A reader writes:
I’ve always got the impression that the Catholic Old Testament is translated from the Septuagint, while the Protestant Bible’s Old Testament is translated from the Masoretic texts. The virtues of this being (A) that the apostles and Christ quoted mainly from the Septuagint, and (B) the Septuagint was translated from older and maybe more accurate versions of the books than what the Jews had in 70 AD. But — at least in a cursory glance, comparing with some Septuagint quotes online — aside from "a virgin shall give birth," all the cited passages in my Catholic Bibles seem to be what’s given as the Masoretic translation. Is this the case?
First a bit of terminology for those who may not be familiar: The Septuagint (LXX) is the major Greek translation of the Old Testament. It was produced between the third and first centuries B.C. and is extensively quoted in the New Testament. The great majority of times that the New Testament quotes from the Old, it’s the LXX version that is being used.
Originally, the term "Septuagint" just referred to the main Greek translation of the five books of Moses (Genesis-Deuteronomy), which were allegedly put into Greek by 70 scholars in Alexandria, Egypt. This is where the name "Septuagint" came from and why the Roman numeral for 70 (LXX) is used as an abbreviation for the translation. Over time (before the first century), it came to include all of the books of the Old Testament, including the deuterocanonicals.
The Masoretic Text (MT) is the main Hebrew edition of the Old Testament. It was prepared between the seventh and tenth centuries A.D. based on earlier Hebrew manuscripts. It does not include the deuterocanonical books.
It’s true that the LXX has an important role in Catholic translations of the Old Testament, but they generally are not straightforward translations from the LXX.
Until recently, most Catholic versions of the Old Testament were translated (primarily) from the Latin Vulgate rather than from the LXX or the MT. They might be based on the Vulgate using the LXX and the MT for purposes of comparison (e.g., to decide between disputed renderings), but the Vulgate was the base text used by most Western Catholics. (It’s different among Eastern Catholics.)
The Vulgate was based on the (pre-Masoretic) Hebrew text, the LXX, and the Old Latin Version.
It was in the 20th century that a significant number of translations started to be made from pre-Latin sources. This was encouraged by Pius XII in his encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu.
When this started happening, Catholic translators relied on a combination of the LXX and the MT.
The canon of the Catholic Old Testament is based on the LXX, so that’s the top level where the LXX is employed in making translations. (In the ancient world, both the LXX and the Hebrew scriptures had fuzzy boundaries about what books they included, but a few centuries after Christ the Catholic Church settled on one LXX-derived canon and in about the same timeframe the Jewish community settled on one Hebrew canon, which was later used to prepare the MT.)
Some of the books of the Catholic Old Testament seem to have been written as part of the developing LXX tradition (e.g., Wisdom, 2 Maccabees), and so there are no earlier versions. For these, Catholic translators use the LXX since there is no MT equivalent of these books.
Other books of the Catholic Old Testament were based on earlier versions in Hebrew or Aramaic but have survived primarily in the LXX (e.g., Sirach). For these Catholic translators tend to use primarily the LXX, but they may also consult the original language versions to the extent that these have been recovered by archaeology (e.g., the Hebrew version of Tobit).
Still other books are found in both the LXX and the MT. Here recent Catholic translators have tended to use the MT as their base text, using also the LXX and the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) for purposes of comparison.
The base text is just a starting point for the translators of major editions of the Old Testament, though. The goal is not to translate what is in the base text but to produce a translation that best reflects what the originals most likely said. This means going with what is in alternative sources (like the LXX and DSS) whenever it appears that the reading in the alternative source is more likely the original reading.
In some passages, it appears that what the MT has is the most original; in others it seems like the LXX or the DSS may better preserve the original.
How this gets sorted out is a complex process, but it’s part of the burden that scholars have to shoulder in an effort to get past the manuscript variation we are confronted with and try to arrive at the original readings. Scholars also disagree, coming to different conclusions or making different choices about what readings should be used. Generally they try to note major alternate readings in the footnotes.
This is not unique to Catholic scholars. Though many Protestant translations lack the deuterocanonicals, Protestant translators are confronted with the same set of questions regarding which readings best reflect the original, and so major Protestant translations of the Old Testament also use a hodge-podge approach to which text to follow in a particular passage (MT, LXX, DSS, or something else). They also generally note major alternate readings in the footnotes.
The major difference is that they let the MT control what they consider canonical.
Hope this clarifies things by muddying them!
In the last century such discoveries as the Qumran/Dead Sea Scrolls (and the pro-LXX reading of Psalm 21/22 found there http://www.christian-thinktank.com/ps22cheat.html) have suggested that the compilation of the Masoretic text was as much an interpretive and apologetic effort as it was an exercise in documentary preservation.
Where alternate readings existed, the Masoretic text incorporated the one which supported the Talmudic tradition, which was developing in parallel with the establishment of the Masoretic canon.
There never was one textus recepticus, but the consensus within the Jewish community was entirely in favour of the Septuagint until it became clear that many of its readings pointed too clearly to Christ.
PVO
There never was one textus recepticus, but the consensus within the Jewish community was entirely in favour of the Septuagint until it became clear that many of its readings pointed too clearly to Christ.
It wasn’t just the indications toward Christ that they abhorred. They also were not fond of the glowing praise of the Romans found in the books of Maccabbees.
When you’re trying to stir up a revolution or support your rebellious ideas, the last thing you want is Scripture backing up your “enemy”.
There never was one textus recepticus, but the consensus within the Jewish community was entirely in favour of the Septuagint until it became clear that many of its readings pointed too clearly to Christ.
I’ve picked up this idea myself somewhere, but can somebody point me to an essay that explains the anti-Christian concerns of those who formulated the Jewish canon in a bit more detail?
It’s hard to see how the Vulgate (the Vulgata Nova excepted) could have been based on the MT, since the Vulgate is substantially the work of St. Jerome who lived long before the “he seventh and tenth centuries A.D.” when the M.T. was put into current form. I believe that St. Jerome used more than one Hebrew version in translating the Vulgate. The Psalms in the Vulgate are the Old Latin version, a translation of the LXX, as liturgical conservatisim resulted in a popular rejection of St. Jerome’s translation from the Hebrew.
You’re right. That’s a typo. What I meant to say was that it’s based on the *Hebrew* text, the LXX, and the Old Latin Version. I was so focused on *not* saying MT in that case that I had MT on the brain and wrote it anyway. Sheesh!
I’ll fix it in the text.
For a nice, affordable, introduction to the Text of the Old Testament, including issues of manuscripts, translation, etc., I would recommend:
“The Text of the Old Testament,”
by Ernst Wuerthwein, translated by Erroll F. Rhodes
2nd Edition, Paperback, Jan 1995, 304 pages
28.00 on Amazon,
where you can “Look Inside” the book.
For something a little more advanced, if you already have experience with BHS/MT, and have maybe done some reading of the Great Isaiah Scroll from Qumran (i.e., you know some Biblical Hebrew), a good intermediate introduction is:
“Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible”
by Emmanuel Tov
2nd Edition, Hardback, July 2001, 496 pages
31.50 on Amazon, where you can “Look Inside.”
Prof. Tov, in Israel, has done a lot of textual study comparing MT with LXX and Qumran, etc.
>There never was one textus recepticus, but the consensus within the Jewish community was entirely in favour of the Septuagint until it became clear that many of its readings pointed too clearly to Christ.
Ehr, the LXX was in Greek. The consensus within the Jewish community in the pre-Christian era was that the Hebrew text was the authentic text. Readings in Greek translation was necessarily secondary.
It’s true that there existed at least three Hebrew text types in use among Jews. The discovery of the DSS demonstrated this: the Hebrew vorlage which supports many LXX readings, the Samaritan (pre-emendations) and the proto-MT type.
While its true that these Hebrew LXX-like texts have readings which support the Greek it isn’t the case that all christological readings are found in the Hebrew. Example: the famous ‘virgin’ passage in Isaiah. In no Hebrew text does it read btwlh as opposed to ‘lmh.
And in any case, the MT type existed alongside the LXX type, so there is no support for the assertion that “the consensus within the Jewish community was entirely in favour of the Septuagint.” That simply isn’t the case, not if you mean the Greek text, not if you mean the Hebrew text it was translated from.