Tuesday, August 15, 2023

Hector M. Patmore on Disagreements between the Masoretic Text, Septuagint, and Summachus

  

The disagreement between the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint and Symmachus, for example, does not permit the conclusion that the tradition of pronounciation, which eventually came to be preserved in written form by the Masoretes, does not go back to at least the 2nd century CE (Symmachus’ date) or before. Parallel oral traditions of pronounciation probably existed in this period. Regardless of the likely existence of parallel oral traditions, the translators of the Septuagint, as well as the later Greek translators, appear to have depended primarily on the context to determine the meaning of the consonantal form of their Vorlage, rather than on established patterns of pronounciation. So our evidence tells us only that the tradition of pronounciation now represented in the Masoretic Text was not, at that time, universal. (Hector M. Patmore, Adam, Satan, and the King of Tyre: The Interpretation of Ezekiel 28:11-19 in Late Antiquity [Jewish and Christian Perspectives 20; Leiden: Brill, 2012], 189)

 

We also find examples where the Versions preserve an alternative vocalization. In 28:14 the Septuagint, Symmachus, and Peshitta all point towards a vocalization אֶת ‘with (the cherub)’ against the unusual אתְַּ ‘you’ of the Masoretic Text, and in 28:16 the Septuagint and Symmachus reads ‘and the cherub expelled you’ ( ואְבִּ דְַךָ ) not ‘I expelled you’ ( ,ואְבַּ דְֶךָ . . . ). The Vulgate supports the vocalization of the Masoretic Text in both cases (i.e. 28:14 tu cherub; 28:16 et eieci te). (Ibid.)