Response to “Rebutal to ‘Did the Spirit quote the Septuagint?'”

(1) Establishing the likely linguistic competence of authors is a key desideratum for a debate on the use of the Septuagint; it can hardly be a moot point as Wyns asserts. Tri-bi-lingualism is a factor that helps to explain a person writing in Greek but quoting and alluding to Hebrew Scriptures rather than the Septuagint.

(2) Wilcox’ 1960s work was a corrective to scholars too easily attributing use of the OT by NT writers to a use of the Septuagint. He sought to show an Aramaic and targumic background for some quotations in Acts rather than a Septuagintal background. His scholarly example illustrates the correct methodology in the face of a consensus: go to the textual data and argue case by case whether a given use of the OT in the NT is influenced by/a quotation of/ the Septuagint by the author.

The attitude to the Hebrew Scriptures for the Christian sect can only be settled by evidence from within the sect’s writings. The attitude of Philo, Josephus or the later Rabbis to the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures cannot over-ride that evidence. The existence in the first century of what scholars call different ‘textual traditions’ does not settle whether the five Palestinian writers under Jesus’ tutelage, say, were taught (or not) to privilege the Hebrew Scriptures.[1]

Wilcox is useful to my case because he argues against Septuagintal use for the examples he discusses, arguing for Aramaic text forms, non-Septuagintal Greek forms, as well as non-MT Hebrew forms underlying some NT quotations.[2] However, his analysis doesn’t discuss inspiration, whether the NT writers privileged the Hebrew Scriptures, and what kind of use[3] they were making of any source. His work is too source-driven, although he does open the field of explanation for a given NT text to ‘exegetical tradition’. This is an important complicating factor because if we attribute a NT writer’s use of the OT to an Aramaic tradition (embodied in a Targum), or to non-Septuagintal Greek traditions of translation, we don’t thereby imply that the NT writers had a collection of physical Septuagintal scrolls to hand which Wyns thesis requires. (Likewise, we don’t suppose they had a set of scrolls representing various text-forms.) Scholars work with the human dimension and dependency is always traced to another source or, more vaguely, a tradition; inspiration is not included in their analysis. The problem for all commentators is the sheer volume of differences between the NT and the possible range of sources and traditions that have come down to us—leading to the schematic analysis ‘this text is more like the LXX/proto-MT/Targum/non-MT Hebrew/non-LXX Greek, so it comes from the LXX/Proto-MT/Targum/non-MT/non-LXX source/tradition text form’.

(3) The remark of D. B. Capes (quoted by Wyns) illustrates my argument. New Testament scholars (not Septuagintal specialists) have in the past run too quickly to the Septuagint as the source of a textual feature. A ‘reading tradition’ is an alternative explanation to ‘the Septuagint’ as the source for kyrios in the NT. The use of a surrogate for the Tetragrammaton in Second Temple texts encodes a ‘reading tradition’ and an illustration of the Jewish reverence for the Hebrew text.

1. Pietersma’s dismissal of the four early Greek texts is informative. For two texts, he argues that they are not sufficiently exemplary of the LXX and their use of an Aramaic or paleo-Hebrew Tetragrammaton is evidence of making the Greek conform more to the Hebrew, since each text shows corrections towards the Hebrew—it is not evidence of the use of the Tetragrammaton in the original LXX/OG. This argument suffers from the objection that a paleo-Hebrew and Aramaic Tetragrammaton is not ‘Hebrew’ as such and shouldn’t be included with the genre ‘corrections towards a Hebrew text’—they are surrogates for Hebrew. If anything, it would be evidence of ‘correction towards a cultural norm’. However, the key point in his first argument is his judgment on what is sufficient to count as part of the LXX tradition—scholars may disagree on this measure. He affirms that a third text has a space of sufficient size to take an Aramaic surrogate or a paleo-Hebrew one as well as kyrios, so it can be set aside; he only admits the fourth text as evidence. G. Howard, against whom Pietersma writes, disagrees and his assessment of the four texts is,

From these findings we can now say with almost absolute certainty that the divine name, hwhy, was not rendered by ku,rioj in the pre-Christian Greek Bible, as so often has been thought.[4]

1. Tov is prepared to assert in his standard textbook (2012 edition) that the one uncontested text “probably reflects the original, pre-Christian rendering of the Tetragrammaton preceding ku,rioj of [the Septuagint]”.[5] Putting aside the issue of whether these texts are ‘sufficiently close’ to the LXX to be grouped under that label, they are evidence of copies of the pre-Christian Jewish Greek Scriptures not using ku,rioj. Pietersma’s concession, quoted by Wyns, that Palestinian Jewish Greek Scriptures may not have used ku,rioj is telling for our thesis given that we are discussing five Palestinian writers.
2. Skehan[6] places the manuscript evidence relating to the Jewish Greek Scriptures into four stages according to date, with only the last post-Christian stage showing the introduction of kyrios. Pietersma inverts this scheme by arguing that stage four reflects the original LXX and stages one to three are an archaizing or a hebraizing of the Greek original. He has two arguments, the first of which is useful. He notes that the Alexandrian philosopher, Philo, must have read kyrios in his biblical text.[7] This prompts the point that talking about God and non-sacred writing about God in Greek used both theos and kyrios. The use of kyrios in quotations from the Jewish Scriptures could be the language of the day when talking and writing in Greek. The thesis that the Septuagint is the source of quotations in the NT is obviously not supported by this view of the matter.

Pietersma’s second argument that kyrios is original to the LXX is a technical one centred on translational consistency. He asserts that the way stage four Septuagint manuscripts have rendered the difference between hwhyl and hwhy, with and without a Greek article, from earlier (even the earliest) Septuagint manuscripts, shows that surrogates for the Tetragrammaton cannot have been involved in those manuscripts—as they lack the preposition l.  The discussion thread cited by Wyns includes R. Furuli’s assessment of Pietersma’s second argument and Furuli thinks that Tov’s manuscript evidence, also cited by Wyns, refutes Pietersma’s second argument.  We would add two further considerations: first, what resources does a scribe have to hand in copying a Greek scroll? Does he have not only the main document being copied, but other Greek and Hebrew sources for comparison? Pietersma’s argument rests on the assumption that a later scribe is working from one Greek source (vorlage) that he is copying. The second problem with Pietersma’s argument is that it doesn’t offer a criterion for distinguishing the translational consistency of the original translator as opposed to that of the later copyist or emending scribe; furthermore, where scholars observe more than one scribal hand in a manuscript, these are likely to be working together to produce a completed copy.

The argument that the apostles used the Septuagint because their use of kyrios for the Tetragrammaton must come from the LXX fails for lack of pre-Christian manuscript evidence despite Pietersma’s attempt to invert the evidence. Christian scribes could well be responsible for modernizing the Septuagint for the Diaspora. Of course, the failure of Wyns’ argument does not mean that the apostles did not ‘use’ the Septuagint; it is just that this argument fails.

(4) It is worth pausing when looking at the example of 1 Peter. What don’t we know? We don’t know if Peter had knowledge of 1QS^a or its Hebrew text form (we don’t know the extent of distribution for such a text form—it could just be a Qumran scroll); we don’t know what (if any) Greek scroll of Isaiah Peter might have had access to or have read in the past. Was it a Septuagintal type scroll or a non-Septuagintal type of scroll? We don’t know what the process was in the writing out of the quotation of Isaiah in his letter. Were others consulted? Were various scrolls of Isaiah looked at or brought to mind? Was it memory recall?

Nevertheless, when we think about inspiration, there is a problem of explaining the difference(s) between the text of the various candidate sources and Peter’s letter. Wyns argues that the Spirit has set aside the dsx (‘goodliness’) of the Hebrew in favour of the do,xa of the Septuagint, but because the Septuagint has a plural suffix, and the MT has a singular suffix, Peter is using the singular suffix of the Hebrew with the do,xa of the Septuagint. We disagree. It is more likely that the Spirit is quoting its own writing and taking do,xa from 1 Pet 1:21, “Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God”. The glory given to Christ is contrasted with the ‘glory’ of the flesh. The Spirit is not rejecting the inspired dsx of the Hebrew in favour of the uninspired do,xa of the Septuagint; rather it is developing its exposition in Peter’s letter by varying the Hebrew. As Wyns points out, LXX Isaiah 40 is unique for using do,xa for dsx and on this measure it is poor translation.[8] It is therefore more likely that the Spirit is using its own expositional development of do,xa in 1 Peter, rather than giving credence to the poor translation of the Septuagint. In fact, the idiosyncratic uniqueness of do,xa in LXX Isaiah 40 suggests Christian harmonization.

(5) Wyns’ argument was, initially, and to paraphrase, “here is ‘body’ in the LXX but not the MT, and so the NT writer is using the LXX”.  He offers no theological or societal reason as to why an Alexandrian Psalms’ translator would use the Hebrew and/or Targum ‘body’ of Exod 21:3 (assuming there was an Aramaic Targum tradition in Greek Alexandria?), especially as ‘ear’ is there in Exod 21:6 to back up the ‘ear’ of Ps 40:6. In further rebuttal, he now throws into the mix, ironically, the possibility of an early non-Septuagintal Greek Pentateuch with ‘body’ in Exod 21:3 for the later Psalms’ translator to use. The choice between our two positions is this:

Wyns: the Psalms’ uninspired translator is doing somewhat intricate intertextual exegesis with Exod 21:3 to undo the simple Hebrew of Ps 40:6 for some reason or other.

Perry: the Spirit is doing the intricate intertextual exegesis through the author of Hebrews with Exod 21:3 and Ps 40:6 to teach about the body of Christ in Heb 10:5.

We are not excluding knowledge of the Jewish Greek Scriptures (e.g. 2 Maccabees); and neither are we explaining away all correspondence between the Septuagint and the NT writings as Christian harmonisation. We are arguing that this is the case for Heb 10:5 and we are integrating the Spirit into our explanation of NT quotation.

(6) Wyns argues that “it would be natural for him [John] to use the ‘Bible’ that his readers were familiar with, namely, the Greek LXX/OG”. The assumption to question here is not that Greek speaking Jews were familiar with the Jewish Scriptures in Greek but rather that they were not familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures. Unlike us, John knows his Ephesus’ audience (to follow Wyns); he knows its size, whether there were ‘egg-heads’ in the ecclesia who knew Hebrew/Aramaic; its native and migrant make-up, and so on. A mixed make-up would facilitate the ecclesia’s understanding of John’s use of Scripture with regard to the differences between what we have in the MT and the LXX. Moreover, we should also question the assumption that John’s audience is not wider, given that he is writing a ‘gospel’.[9] What Wyns needs to show from the text is that the implied reader needs his or her Septuagint to understand the use of Scripture in John.

Today, we might be familiar with several versions of the Bible; each version may have some influence on our thinking. We may use different versions for study and general reading; we may choose to quote one version even if we are communicating with others who use a different version—we are adaptable in the arena of different Bible versions.

It is fairly easy to see how parthenos (‘virgin’) could be a Christian motivated emendation in Isa 7:14—it’s theologically loaded (see below), but how do we tell whether John is quoting ’anî hû’ or ego eimi from Isaiah—is he using Greek or Hebrew? The Septuagint is a close literal translation of the Hebrew at just the point that underlies John—Isa 43:10-11 (thereby making a choice of source difficult on textual grounds), but it then becomes suspect in Isa 43:13,[10] which makes the choice of a Hebrew source more certain. Nevertheless, given that the Septuagint is part of John’s literary co-text, there is an influence on John’s translation to take into account. Just as the Septuagint translators put ego eimi for ’anî hû’, John may be following common convention. But the intertextual connections[11] between John 8 and Isaiah 43 indicate that Hebrew is the source—‘believe’ John 8:24, Isa 43:10; ‘know’ John 8:28, Isa 43:10; ‘before’ John 8:58, Isa 43:10; and ‘day’ with ‘I, I’ John 8:56, 58, Isa 43:11, 13 (MT only). It is because the Hebrew of Isa 43:13 “From the day, I am He” is important for Jesus’ reference to Abraham seeing his day (John 8:56), and then his assertion ‘before Abraham was I, I am’, that we can infer it is the Hebrew Scriptures which underlie John’s exposition.

(7) Christian commentators have a vested interest in Isa 7:14; if we turn to a Jewish commentator, we find the opposite opinion. Thus the Jewish commentator, J. Rosenberg, says of hml[ (‘almâh) “The word is used for a young woman, regardless of whether she is a virgin or not.”[12] The issue is determined by the weight of the linguistic data and then the likely understanding of Isaiah’s words to his audience.

1. The Motyer quote is about the Hebrew and not the Septuagintal translation pattern favouring nea/nij (neanis). My argument was about the likely original Greek based on Septuagintal patterns of translation. Accordingly, when Motyer says, “Thus, wherever the context allows a judgment, ‘almâh is not a general term meaning ‘young woman’ but a specific one meaning ‘virgin’.”, he is pitching his twentieth-century scholarly judgment against the judgment of the LXX translators.
2. Motyer’s judgment rests on Song 6:8, but harems don’t usually have female virgins in them! Further, the LXX has nea/nij for hml[ in this text.
3. The Witherington quote opposes Motyer in that he thinks ‘virgin’ is ‘possible’ for Song 6:8 whereas Motyer thinks this can be asserted without qualification. What Witherington does not show in the quote is why ‘virginal state’ is part of the sense of the word.

Our conclusion therefore is that Witherington and Motyer do not add anything to the debate here; Matthew is not quoting the LXX/OG as Scripture; rather, the Spirit is quoting and varying the Hebrew to bring out the typological application of the prophecy, inferring ‘virgin’ from the combination of ‘young woman’ with ‘God with us’.

(8) Our argument is that Greek translations of the Jewish Scriptures are part of the literary co-text for NT writers; the influence of the Septuagint is not discounted. Further, the superintendence of the Spirit over the lives of the NT writers no doubt made them aware of the variety of forms (‘versions’) of the Scriptures around in their day. However, Jesus’ teaching privileged the Hebrew Scriptures and this is the exegetical model to follow. Scholars typically stop at the Septuagint in their explanation of quotations if they see a good alignment; our argument is that we cannot stop there—we need to pass by to the Hebrew original and affirm that it is from here the Spirit quotes and it is from here that the NT writers quote regardless of the role (if any) we assign to the Septuagint. [3216]

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