The Hexapla Institute Relaunched

 

The Hexapla Institute was founded in 2001 to publish a “Field for the Twenty-First Century.” Over the past 25 years, the Institute has made certain but limited progress, publishing only one of its volumes (Job 22–42) during this time, even though several dissertations were completed on Genesis, Numbers, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and Job. The progress has been slow due to the project’s lack of funding and editors who are already heavily committed to other academic projects (all routine challenges and difficulties for academic projects of this sort). Below is a brief update on what’s the same and what exciting new developments are on the horizon.

The Original Purpose

A new chapter in the life of the Hexapla Institute is now being written, one that hopefully will include many volumes of the Edition published within its pages. But this new chapter continues to be guided by the original purpose of the Hexapla Institute: to publish a new critical edition of the remains of Origen’s Hexapla. We exist to research, edit, and publish a critical text of Origen’s Hexapla. We still intend to carry out this mission in both print (with Peeters) and digital formats (with our database currently in development stages). The Hexapla Institute's Editorial Committee with Alison Salvesen, Bas ter Haar Romeny, Peter Gentry, and yours truly remains the same. I'm excited to announce that the volumes for the Secunda (Benjamin Kantor) and Numbers 19–36 (Andrew McClurg) are in process of being typeset, proofed, and published. Thus, our mission remains the same. The changes listed below have been enacted to advance the original purpose of publishing a New Field. 

A New Chapter

The Hexapla Institute was never set up as its own independent research and education organization, and thus it was not setup to receive donations or even to apply for research grants. There were attempts to affiliate it with other such organizations over the years but to no avail. Thus, what was needed was a move to set up the Hexapla Institute as its own independent charitable tax-exempt organization with 501(c)(3) status with the Internal Revenue Service (USA). And we have now submitted the application for such recognition from the IRS and now wait for their determination. In the meantime, we are still raising funds from gifts which can be retroactively determined tax deductible in order to continue the work.

The work on the Institute’s database continues more efficiently and systematically than ever. And the Institute’s new Fellowship program for residential PhD students at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary will be of interest to readers of this blog.

Following the Work

The Hexapla Institute is not going on social media. We want to spend more time on enduring deep work rather than the ephemeral tweet. The new website will have a blog that will be used for updates on the project as well as drawing attention to the significance of the work. But it does plan to send out a Newsletter with some regularity to keep folks updated. If you want to subscribe to the email list, you can do that here.

I'm excited about this new chapter in the life of such an important Institute carrying out very meaningful and valuable work. I hope you will join me in my excitement about the work ahead. If you're interested in the fellowship program or even learning more about editing the hexaplaric materials themselves, do not hesitate to reach out to learn more.

Book Notice: Jerome’s Epistle 106

Michael Graves sends word that his new edition of Jerome’s Epistle 106 is now available from SBL Press. he told me about it last Fall and I am very pleased to see it’s out. There is lots of very interesting material in this letter of Jerome for the textual history of the Bible. Here’s the publisher's description:

The present volume offers the first accessible English translation and commentary on Jerome’s Epistle 106, an important work of patristic biblical interpretation. In his treatise Jerome discusses different textual and exegetical options according to various Greek and Latin copies of the Psalms with input from the Hebrew. Epistle 106 provides insightful commentary on the Gallican Psalter, Jerome’s translation of Origen’s hexaplaric edition. Jerome’s work offers a unique window into the complex textual state of the Psalter in the late fourth century and serves as an outstanding example of ancient philological scholarship on the Bible.

Origen and the Hexapla: the Text & Canon Institute Interviews Dr. Peter Gentry

Several months ago, I and Peter Gurry had the chance to sit down and talk with Peter Gentry about Origen as philologist, his Hexapla, and the Text & Canon Institute’s upcoming colloquium (now rescheduled for March 11–12, 2021). In just over 20 minutes we touch on Origen, his great scholarly editions (the Hexapla and the Tetrapla), and also modern efforts to reconstruct the remains of Origen’s work. Also, I’m told I’m quite distracting in the video (but in a good way!). So enjoy that at least :).

New Book: A Critical Edition of the Hexaplaric Fragments of Job 22–42

I can finally announce that my critical edition is set to be released this Fall. I still need to work through  another round of proofs this summer, but it will appear by SBL in San Diego. This is the first volume to be published by the Hexapla Institute in Peeters’ new series, Origen’s Hexapla: A Critical Edition of the Extant Fragments. The description for the series is as follows:

Frederick Field’s marvelous late Victorian edition (1875) of the remains of Origen’s Hexapla is now outdated. Field rearranged earlier collections, and added new material, notably retroversions into Greek from Syriac sources. In the course of work on critical editions of the Septuagint, new manuscripts and patristic sources have become available, as well as new editions of Church Fathers and catenae. Some of these contain better readings and even previously unknown material from Origen’s Hexapla. This new critical reconstruction of all known hexaplaric materials is being prepared by the Hexapla Project, a project spawned by the Hexapla Institute under the aegis of I.O.S.C.S.

 The description for A Critical Edition of the Hexaplaric Fragments of Job 22–42 is as follows:

A Critical Edition of the Hexaplaric Fragments of Job 22-42 contains the established text of all the preserved readings of Origen’s Hexapla in Greek, Syriac, Latin, and Armenian for Job 22-42 with variant author attributions and variant readings presented in a series of apparatuses. In most entries, the editor has supplied Notes in the form of brief commentary on the readings. This edition of hexaplaric fragments surpasses previous editions (e.g. Frederick Field’s work) in two ways: (1) the edition contains more readings of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion and (2) the critical text of each reading is based on the most up-to-date manuscript evidence for the hexaplaric readings of Job. The new edition will have immediate relevance for textual criticism of the TaNaK/Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, the Greek lexicon of the late second temple period, and early Jewish and Christian interpretation of the Hebrew scriptures in Greek.

I’m thrilled to see this project nearing completion and hope this volume represents well the vision of its editorial committee: Peter Gentry, Alison Salvesen, and Bas ter Haar Romeny. There are several more volumes for the series in the pipeline, and it’s exciting to see growing interest in this field, both for its own sake and also as it relates to Old Testament textual criticism.

XVIII. International Conference on Patristic Studies at Oxford

Every four years the International Conference on Patristic Studies meets at Oxford. This year it meets from August 19–24, and I’ve made plans to participate.

Dr. Francesca Barone (Chargée de recherche au CNRS) and I have organized a workshop entitled, “Early Christians and the Books at the Edges of the Canon” [proposal PDF]. The papers to be presented in the workshop are as follows:

Alessandro De Blasi: Gregory Nazianzen’s poem I 1, 12: On the Genuine Books of the Holy Scripture 

John Meade: Origen and the Disputed Books: A Reappraisal of the Evidence for an Origenic Recension of Books Outside the Hebrew Canon 

Francesca Barone: The Book of Esther in John Chrysostom’s Synopsis Scripturae Sacrae  

Edmon Gallagher: Jerome’s Use of the Deuterocanonical Literature 

Claudine Cavalier: Between the Sages and the Fathers: Esther, a key book

I plan to combine some of my interests in this paper: Origen’s work as grammarian and the disputed books. Here is the abstract of my paper:

In the first half of the third century, Origen created a six-columned synopsis, the Hexapla (perhaps more columns were added as needed for books like Psalms), for those books that were extant in Hebrew, the Seventy, and the Three Jewish revisers (Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion). Debatably, from this work, Origen published a corrected edition of the version of the Seventy. This revised version of the Seventy went through further corrections at the hands of Pamphilus and Eusebius (cf. the many colophons bearing their names in these contexts). But did Origen make a revised edition of the Greek version for the disputed books? In this paper, I will survey the evidence for Origen’s recension of the disputed books for which there seems to be evidence: Baruch, Sirach/Ben Sira, Wisdom of Solomon, and Judith. After surveying the relevant data, I analyze the evidence of a revision of Sirach/Ben Sira further before drawing some preliminary conclusions about Origen’s textual work on this book and others like it.

The overall program for the conference appears to be full of very interesting papers. I look forward to gathering with friends and colleagues in Oxford. It will be my first visit there, and I could not be more excited about it.

Happy International Septuagint Day!

Happy International Septuagint Day everyone! In 2006, the IOSCS declared February 8 to be International Septuagint Day, a day to celebrate the Septuagint and encourage its study, based on the following rational:

The date was chosen because, as Robert Kraft noted, it is “the one date we know of from late antiquity on which LXX/OG/Aquila received special attention.” Emperor Justinian’s Novella 146 permitted the Jews of the Roman Empire to read the Scriptures in their synagogues in Greek, Latin, or “any other tongue which in any district allows the hearers better to understand the text”. Specifically, “We make this proviso that those who use
Greek shall use the text of the seventy interpreters...”

This novella (see English translation) was published on the eighth day of February in the year 553 CE.

So celebrate the work of the Seventy and all of the other Greek translators of the Hebrew Scriptures today (and really everyday ;-)).

John’s Bible Version in John 19:37?

See the update to this post below.
I continue my series of highlighting places where a NT author cites the Old Testament but does not use the Old Greek/Septuagint (see 2 Cor 11:3; 1 Cor 15:54). In addition, I would propose that the NT author in these cases probably does not give his own ad hoc rendering of the Hebrew, since there was a perfectly good revision of the older Greek translation at his disposal. My assumption, therefore, is that the NT author simply used and modified an already existing Greek translation of which he and his audience were aware. Here, I list the Hebrew, OG, and the readings of the Three for the part of Zechariah 12:10 that John quotes in 19:37 including some context:

Hebrew: וְהִבִּ֥יטוּ אֵלַ֖י אֵ֣ת אֲשֶׁר־דָּקָ֑רוּ וְסָפְד֣וּ עָלָ֗יו
“and they will look to me whom they pierced and they shall mourn for him.”

Greek: καὶ ἐπιβλέψονται πρός με ἀνθ᾽ ὧν κατωρχήσαντο καὶ κόψονται ἐπ᾽ αὐτόν
“and they will look to me because they danced triumphantly, and they will mourn over him.”

John 19:37: καὶ πάλιν ἑτέρα γραφὴ λέγει· ὄψονται εἰς ὃν ἐξεκέντησαν 
“and again another scripture says, ‘They look at whom they pierced‘.”

Aquila: α’ σύν ᾧ ἐξεκέντησαν καὶ κόψονται αὐτόν
“[they will look to me(?)] whom they pierced, and will mourn for him.”

Theodotion: θ’ ...πρός με ὃν ἐξεκέντησαν καὶ κόψονται αὐτόν
“[they will look] to me whom they pierced, and they will mourn for him.”

Symmachus: σ’ ἔμπροσθεν ἐπεξεκέντησαν καὶ κόψονται αὐτόν
“[they will look to me(?)] before/in whose presence they pierced, and they will mourn for him.”

The OG’s κατορχεῖσθαι “to dance triumphantly” is a hapax legomenon in the Greek Old Testament’s corpus and probably resulted from reading a form of the verb רקד “to leap about, dance” Piel, which metathesized ד and ר due either to ד/ר confusion or exegesis.

The readings of the Three were originally incorporated into Origen’s Hexapla but come down to us via Ra 86 (image from DigiVatLib). John clearly depends on Theodotion’s version for his quotation of Zechariah 12:10, not the Old Greek. However, John has also modified it slightly by using a different preposition than Theodotion (but see the Syrohexapla for the Th fragment which could be retroverted as εἰς which would mean that Th’s version equal’s John’s form of the quotation in this respect). In any case, John has certainly not read with the Old Greek in this place but rather the revision of it.

The apostles (at least Paul, John, and Matthew) were aware of not only the older Greek version but also other forms of the Greek scriptures, for they cite and quote them too. What factors led to their choice? The Hebrew source? The texts at their disposal in any given situation? We don’t know. But what seems clear is that these Jewish followers of Jesus had not declared an exclusive preference for the older Greek version. At one point, they are quoting from the ‘LXX’ and at another point they are quoting from one of its revisions. We would do well to bear this phenomenon in mind as we continue to read the NT’s use of the OT and also how these matters develop in the second century and beyond.

---

UPDATE 12/8/2018

I’ve now had the chance to look at Syrohexapla (Syh fol. 112r) for the Theodotion reading in Zach 12:10 (ܒܗܘ), and no doubt, the translator rendered an equivalent for a Greek preposition before the relative pronoun ὅν. The beth is often used for εἰς in this tradition thus Ziegler’s εἰς in the second apparatus is probably correct.

In my mind, then, John removes πρός με (contextual to be sure) and modifies the verb from ἐπιβλέψονται to ὄψονται. But εἰς ὃν ἐξεκέντησαν seems to be the original reading of Theodotion and that would give three words of correspondence. Even Ra 86 agrees with John on the choice of the relative pronoun for two words of correspondence.

When compared with Aq, Sym, and OG, we see that not all come to the same rendering of the Hebrew which makes agreements between Th and John all the more interesting. Lastly, for the key word “pierce,” John had several lexical options in Greek but landed on Theodotion’s equivalent. It could be coincidence. But presuming that version is already around, I don’t think we need to argue along those lines in this case.

Paul’s Bible Version in 1 Corinthians 15:54?

I continue my series on what version of the OT is the NT using? Given the discussion of Theodotion or ‘Proto-Theodotion’ last week, it is time to address Paul’s bible version of Isaiah 25:8 in 1 Corinthians 15:54. Once again, we need to remember that when Paul uses the OT or Greek scriptures, he mostly uses them in the version we know as the LXX or ‘the Seventy’ or the Septuagint even if Paul may not have thought about the matter in that category unless he was referring to the Law or the Torah. Furthermore, it is unclear what Paul would have called the revisions of these Old Greek translations. Scholars refer to the ‘kaige tradition’ or ‘proto-Theodotion’ or even ‘kaige-Theodotion’ when referring to these texts. Late second-century Christians refer to the versions/editions of Theodotion, Aquila, and Symmachus, and we can reasonably date the latter two to the early-middle of the second century. Historical Theodotion could be dated to near the end of the second century based on some patristic statements, but internal evidence and some patristic testimony could locate him in the first century. Scholars continue to work on this pressing question.

Paul’s Text in 1 Corinthians 15:54

Whatever we call this Jewish tradition or movement from around the turn of the era, its work does appear within the NT. In 1 Corinthians 15:54, Paul writes: τότε γενήσεται ὁ λόγος ὁ γεγραμμένος· κατεπόθη ὁ θάνατος εἰς νῖκος (then the word which is written will happen, “Death is swallowed up in victory.”).

The question before us is what text of Isaiah 25:8 does Paul cite? And it just so happens that for this passage we have all of the relevant editions of the Jewish revisers that Origen included in his Hexapla: Theodotion, Aquila, and Symmachus in addition to the LXX and the Hebrew text.

Relevant Versions

HT: בִּלַּע הַמָּוֶת לָנֶצַח

He swallowed up death forever

OG-Isa: κατέπιεν ὁ θάνατος ἰσχύσας 

Death, strengthened, swallowed [them i.e. nations] up

Theodotion: κατεπόθη ὁ θάνατος εἰς νῖκος 

Death is swallowed up in victory

Aquila: καταποντίσει τὸν θάνατον εἰς νῖκος 

He will swallow up death in victory

Symmachus: καταποθῆναι ποιήσει τὸν θάνατον εἰς τέλος 

He will make death to be swallowed up forever

These versions probably reflect different vocalizations of the same consonantal proto-MT, but I won’t delve into the details here. The main point is that Paul’s short citation reflects exactly the version of Theodotion Isaiah (“Death is swallowed up in victory”), not OG-Isa, and this version does not reflect the vocalization of the MT. Given the contrasts with HT and OG and the exact wording of Theodotion, Paul has used this Jewish Greek version of Isa 25:8 in 1 Cor 15:54.

This instance and others like it raise the question over access to these Greek versions. How does the NT author access these other versions? Regional texts? Memory? But that’s another question for another day.

Coffee and Origen’s Hexapla at Southeastern

Please, excuse this blatant, self-promoting announcement. I felt compelled to post this one because presentations on Origen’s magnum opus rarely, if ever, occur outside the confines of the academic guild. And I’m sure these venues, if they exist at all, never provide coffee and take place in such a beautiful setting as Southeastern’s library and campus. I plan to talk on what the Hexapla was and why it matters to us today and to hang around afterwards for coffee and conversation. If you are in North Carolina’s Triangle area on March 22 at 2:00pm, make your way over to Southeastern’s library. The event is free, and I’m told that seating is limited, so you will need to register here.

What was the Hexapla?

What was the Hexapla? There is the question of what were the readings that were at one time in the Hexapla as presented here, here, and here. Then, there is the question of what was the Hexapla? We have to ask this question because it was not transmitted much (if at all), and there is no manuscript to date that we can point to and say, “that’s the Hexapla.” This is one of the saddest truths of literary history. Furthermore, these questions do not answer “Why the Hexapla?” or “How the Hexapla“, which are also interesting questions.

Quick Description

Now, the quick answer is that the Hexapla was Origen’s (ca. 185-254) six-columned synopsis containing the following versions of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: (1) the Hebrew text in Hebrew letters, (2) the Hebrew text in Greek letters, i.e., in Greek transliteration, (3) the Greek version of Aquila, (4) the Greek version of Symmachus, (5) the Greek version of the Seventy, and (6) the Greek version of Theodotion. So far this description matches the early patristic descriptions of Eusebius and Epiphanius of Salamis (who also say that for some books like Psalms, Origen had a Fifth and a Sixth edition; read about them here). Eusebius says:

Having collected all of these [Greek versions], he divided them into sections, and placed them opposite each other, with the indication (σημείωσις) itself of Hebrew [Ἑβραίων pl.] [versions?]. He thus left us the copies (ἀντίγραφον) of the so-called Hexapla, having arranged separately the edition (ἔκδοσις) of Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotion with the edition of the Seventy in the Tetrapla (Hist. eccl. 6.16.4; ANFP [adapted]).

The term σημείωσις “indication, inference from a sign” is an interesting way to describe a “text,” but perhaps this term indicates the Hebrew versions in Columns 1 and 2; that is, the Hebrew and its inference, meaning its sense or meaning in transliteration. Since he calls this work “the Hexapla“ and there are four Greek versions, he must envision the very “inference” of Hebrews as two texts. Now, there are two problems we should address.

Rabbi Joseph on Origen’s Book and Jerome

In David Kimhi: The Man and the Commentaries by Frank Ephraim Talmage (Harvard, 1975), we read the following assessment of Origen’s Book and Jerome’s Vulgate from R. Joseph Kimhi (1105-1170; father of David):

[Jerome’s text was based on] the Book of Origen, the most ancient and authoritative [text and the one] from which your text was translated. Everything is dependent upon it. For it was dictated by the prophets, and Jerome the translator relied upon it, translated from it, and trusted it, with the exception of a few words which he did not understand or which were contrary to his belief and which he altered, changing the root of the faith to wormwood (pp. 87-8).

This is an interesting text, and I want to look into it more. I would not think this “Book of Origen” could be the Hexapla since that book had long disappeared. But could it refer to another Greek text still in circulation that was associated with Origen’s textual work? Perhaps. Or is it somehow an historical evaluation that claims Jerome based his work on Origen’s Hexapla? I don’t know. Still, the assessment that Jerome based his Vulgate on this book is an overstatement, since the Vulgate appears to go its own way regularly, even if it did make some use of Origen’s work.

HT: Twitter

Modern Editions of the Hexaplaric Fragments

Last week, I posted on a small part of Origen's Hexapla in Job 24:25, and before writing further posts on the matter, readers should be aware of the modern editions of the Hexapla. There is a lot to say about the history of the Hexapla and research into its primary sources, but the greatest benefit to the student of the Bible is access to the modern editions and collections of its fragmentary remains.

Collections of Hexaplaric Fragments

First, several collections of the hexaplaric fragments led up to Frederick Field’s magnum opus (as the extended title of his work indicated). Michael Law has helpfully told that story in BIOSCS/JSCS vol. 40 (2007): 30-48 [free PDF of issue]. Field's innovation was not in collecting the fragments. Rather, he advanced our knowledge of the Hexapla and its readings by including the Syriac evidence for the hexaplaric versions. Thus, from 1875, Field’s two-volume Hexapla became the departure for all scholarly study.

Symmachus and the Text of Job 24:25b

In preparation of my critical edition of the Hexaplaric fragments of Job 22-42 for the Hexapla Project, I am noticing again some of the gems among the texts of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion that Origen once assembled in full parallel columns but now come down to us mainly in fragmentary, marginal notes in Christian MSS. The text of Job 24:25b is such a text. Here are the relevant readings:

Hebrew Text: וְיָשֵׂם לְאַל מִלָּתִי׃

And (who) will make my word as not/nothing?

Theodotion (not Old Greek): καὶ θήσει εἰς οὐδὲν τὰ ῥήματά μου

and (who) will set my words as nothing?

Symmachus: καὶ τάξει τῷ θεῷ λόγον ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ

and (who) will deliver a speech to God on my behalf?

Unfortunately, we do not have the text of Symmachus for 25a, but it was probably close to the Old Greek and Hebrew, which is a question on the lips of Job asking, “Who is the one who says that I speak lies?” The Theodotion version (in lieu of the Old Greek) continues the question: “and who will set my words as nothing?” The wording of this line matches the Hebrew closely, except Theodotion must have read מלתי as a plural, not the singular of the later MT. According to this reading, Job appears to be asking who of his three friends will contradict him or show his word to be nothing or of no validity.

The Symmachus version reveals a different reading of the same consonantal text of MT. Symmachus read אל as אֵל “God,” not as later MT’s אַל “no, not.” Furthermore, Symmachus interpreted the final word in the Hebrew “my word” as a word on Job’s behalf (speech on behalf of me), not as a simple possessive pronominal suffix as the Hebrew would be normally construed and as Theodotion read it plainly. Symmachus has read the text differently. He appears to have understood Job’s question not as directed to his three friends but to someone else who could deliver a speech to God on his behalf.

At first blush, this seems like an odd reading. But when we remember that in the so-called witness passages (Job 9:32-35, Job 16:18-22, and Job 19:20-27) that Job has already perceived something of the role of the heavenly court introduced in chs. 1-2 and that his advocate is in heaven (“if not he, then who is it”), perhaps Symmachus read the text of Job 24:25b in light of this understanding. In the midst of the third speech cycle and at the end of Job’s speech, plausibly, Symmachus has read the Hebrew text as Job once again making an appeal to his heavenly advocate who can make his case to God. Of course, all of this reasoning probably indicates that this reading is secondary to the one in MT and Theodotion, but it is still interesting to consider from an exegetical point of view.

One more interesting piece of context comes from reception history. This reading of Symmachus is only preserved beside Job 24:25b in the margin of a relative few Christian manuscripts of the Job catenae, sometimes without an attribution to him. That means Christian scribes continued to find this reading of some exegetical value for this text. We can’t know for sure because I can’t find an explicit comment from a church father that uses this wording exactly (I haven’t attempted an exhaustive search), but perhaps it’s worth speculating that early Christian interpreters found a Christological reference in Symmachus’s version of Job 24:25b, for in it they found Job asking a question to a heavenly advocate who could make an appeal to God on his behalf.

Matthew 2:15 and the Hexapla

We all know Matthew’s citation of Hosea 11:1 in Matthew 2:15, ‘Out of Egypt I called my son’ ἐξ Αἰγύπτου ἐκάλεσα τὸν υἱόν μου.

The exact form of the citation is not how you find it in your Septuaginta as edited by Rahlfs, which reads ἐξ Αἰγύπτου μετεκάλεσα τὰ τέκνα αὐτοῦ. A reasonably straightforward conclusion might be that Matthew translated straight from the Hebrew, which reads וּמִמִּצְרַ֖יִם קָרָ֥אתִי לִבְנִֽי.

Wouldn’t it be nice to see how other translators rendered the Hebrew? Enter Origen’s Hexapla, a third-century work setting the Hebrew, a transliteration into Greek, and four different Greek versions in parallel columns next to one another. Besides some rewritten fragments, most of the Hexapla is still lost though we have quite a few marginal comments.

Rather surprisingly, we have a good version of Hosea 11:1 tucked away within a commentary section in a manuscript in the Vatican, Barb.gr.542 (which is a rich source of Hexaplaric material anyway – Rahlfs 86). On folio 17v we find this:



The first line gives the title of this little sub-section ἐκ τῶν ἑξαπλῶν, ‘from the Hexapla’.
The next line gives us five sections, which are the five columns of the Hexapla written in Greek letters. First, we get the transliteration, then the reading of Aquila (marked by α), followed by Symmachus (ς), the Seventy (oἱ ο̃), and Theodotion (θ); for νιπιος read νηπιος, note the nomen sacrum ιηλ for ισραηλ (as in the transliteration ισραηλ).

In the next two lines Theodotion’s reading is apparently the same as first Aquila’s and then Symachus’s, though it is convenient that the otherwise too long a line now fits on a single one. We see the various translations diverging: ἀπό and ἐξ, the presence of the conjunction καί, and in the next line, after ἐκάλεσα, Theodotion adds αὐτόν. This becomes important when we take this together with the next line, as Theodotion reads ἐκάλεσα αὐτὸν ὑιόν μου, ‘I called him as my son’. In the son line (starting with the transliteration λαβανι), only the reading of Aquila contains a nomen sacrum for ὑιόν, but that seems to me a scribal phenomenon more than anything else.

As things stand, none of the versions follows Matthew exactly, though every element in Matthew is reflected somewhere. There is little remarkable going on here as this is a basic sentence in which you cannot do that much wrong. There is of course always the possibility that things have gone wrong in the transmission of the Hexapla, so that we may not have the exact texts of the Greek versions, or already in the texts that Origen had available wording may be corrupted. Did Theodotion really read αὐτόν or is this a corruption of the article τόν as in Aquila and Matthew? Anyway, once the commentator has given this fragment of the Hexapla, he continues saying that Matthew did the same.

It is fun, I think, to see that at times New Testament text and the sometimes arcane field of Hexaplaric studies come close to overlapping. And perhaps more of us could use this example in our ‘Old Testament in the New’ lectures.

A Primer to the Apparatus of "The New Field"

For my first post on ETC, I thought I would introduce my work by explaining the textual apparatus for the new edition of the Hexaplaric fragments, which the Hexapla Institute uses currently. Some changes to it may occur between this draft and the final draft, but this primer will provide the reader with a basic overview. I will use Job 32:1b as a model of the apparatus and I will comment on the function of each line below.

Job 32:1b

HT: כִּי הוּא צַדִּיק בְּעֵינָיו׃

LXX: ἦν γὰρ Ιωβ δίκαιος ἐναντίον αὐτῶν.

σʹ: διὰ τὸ αὐτὸν δίκαιον φαίνεσθαι ἑαυτῷ

Wit1: ↓C (= 250 3005) ↓cI^{–138 260 732} ↓cII ↓161 555

Wit2: αὐτῶν] –του O (Syh^txt) 55 68 157* 795 Aeth^A = M↓

Attr: σʹ] > 250 3006

Var: αὐτόν/δίκαιον] tr 161 | ἑαυτῷ] εαυτω(ν) 139 643; εαυτων 255 395 559 612; αυτων 740; εαυτον 680; επ αυτων cII 161 555 3006

NonGr: N/A

Notes:

1. The "HT" is the Hebrew text taken from BHS fifth edition. Though the Hexaplaric fragment does not always agree with this text, it is the base text used for the edition. All variants to this text are discussed in the "Notes" section at the end of each entry.

2. The LXX text is the text of Joseph Ziegler, Septuaginta Iob, Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982.

3. Line three contains the putative original text and attribution.

4. The "Wit1" line lists all of the available evidence for the fragment. In this case, only the catena mss (listed according to Rahlfs's numbers) preserve the text. C represents the oldest tradition of the Catena of Job and it is best preserved in mss 250 and 3005 among others. cI represents the earliest recension of C, and cII along with 161 and 555 represents the final recension of the catena of Job and is probably the work of Niketas. Unless noted otherwise, C and cI preserve these readings in the margin, while cII has preserved them in the commentary portion of the catena. The down arrows indicate that the witnesses will occur in one or more of the apparatuses below.

5. The "Wit2" line is used for any relevant variants from Ziegler's First Apparatus. Usually, if the Hexaplaric fragment has influenced or interfered with the transmission of the LXX text via the Hexapla, that data will be listed in Wit2.

6. The "Attr" line shows the preservation of the attribution in detail. In this case, mss 250 and 3006 are sine nomine or without attribution. All of the other witnesses from Wit1 contain an attribution to Symmachus as the author of the fragment.

7. The "Var" line shows any variants from the putative original text. In this case, ms 161 has transposed αυτον and δικαιον. I deemed ἑαυτῳ to be the original text on the basis of 250 3005 and 137 (corrected). The variants εαυτων and επ' αυτων arose through assimilation to the LXX lemma. Εαυτον arose through otacism from εαυτων. In this instance, the HT provides a control, since בְּעֵינָיו is singular. The data in Wit2 is from Ziegler's First Apparatus, and it is plausible that Symmachus or one of the other Three has influenced the reading of the O text (i.e. the best representatives of the fifth column of Origen's Hexapla, contained in La and Syh according to Ziegler).

8. The "NonGr" line would list readings from non Greek sources. There is no relevant material in the Arm La Syh or Co for this lemma.

9. The "Notes" section allows the editor to discuss textual decisions, the placement of these readings in individual mss, retroversions from the Versions, and the patristic sources from which these readings arose. For example at 32:1b, Ziegler's Edition posits that Olympiodorus ("Olymp") is the church father associated with this Symmachus fragment, yet after checking the critical edition of the Olympiodor Kommentar, ed. by Dieter Hagedorn, it is now clear that Olymp had nothing to do with this fragment and his association with this fragment occurred much later, since only the Niketas catena preserves this link; therefore, I did not place "(Olymp)" in the Wit1 line as Ziegler did.