A Preview of Peter Gentry’s Septuaginta Ecclesiastes

A critical edition with its critical text and apparatus tells a text’s narrative history. If that is true, the new Ecclesiastes of the Septuaginta series is no exception. In this post, I want to provide two examples of places where Peter Gentry’s critical text differs from Rahlfs. Peter Gentry tells me that there are seventy-two differences in all between his and Rahlfs’ text, and he plans to publish these in his forthcoming English Introduction to the Edition. Here are two examples with screen shots from the edition itself.

Παραβολάς “parables” or παραφοράς “madness” in Ecclesiastes 1:17b?

Below is the page out of the new Edition, and we are looking at the word παραφοράς in 1:17b. Rahlfs chose παραβολάς as the original reading on the weight of the majority of witnesses (note ‘rel’ in the apparatus), but the translator’s formal and consistent approach to the Hebrew text has given scholars pause over the years (note Gordis’ conjecture in 1937 mentioned in the apparatus). Since the translator consistently renders Hebrew words from III הלל with περι-/παραφερ- words, it is probable that the translator would have rendered הוללות “madness” with the noun from the same word group, παραφορά or περιφορά. Although the translator preferred the latter term, in this case, παραβολή, shows he actually chose the former term since παραβολάς naturally derives from παραφοράς due to certain phonological factors [see mine and Peter’s argument here]. The reconstruction of παραφοράς was actually confirmed in the reading above the line in MS 788.

Does “a fool speak from excess” in Ecclesiastes 2:15f?

Between 2:15e and 15g in Rahlfs’ Edition, there is the line: διότι ἄφρων ἐκ περισσεύματος λαλεῖ “Because a fool speaks from excess.” But one will notice that the editor has relegated the line to the apparatus and that the apparatus is very dense for this variant. The line itself has several textual problems, but the most significant issue is that in our witnesses it appears both after the new v. 15f (e.g. B/Vaticanus; papyrus 998) and before it (‘rel’ thus A and S among other MSS have it here and so Rahlfs followed these). Several observations from the apparatus reveal why the editor chose not to include this line: (1) it’s not in the Hebrew (see the second apparatus for the marginal note showing that ancient scribes also knew this); (2) the variant appears in different forms in the MSS and in two different places showing the likelihood that it is a secondary gloss to the text; (3) finally, the editor supplies the probable source and inspiration for this gloss in Matthew 12:34 (cf. Luke 6:45). Thus in all probability the line is a secondary gloss that entered the text in different places through its transmission.

In addition to revising the text of Rahlfs, it is clear even from these two screen shots what this edition will offer over Rahlfs. The text and first apparatus are the main features, but the second apparatus presents a complete update to Field’s work for the hexaplaric materials of Ecclesiastes.

This edition will be the departure for any serious work on the book of Ecclesiastes and its textual history. I would make sure your library knows it has been released and that it acquires the volume for its collection.