It might sound like I'm grasping at any excuse for cake (well, so what if I am?), but today is International Septuagint Day.
A day to remember the 70 scholars who translated the OT from Hebrew into Greek in Alexandria in 70 days. (It makes a good story)
More seriously, the text of the Septuagint establishes the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Scriptures back to somewhere around 200 years bc. When we add to this the evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls, with a Hebrew text from around the time of Christ, why do English versions of the bible continue the dubious practice of conjectural emendation of the text?
I think this is supposed to mean, 'The Hebrew Text is uncertain so I'll make an educated guess as to what I think it might have been.' However, with such a well established Hebrew text conjectural emendation ends up being something more like, 'I don't want the text to say what it says so I'll change it.'
If you want to read the bible then read the bible - we know what the text says, our only difficulty is in obedience and submission.
No comments:
Post a Comment