The Hebrew Text of Samuel : Differences in 1 Sam 1 – 2 Sam 9 between the Masoretic Text, the Septuagint, and the Qumran Scrolls
Year: 2018
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This dissertation is a text-critical study of the Hebrew text of 1 Sam 1 – 2 Sam 9 in the Hebrew Bible. The entire Hebrew text of Samuel is known today only in its Masoretic text form, which is itself the result of a standardization process that began around the onset of the Common Era. Before this standardization process, the Hebrew text was evidently fluid, and several different textual editions of the Book of Samuel would have existed. This is evidenced by the manuscripts of Samuel found at Qumran (2nd – 1st c. BCE) and the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint (translated 2nd c. BCE). The purpose of this dissertation is to study how these three main witnesses—the Masoretic text, the Qumran manuscripts and the Hebrew source text of the Septuagint—differ from and are related to one another. Such a study entails an investigation of what kinds of changes took place in each textual tradition and what were the possible motivations behind the changes. These results are used to evaluate the reliability of each text when attempting to reconstruct the most original text. The method of this study is that of textual criticism. The main task of the text critic is to make sense of what happened in the textual history of a given work with the help of existing textual witnesses: what kinds of developments are most probable? Which reading is primary and which are secondary? With the Septuagint as a textual witness, there are certain challenges. To use the Septuagint for comparison with the Masoretic text, one has to find out first the original wording of the Septuagint itself and its translation technique. Only then can one produce a reverse translation from Greek to Hebrew and compare this so-called retroversion to the Masoretic text. In this dissertation, I have studied the variant readings of the Masoretic text, the source text of the Septuagint and Qumran manuscripts 4QSam-a and 4QSam-b. An analysis of all variant readings in 4QSam-a and 4QSam-b is presented and the primary reading is determined where possible. These results were used, for the statistical analysis, where the distances between the different texts are calculated, employing multidimensional scaling (MDS) to illustrate the distances. In addition to the variant readings, the two major text critical problem in 1 Sam are discussed—namely, the story of David and Goliath in 1 Sam 17–18 and the large plus of Nahash the Ammonite in 4QSama in 1 Sam 10:27–11:1. In this study, I have shown that the Books of Samuel, as they existed during the Late Second Temple period, exhibited great fluidity and plurality. Moreover, I have surveyed a variety of mechanics that were subject to change. Not only were there unintentional scribal errors but also deliberate changes and even editorial rewriting processes.
Source: Työväentutkimus Vuosikirja
Author: Seppänen, Christian
Language: English
Subfield: Religious studies
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2799562549