Pope Damascus commissioned Jerome in 382 CE to translate the Bible again, but this time to use the Hebrew instead of the Septuagint as the basis (except for the New Testament that had been written in Greek instead of Hebrew). Jerome spent the next 20 years undertaking this task and he became the authority of his time on the Hebrew Scriptures (indeed, the authority of all Christian Hebrew scholars up to that time).

(This information is from S.P. Brock and Philip Sellew in The Oxford Companion to the Bible.)


Targums
“The Targums are interpretive renderings of the books in the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic.” This was done during the Second Temple period (536 BCE – 70 CE) as a response to the needs of Jews living in Palestine and elsewhere in the Near East who were no longer familiar with the Hebrew language. Aramaic was the official language of the Persian Administration. Although all Biblical translations are interpretive to a degree, the Targums differ in that they are intentionally interpretive in a way that usually far exceeds a “translation” or a “paraphrase.”

(This information is from Robert P. Gordon in The Oxford Companion to the Bible.)


Masoretic Text
“The Masoretic Text (MT) refers to the textual product elaborated by schools of scholars (Masoretes) who in the early Middle Ages integrated vowel signs, accent markings, and marginal notes (the Masorah) into the received consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible. It is the text both of rabbinic Bibles and of modern scholarship.”

Thirty-one complete or fragmentary copies of the Masoretic text exist from between the late 9th century CE to the turn of the 11th/12th century CE. There are approximately 3,000 manuscripts that date to after that.

(This information is from James A. Sanders in The Oxford Companion to the Bible.


Dead Sea Scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls, written in Hebrew and Aramaic, were discovered beginning in 1947 near the Dead Sea, in caves primarily in Qumran, about ten miles south of Jericho. Hundreds of scrolls have been discovered there; some include complete or almost complete manuscripts (such as a large Isaiah scroll from Cave 1), some only fragments of texts which are very difficult to read. Some of the texts are copies of books from the Hebrew Bible (this includes the Isaiah scroll, a re-writing of the laws of the Pentateuch apparently to agree more with the sect’s views, as well as many others; several Hebrew and Aramaic apocryphal and pseudepigraphal works that had previously only been known through ancient translations or medieval sources—including the books of Jubilees, Enoch, Sirach, and the Testament of Levi which are now known in their original Hebrew or Aramaic form as a result of this find—were also found there), but many are texts related to other religious aspects of the community. Much controversy has surrounded these texts and the community that created them, but it is now widely accepted amongst scholars that these scrolls can be dated to between 250 BCE and 70 CE making them some of the oldest texts discovered so far. Today they are kept in the Rockefeller and Israel Museums in Jerusalem.

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls inaugurated a new period in biblical scholarship (regarding the study of the text of the Hebrew Bible). Books that had previously been known almost exclusively through medieval sources were now available in copies/translations much older and closer to the originals. Approximately 190 biblical scrolls have been found in these caves. All the books of the Hebrew Bible except for Esther have been discovered at Qumran; some (such as Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and Psalms) are recorded many times on different scrolls, others only a single copy was found. The great majority of the scrolls were written in Aramaic script, but sixteen were written in the Old Hebrew script.

“Some texts reflect precisely the consonantal framework of the medieval MT (Masoretic Text). Others reflect the basic framework of the MT, although their spelling is different. Still others differ in many details from the MT, while agreeing with the Septuagint or Samaritan Pentateuch. Some texts do not agree with any previously known text at all, and should be considered independent textual traditions. Thus, the textual picture presented by the Qumran scrolls represents a textual variety that was probably typical for the period.”

(This information is from Emanuel Tov in The Oxford Companion to the Bible.)

[UMSonOfMan7]

(transmission of the Bible prior to the first translation will be covered later).

Just a clarificiation: Transmission of the Old Testament prior to its translation into the Septuagint will be covered, as well as transmission of the New Testament prior to being translated into the Latin Vulgate will be covered in the next thread. The siginificance of the first translations into languages different from the original Hebrew (for the OT) and Greek (for the NT) is that sometimes these translations are the best manuscripts that scholars have to work with if they don't have a complete manuscript in the original language or if the oldest complete manuscript in the original language is not as old as one of these translations.

[grant]

It's worth mentioning that, in the case of Qumran/Dead Sea Scrolls (and probably some of the other texts), some of the "originals" are really bady fragmented. Scholars can piece together a word here and a word there in a way that appears to agree with later texts, so they're used to authenticate the later text, but it's still a bit iffy in some cases.

You can see and read the Dead Sea texts, in transcriptions and in photographic images, here.



from the Book of Enoch:
[They (the leaders) and all ... of them took for themselves] wives from all that they chose and [they began to cohabit with them and to defile themselves with them];

and to teach them sorcery and [spells and the cutting of roots; and to acquaint them with herbs.]

And they become pregnant by them and bo[re (great) giants three thousand cubits high ...]



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If you're really interested in extending discussion to apocryphal texts, you can't overlook the Nag Hammadi Library.

Similar to the find at Qumran, this library was discovered in 1945, buried in ceramic vessels in the desert of northern Egypt. The codices include original texts of several apostles' apocalypses (James, Peter, Paul) as well as apocryphal books like the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Philip (for example).
It includes many texts scholars had thought destroyed for all time by the mainstream church.

From The Apocalypse of Paul:
And the old man responded to me, "Where are you from?" But I replied, saying, "I am going down to the world of the dead in order to lead captive the captivity that was led captive in the captivity of Babylon." The old man replied to me saying, "How will you be able to get away from me? Look and see the principalities and authorities." The Spirit spoke, saying, "Give him the sign that you have, and he will open for you." And then I gave him the sign. He turned his face downwards to his creation and to those who are his own authorities.

[UMSonOfMan7]

Grant, thanks for your input, and I especially appreciate the link you provided. You are right, I did largely ignore the Apocryphal writings this time, but that was more a result of an intentional focus on biblical transmission/translation rather than an intentional exclustion of discussion of the transmission/translation of apocryphal writings. The same principles apply to either one, however. Thank you for raising that point and mentioning the find at the Nag Hammadi Library.

Just for some further enlightenment and to make this talk of manuscripts, texts, scrolls, etc. a little more real, here are some pictures from the site that Grant linked to.

Psalms (Tehillim) 11QPs


some Torah precepts

Fragment A: height 8 cm (3 1/8 in.)
length 12.9 cm (5 in.)
Fragment B: height 4.3 cm (1 11/16 in.)
length 7 cm (2 3/4 in.)
Fragment C: height 9.1 cm (3 9/16 in.)
length 17.4 cm (6 7/8in.)

Enoch

Fragment A height 17.5 cm (6 7/8 in.), length 17.5 cm (6 7/8 in.)

Fragment B height 6.4 cm (2 1/2 in.), length 6.9 cm (2 11/16 in.)

Leviticus

11Q1(PaleoLev)
Parchment
Copied late second century - early first century B.C.E.
Height 10.9 cm (4 1/4 in.), length 100.2 cm (39 1/2 in.)
Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority (4)

Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice

4Q403(ShirShabbd)
Parchment
Copied mid-first century B.C.E.
Height 18 cm (7 in.), length 19 cm (7 1/2 in.)
Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority (9)

[Eeyores Butterfly]

I can't believe I missed this thread. Thank you for the information, there were several translations in there I wasn't aware of. Also, Grant: thank you for the info on Nag Hammadi Library. I had never heard of that before.