Friday, November 9, 2012
Qumran-Masada Link?
Jack Sasson brings attention to an article in Popular Archaeology noting that Ada Yardeni claims to have identified a common scribal hand in around 50 DSS, including scrolls from multiple Qumran caves and Masada. If this is correct, then it would be a very significant link between the various caves at Qumran and the finds at Masada.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Frank Moore Cross Has Passed Away
I have heard from a number of people that Frank Moore Cross (July 13, 1921 – October 17, 2012) has passed away.
Frank Moore Cross was one of the prominent researchers on the Dead Sea Scrolls at an early stage in their publication. He is especially noted for his foundational contributions to Hebrew paleography and the textual history of the Old Testament. He was the strongest supporter of a theory of local texts for the Old Testament, with the MT reflecting a Babylonian text, the LXX reflecting an Egyptian text, and the SP and several other texts reflecting a Palestinian tradition. Perhaps his most lasting contribution is in his role as teacher, as many of the most prominent Dead Sea Scrolls scholars today have studied under him. He will be sorely missed by many.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Textual Criticism and Byzantine Iconography
In a recent seminar, we were discussing how Christ is often portrayed as the Ancient of Days in Byzantine iconography. I wondered how this was possible, since the Aramaic of Daniel 7:13 unambigiously has the Son of Man coming up "to" (עד) the Ancient of Days, so they must be two different persons. My friends noted that all theophanies in the Old Testament are explained as Christophanies in Byzantine theology, so even if they were two different people, the Ancient of Days would still have to be portrayed as Christ. In fact, Christ is often portrayed twice in trinitarian iconography, one of which is meant as an allusive reference to the Father, who cannot be portrayed in Orthodox theology.
But the discussion reminded me of a textual problem which may have some bearing on the issue. Most Greek witnesses in Daniel 7:13 say that the Son of Man went up "to" (εως) the Ancient of Days (as in the Aramaic), implying they are two different individuals. But others say that the Son of Man came "as" (ως) the Ancient of Days, which may imply that they are the same person.
By way of background, the textual situation with Daniel is unusual. The text preserved in most of our Greek witnesses is not the Old Greek (LXX), but the revision of Theodotian (or an even earlier revision). This tradition consistently attests to εως. Tertullian, Cyprian, and Justin Martyr also read "to." The Old Greek is primarily known through the 10th century Codex Chisianus, though the 2nd-3rd century AD papyrus 967 is also often a good witness to the Old Greek. In this case, Chisianus (with the support of the Syriac translation of the hexaplaric text) and 967 both read ως.
So both readings are clearly old. The surviving Old Greek tradition consistently reads ως, but rests only on two manuscripts. The editor of the Göttingen LXX emends the text of these two surviving witnesses to εως in his reconstruction of the Old Greek text. Many will object here on methodological grounds, but I think the editor is absolutely correct. The Old Greek reading is not preserved in either of the two surviving witnesses. It is far more likely that an original LXX εως was corrupted to ως under the influence of the preceding formula than that the Aramaic was corrupted from עד to כ (or vice versa).
So what we have here is a case where a scribal error within the LXX tradition creates the incorrect impression that the Son of Man and Ancient of Days are the same person. But neither the LXX nor the majority Greek tradition allow such an interpretation. It would be an interesting line of inquiry for iconographers to consider how much influence this important textual variant may have had on the history of iconography and the identification of Christ with the Ancient of Days.
But the discussion reminded me of a textual problem which may have some bearing on the issue. Most Greek witnesses in Daniel 7:13 say that the Son of Man went up "to" (εως) the Ancient of Days (as in the Aramaic), implying they are two different individuals. But others say that the Son of Man came "as" (ως) the Ancient of Days, which may imply that they are the same person.
By way of background, the textual situation with Daniel is unusual. The text preserved in most of our Greek witnesses is not the Old Greek (LXX), but the revision of Theodotian (or an even earlier revision). This tradition consistently attests to εως. Tertullian, Cyprian, and Justin Martyr also read "to." The Old Greek is primarily known through the 10th century Codex Chisianus, though the 2nd-3rd century AD papyrus 967 is also often a good witness to the Old Greek. In this case, Chisianus (with the support of the Syriac translation of the hexaplaric text) and 967 both read ως.
So both readings are clearly old. The surviving Old Greek tradition consistently reads ως, but rests only on two manuscripts. The editor of the Göttingen LXX emends the text of these two surviving witnesses to εως in his reconstruction of the Old Greek text. Many will object here on methodological grounds, but I think the editor is absolutely correct. The Old Greek reading is not preserved in either of the two surviving witnesses. It is far more likely that an original LXX εως was corrupted to ως under the influence of the preceding formula than that the Aramaic was corrupted from עד to כ (or vice versa).
So what we have here is a case where a scribal error within the LXX tradition creates the incorrect impression that the Son of Man and Ancient of Days are the same person. But neither the LXX nor the majority Greek tradition allow such an interpretation. It would be an interesting line of inquiry for iconographers to consider how much influence this important textual variant may have had on the history of iconography and the identification of Christ with the Ancient of Days.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
"How We Got Our Bible"
The audio for the seminar I gave on "How We Got Our Bible" at Calvary Chapel Birmingham (UK) recently is now online at http://sermon.net/calvarychapelbirmingham. It is a very brief two-hour lay introduction to issues of canon, textual criticism, and translation.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
The Many Chronologies of the Genesis Flood Narrative
On June 9th, I was able to present my paper "The Many Chronologies of the Genesis Flood Narrative: An Exercise in Evaluating Interrelated Variants" at the 2nd Annual St.
Andrews Graduate Conference for Biblical and Early Christian Studies. I surveyed the divergent chronologies in the manuscript tradition and presented my synthesis of the data. I think it went well and was generally well received. I did, however, get some tough questioning from Johannes Magliano-Tromp and Kristin De Troyer, the latter of which in particular made me defend (in much more detail than I anticipated) my position on the relationship of Jubilees and several Greek manuscripts that share some of Jubilees' dates. So we had some good challenging and critical interaction that has sharpened my approach.
The conference was also a great time to get to visit St. Andrews and meet a number of other young scholars with similar interests at different institutions. I suspect that we will all see much more of each other during our careers.
The conference was also a great time to get to visit St. Andrews and meet a number of other young scholars with similar interests at different institutions. I suspect that we will all see much more of each other during our careers.
Calvary Chapel Birmingham - "How We Got Our Bible"
Today I got to do a two-hour presentation at Calvary Chapel Birmingham (UK) on "How We Got Our Bible." We surveyed three major editorial issues that underly our English translations.
1) Which books do we include in our Bibles? (canon)
2) Which text of these books do we include in our Bibles? (textual criticism)
3) How do we translate these books into English? (translation)
It was a very brief overview of the issues for a lay audience, but I hope it was clear enough and gave some helpful context for using our English Bibles.
We also did a practical demonstration of textual criticism afterwards by letting participants hand copy a paragraph I had written summarizing the manuscript tradition. I then selected four manuscripts and attempted to reconstruct the original text. We succeeded in reconstructing it exactly for all but a few small cases. In the original, long numbers were written out, whereas in the manuscripts they all became abbreviated as digits. Similarly, the word "and" became "&" or "+". Also, the first copyist committed parablepsis and lost six or seven words, an error which was found in all of the manuscripts we examined. It was a very illuminating exercise for those who stuck around afterwards.
1) Which books do we include in our Bibles? (canon)
2) Which text of these books do we include in our Bibles? (textual criticism)
3) How do we translate these books into English? (translation)
It was a very brief overview of the issues for a lay audience, but I hope it was clear enough and gave some helpful context for using our English Bibles.
We also did a practical demonstration of textual criticism afterwards by letting participants hand copy a paragraph I had written summarizing the manuscript tradition. I then selected four manuscripts and attempted to reconstruct the original text. We succeeded in reconstructing it exactly for all but a few small cases. In the original, long numbers were written out, whereas in the manuscripts they all became abbreviated as digits. Similarly, the word "and" became "&" or "+". Also, the first copyist committed parablepsis and lost six or seven words, an error which was found in all of the manuscripts we examined. It was a very illuminating exercise for those who stuck around afterwards.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Journal for the Evangelical Study of the Old Testament
I was just informed that a new online, open-access journal called the Journal for the Evangelical Study of the Old Testament has now published its first bi-annual volume. The journal will publish on "ancient Near Eastern backgrounds, Dead Sea Scrolls, Rabbinics, Linguistics, Research Methodology, Literary Analysis, Exegesis, Text Criticism, and Theology as they pertain only to the Old Testament." The journal will feature research from an evangelical framework. It looks like there are some interesting articles in the first volume. Perhaps we will see some good text-critical work from the journal as it develops.
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