Monday, April 22, 2024

Edmon L. Gallagher on the Difference between the LXX and MT Reading of Amos 9:12

  

How is it that the LXX reads so differently from the MT? Scholars allow for the possibility that the LXX attests a Hebrew text different from the MT or, on the other hand, that the translator had the same consonantal text in from of him as is preserved in the MT, but he interpreted his text differently. There are three main differences between the MT and LXX for Amos 9:12:

 

1.     Possess (MT) vs. seek (LXX). The MT has the word ירש (yarash), a common word (230x) that means “possess.” The LXX’s use of εκζητεω seems to correspond to a Hebrew text not with ירש (yarash) but with דרש (darash), also a common word (164x) and one meaning “seek.”

2.     Edom (MT) vs. mankind (LXX). Anyone who knows Hebrew can easily imagine what has happened. A Hebrew text written without vowels might contain a word that could be read either as Edom or as adam, which is the name for the man in the early chapters of Genesis precisely because it is a Hebrew word meaning “mankind.” In a Hebrew text with only consonants, the word Edom and the word adam would often look identical (אדם) and a reader would decide which word was intended based on context. In this particular example, it looks like the context led some people to think of Edom and other people to think of mankind. Now, it is not quite that simple, because the MT has a letter (a waw) in our word that functions like a vowel (a mater lectoinis) so that the word (אדום) has to be read as Edom, or at least with an o-vowel sound in the second syllable. That means the LXX translator either had a Hebrew text slightly different from our MT (missing the waw) or ignored the waw or overlooked it or thought it was wrong. Or, just maybe, the translator thought he was offering the sense of the passage despite departing from the literal wording.

3.     Object (MT) vs. subject (LXX). This point again has to do with the reading Edom/mankind. In the MT, Edom functions as the object of the verb (possess), whereas in the LXX, mankind functions as the subject of the verb (seek). Sometimes in Hebrew a reader has to take a guess about whether a particular noun is the subject or object of the verb, but the MT clearly presents Edom as the object of the verb because it includes a little word (את, et) that signals the direct object. The LXX translator, however, apparently either had a Hebrew text lacking this little word, or he ignored it, or he interpreted it differently from its normal function. Again, the translator may have felt that he was offering the sense of the passage without adhering strictly to the words.

 

. . .

 

We do not know what led the translator to render the passage the way he did. Perhaps he had a Hebrew text slightly different from our Hebrew text, although no such Hebrew text is extant. Perhaps he misread his Hebrew and interpreted it along the lines of a wider biblical theme (the conversion of the nations). Or perhaps he arrived at this interpretation intentionally, through no misreading. Whatever the case, at the Jerusalem Council (as narrated by Luke), James found in the LXX Amos 9:12 confirmation for the events he himself had witnessed. God was now calling a people for himself out of the nations, as Amos had predicted so long beforehand. (Edmon L. Gallagher, Translation of the Seventy: History, Reception, and Contemporary Use of the Septuagint [Abilene, Tex.: Abilene Christian University Press, 2021], 142-44, 145)