When God Spoke Greek

When God Spoke Greek by Timothy Michael Law

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This is the second book I've read on the Septuagint this month. Unlike “Translation of the Seventy” by Michael Gallagher, this book seems to take the position that the Septuagint (aka the “LXX”) constituted a literary tradition in its own right.

The Septuagint is a catch-all term for Greek translations of Hebrew scriptures written in approximately the second century BCE. Although these texts are still used as the Old Testament by the Eastern Orthodox Church, they are largely dismissed as “bad translations” by most popular sources, such as the annual revisiting of the claim that the Virgin Birth is based on a “poor translation” of “maiden.”

Law's position is a bit more dramatic than that (or of Gallagher's book.) Law writes:

“We will soon encounter some remarkable differences between the Hebrew and Greek scriptures. This should be stated very clearly right away since the Septuagint translation is sometimes misjudged as merely a translation when it is more than that. In many places the messages contained in the Septuagint are different from what we have in the Hebrew Bible, a significance whose weight will be forced upon us when we see how New Testament authors and early Christian writers constructed their theological visions on the basis of the Septuagint. The divergent character of the Septuagint is not always a result of the ingenuity of its translators. Sometimes we see evidence that the Greek translation was produced from an alternative Hebrew text that has since been lost. The Septuagint and Hebrew Bible often reflect divergent traditions of scriptural texts in the same biblical books, and it is not always possible to discover if one was from an earlier time than another. Sometimes they are simply different, perhaps parallel traditions. Today most English Bible versions are based on a medieval edition of the Hebrew Bible. Until the last century many assumed the Hebrew scriptures existed only in this form preserved in the medieval edition, but most now recognize it reflects only one of several forms of the scriptures in circulation before the second century CE.

Law, Timothy Michael. When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible (pp. 19-20). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Similarly, the current version that is used as the “gold standard” is not a pristine and pure form that has existed from time immemorial:

“There is no question that the text of the Hebrew Bible we know today is very ancient. But the Dead Sea Scrolls, along with a renewed appreciation of the Septuagint, force us to adopt a new perspective: while the medieval Masoretic scribes preserved an ancient tradition, they transmitted only one scriptural tradition out of a number of divergent possibilities that existed before the second century CE. The earlier period was characterized by plurality, not uniformity. There is nothing at all mistaken in affirming that the Hebrew Bible in today's editions reflects a very ancient tradition reaching back at least to the third century BCE and perhaps even earlier. But this is only part of the story. Before 1947 scholars usually explained the history of the Bible by referring to three main witnesses to, or “types” of, the Old Testament text: the Masoretic Text, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Septuagint.4 The Masoretic Text actually refers not to a single text but to a group of manuscripts that have shared features.

Law, Timothy Michael. When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible (pp. 21-22). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

And:

“Perhaps most importantly, we must recognize that the Hebrew Bible editions in our hands today, those based on the medieval Masoretic Text, do not represent the “original text” of the Bible. The greatest modern authority on the Hebrew textual tradition puts it bluntly: “One thing is clear, it should not be postulated that the Masoretic Text better or more frequently reflects the original text of the biblical books than any other text.”9

Law, Timothy Michael. When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible (p. 23). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Law offers this interesting example, which most readers probably skip over:

“We can be absolutely certain that the story in the Septuagint is based on a Hebrew edition that reflects an earlier stage in the development of the tradition of this story, and the Hebrew Bible is a later expansion of that tradition. In the process of enlarging the story disturbances were introduced into the text but were left unresolved. Conscientious readers of the English Bible may have already noticed certain confusing aspects of the David and Goliath story that are there because the Hebrew Bible is used as the basis for the English translations. For example, both the Septuagint and the Hebrew Bible tell how David is introduced to Saul in 16:17–23 as a harpist whom Saul loved so much that he made him his armor bearer. In 17:55–58, which is found only in the later Hebrew Bible, Saul oddly has no clue who David is. The famous story of the love shared between David and Jonathan (18:1–4) and Saul's attempt to kill David when an evil spirit came upon him (18:10–11) were also later additions not found in the earlier version.

Law, Timothy Michael. When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible (pp. 30-31). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

It may be a bit disorienting to realize that the Hebrew text evolved from the translation of the LXX to the earliest Masoretic Texts (“MT”). Law offers some examples of this, such as this one from Ezekiel:

“The second difference is that 36:23c–38 are missing. This is a very rich passage in which God promises to give a new heart to the people, replacing theirs of stone, and to put his spirit within them; but it is difficult for modern readers to appreciate that this was not originally in the older Hebrew text or in the earliest Septuagint text.

Law, Timothy Michael. When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible (p. 53). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

I've dropped into some of the issues that interest me, but this is a methodical book that covers the history and textual analysis of the document. In many ways, this book is more interesting than the Gallagher book, although, frankly, both should be read for a fuller treatment of the issue.

One area that I felt Law's book fell down was its treatment of the Deuterocanonical books (“DCB”). For some reason, Law refused to use the term “deuterocanonical” but, instead, refers to them by the Protestant pejorative term “apocryphal.” Law provides a very nice survey of the DCB texts and even acknowledges that the Book of Wisdom provided Paul with the backbone of one of his arguments in Romans.

Given the loose canon that existed, Law suggests that the DCB may have continued to be treated as authoritative/inspired/canonical in Jewish communities outside of Judea even after the Judean community was narrowing the canon:

“There is no reason to believe the communities outside of Palestine did not continue using the other Hellenistic Jewish writings, including those now part of the Apocrypha. In fact, it has been argued that they did use other books, and we know from medieval debates that not all Jews accepted the scriptures that came from Palestine.

Law, Timothy Michael. When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible (p. 83). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

It is useful to keep in mind that there was a lack of uniformity even within the lack of uniformity.

I found this to be a thoughtful and informative book.