Priscilla Turner

The INTRODUCTION, which makes extensive reference to the Classified Bibliography and to the work of older scholars, supplies the rationale for the new method employed in the body of the dissertation. The study was originally intended to expose the manner and method of the Old Greek version of chapters i-xxxix of the Book of Ezekiel, with a view to a cautious assessment of its value for Old Testament philology and textual criticism. It was soon clear, however, that the enterprise could not go forward without considerable work upon the Greek language, the results of which turned out to be more relevant, as well as bulkier, than had been expected. The argument is made that the matters of unity, date and provenance and Hebraism must be studied as Greek Language questions methodologically distinct from and foundational to questions of translation technique. It is demonstrated that the nature of the text, the state of studies, and the need for a systematic approach to the application of the Old Greek to Hebrew text and interpretation combined to produce a pyramidal structure, in which study of the Greek of the version in Part I is the foundation upon which study of renditional method in Part II is based, and study of the bearing upon the Hebrew text in Part III rests on both together. It is also shown that at each stage there were few if any precedents for such an approach to an Old Greek text.

It is concluded (1) that the text is not homogeneous, but that the disunity cannot be said to show a pattern, (2) that the text is clearly post-Classical, and was written between c. 150 and c. 50 B.C., possibly in Egypt, (3) that the idiosyncrasies of the text are a result of the influence, direct or indirect, of biblical Hebrew, and are more a matter of the overuse of good Greek forms, and of an un-Greek balance between word-classes, than of particular oddities of grammar and idiom.

It is first argued that a comparatively mechanical approach is necessary not only for the question of unity but also to establish sound method in the use of the version for criticism of the Hebrew text. It is noted that, because the Greek vocabulary is much more extensive than that of the original, diversity of rendering is bound to be the rule. The translation technique is then exposed in detail under the following headings:–

It is concluded (1) that the version has a certain unity which results from the pervasive influence of the Greek Pentateuch and certain other books, but that there is also a sense in which it is not a unity, for it falls into four sections differently related to later books of the Greek Bible [i-xv with xxv-xxx.19, xvii-xx, xvi with xxi-xxiv, and xxx.20-xxxix], the original Greek Ezekiel having been truncated, (2) that the four sections can be dated only relatively within the limits set by the linguistic evidence, though the first was certainly made in Egypt, (3) that no section is especially careful or informed, but the third and fourth are less reliable in detail than the rest, and witness to the decline of the tradition.

It is stated that the version has already been shown to be valueless in the majority of difficult places in our Hebrew text, for it is apparently based on a text which laboured under the same corruptions and contained many words to which the translators had lost the key. An answer is then sought to the question of whether there are places where the version is certainly of value. Outstanding passages are discussed under the following headings:–

The method as a whole is without precedent in the field; if the approach had been different certain seminal conclusions would never have emerged. Study of the language as though it were any other Greek text has made it possible to explode old theories of multiple authorship without denying the facts which had suggested them, to date the work and to identify what is `hebraic' about it. It has made possible the formulation of the concept of the "unidiom", and brought to light pivotal examples of the latter. On this foundation, study of the manner and method of the translator(s) has sharply illuminated old theories about unity. The "unidiom" which is literal in one context but not in another has led to new knowledge about relative dating and the inner history of the Septuagintal corpus. So has careful investigation of the source of idiosyncratic philology originating in or borrowed by the text. It is clear on both stylistic and philological grounds that i-xxxix was rendered in four distinct stages. This is the reason why the translation falls into four sections each differently related by dependence and influence to other Old Greek books. At least two sections can be shown from internal evidence to be connected with Egypt. The translation methods of the four sections are not of the same quality or reliability. It is also evident that the mind(s) of the translator(s) were saturated in the language and versional technique of the Greek Pentateuch to an extent consistent with the probability that both original and translation were, if not always perfectly understood, known by heart.

Chapters i-xxxix are paradoxically both a linguistic unity which no trained Hellenist would think of impugning, and a renditional pastiche. The earliest Alexandrian Ezekiel (which almost certainly had xl-xlviii as its core) included by way of introduction only those parts of i-xxxix which survived a careful process of bowdlerization. Beginning with xvi, large amounts of text of a highly scatological nature, and full of negative references to Egypt and to her rôle in the apostasy of Israel and Judah, were deliberately censored out. The obvious explanation of this editorial activity is a desire to avoid material which was thought to be impolitic in the circumstances of the community concerned. A subsidiary motive may have been to put distance between the community and the wrath of God. That the book was shortened in this way suggests a diminished degree of reverence towards the sacred text, and possibly a heightened degree of carelessness in the handling of the original, compared with the attitude to the Greek Torah.

The deductions in Part I and Part II concerning the date both relative and absolute and the provenance of the version of i-xxxix establish two facts. In the first place, wherever and however the work was actually done, the demand for it and the point of view that informed it continued to be Egyptian. Secondly, there were at least two and possibly three bouts of activity in the rendering of the Hebrew Bible into Greek. If there were only two, Ezekiel xl-xlviii, with i-xv and xxv-xxx.19 as extended introduction, occupied something of a middle position in the second bout. If on the other hand there were three such bouts of activity, the original Alexandrian Ezekiel was even more signally a pioneering work, marking the earliest engagement on the part of would-be translators with the Latter Prophets and virtually all the Writings. It is interesting that the linguistic evidence so rigorously assessed in Part I leads to a date reasonably consistent with the completion of the Greek Bible by the late Second Century B.C.

A tentative reconstruction of the inner history of the last stage, or last two stages, of translation work produces the following sequence. Samuel, Kings, I Chronicles, Ruth and Canticles were certainly available to those who made Ezekiel A. Ezekiel A influenced the versions of Joshua, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Psalms. Ezekiel xvii-xx, or B, borrowed from the Psalms version, but was still early enough to have influenced the Twelve. Ezekiel xvi with xxi-xxiv, or C, was influenced by the Psalms version, and, significantly, by the Twelve. It shows no sign that the Isaiah version existed, but was plainly known to the Jeremiah translator(s) at two points. It picks up a striking "unidiom" from Proverbs xxxi, providing a clear back-allusion to what may have been a `floating' or `purple passage' piece of selective translation. Ezekiel xxx.20 to xxxix, or D, was made later than Psalms, the Twelve, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Lamentations. Thus we arrive at Samuel, Kings, I Chronicles, Ruth and Canticles; Ezekiel A; Joshua and Psalms; Ezekiel B; the Twelve, Proverbs (xxv to) xxxi; Ezekiel C; Isaiah, Jeremiah and Lamentations; Ezekiel D; possibly the bulk of Proverbs; and Ecclesiasticus. Much more in the way of firm dating, both relative and absolute, would emerge if the methods employed in the present study were applied with similar precision to other Old Greek books. Meanwhile Hebraists may note that those who rendered Ezekiel A to D were using texts constituted by a date which can be fixed with some exactitude.

It is clear from the conclusions to Part I on the question of hebraism and to Part II on the quality of the version that the text is written in the dialect of a particular community composed of `People of the Book'. The Greek is profoundly un-Greek. Its characteristics are rooted in the fact that the language is `translationese', and in the case of our text heavily derivative. The dependence is most obviously upon the Law in its Alexandrian Greek dress. Many locutions and renderings can be understood only as traditional formulae that were not always completely understood or appropriately applied by those who took them up. There are many indications that the Vorlage was imperfectly understood, some that Greek itself may have been imperfectly known, or perhaps considered in the context of Bible translation to be somewhat malleable. This does not imply the existence of a colloquial `Jewish Greek'. Conceivably, however, in the context of prayer, public worship and personal religion a certain stylistic penumbra may have developed about the sacred scriptures.

The quality of the rendering probably reflects an unfortunate coincidence between a decline in knowledge of Biblical Hebrew (without which there would have been no demand for written translation on any scale) and a bruising encounter with a long and difficult original. It seems likely that the production of the Old Greek as a whole was characterized by a steadily widening gulf between the standard demanded by the difficulty of the original and the standard attainable by the grasp of those who sought to render it. Throughout i-xxxix the method was atomistic, and did not lend itself to reflection, let alone correction. Whatever the cause, no part of the version was done at sufficient leisure for a Tendenz or Tendenzen to develop: there is an abundance of misinterpreted detail, but nothing that might suggest a sustained interpretative effort. It is nevertheless possible to go some way towards identifying the community which commissioned or at least required an edited version of Ezekiel i-xxxix, and its reasons for doing so: namely, Jewish people in exile from the Jerusalem Temple, and needing their devotion to and hope in God to be reinforced with vision but with minimal offence to their pagan neighbours in Egypt. A case could perhaps be made for a desire on the part of that community to distance and dissociate itself from the idolatrous pollutions and compromises of the Palestinian past.

Where the detail of Part I is not directly relevant to the rest of the work, it may at least serve as some contribution to the neglected field of Septuagint grammar and lexicography. The Hebraist's interest is different. In Part III no unequivocal cases of the version's yielding new Hebrew text or interpretation could be found. It remains the case that in this study methods for the application of the Old Greek have been pioneered.

The APPENDICES AND STATISTICS back Part I with a Glossary of (A) the Limited Inventories and (B) the General Vocabulary, the latter accompanied by philological notes, and with several Tables of significant linguistic features. Appendix C backs Part II with additional examples of literary relationships within and beyond the Septuagintal corpus.