Short note on the name Samson

by koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint lecturers Avondale College

Australia

18 May 2009

What we know of the name Samson is that it is the form šmšwn in Hebrew but in the Greek of the so-called LXX, which is a corrupt version which survived in Byzantine times, the reading is Σαμψων.

There is an interesting phenomenon here when we compare the Hebrew and the Greek. The Hebrew reads Samson but the Greek reads Sampson. Where did the /p/ or even /b/ element come from in the pronunciation of the Greek?

Some scholars who revered the Greek Septuagint as based on a very old Vorlage different from the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition, will claim that one may find correlates in outside sources that would justify the reading of the Greek. We will look at that option in this note.

Contenders for the multiplicity of Vorlages for the Second Temple Period (Tov, Stipp, et al) would place all these variants in different version on the same level with the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition and then claim that other Hebrew Vorlages existed also in the time of the Ptolemees.  The try to base it on the readings of some texts at Qumran. What these scholars have not yet proven, is the fundamental question whether we are dealing with different Vorlages of careful scribes or variants due to degenerative scribal practices at that time. This issue is of prime importance before any textual comparison with Qumran and other texts can be made. This researcher has not find any evidence for a different Vorlage than the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition, but degenerative scribal practices and different methods of transmission gave cause to variants at Qumran. There is a difference that is very important here. It means that a variant at Qumran is a mistake and error not an option or alternative reading (contra Tov 1993).

It also means that the original Septuagint is non-existent and what has survived is the result of degenerative scribal practices in transmission, the result of slips of the eye, ear, hand, tongue, and memory.

In a discussion of M. Dietrich and O. Loretz of the Ugaritic treaty between Šuppiluliuma and Niqmandu, "Der Vertrag zwischen Šuppiluliuma und Niqmandu" 208-211, one can see some data on the issue related to Samson or Sampson, mentioned above.

Dietrich and Loretz presented the data from Alalakh, namely, variant readings of ^dUTU which is the Sumerogram for "sun".

Ša-ap-ša

Ša-ap-še/i

Ša-ap-ši-a-du

Ša-ap-sa-du

Ša-ap-si-a-bi

Sa-ap-si-a-du

Sa-ap-si-ya-du

Sa-ap-si-e-da

Sa-am-šu-^dIM

Sa-am-si

Sa-am-si-^dIM

Sa-am-si-e-da

Za-am-si

Zi-im-ri-sa-mas

van wyk notes:

1. None of these examples from Alalakh, concurrent with Ugarit and about 150 years before Samson's history, read a hybrid with /m/ and /p/ or /m/ and /b/ combined.

2. We do have evidence at this cosmopolitan city of migrant scribes writing /s/ for /š/ or vice versa. It gives us a proper background for the Shibbolet or sibbolet issue.

3. Some scribes' mental lexicon interchange also /s/ for a /z/. 

4. The reading of a m+p combination as one finds it in the so-called LXX is based on an acoustic misperception during the process of transmission in the days of Constantine (350 CE) when they copied the text "with great speed", as history tells us. 50 copies were made.

5. The time of transmission problems may even have occurred during the period of Antiochus Epiphanes in 167 BCE, when the Alexandrian librarians were involved in all kinds of degenerative scribal practices of the transmission of Homer, so that one can expect the same for the transmission of the original literal LXX.

6. The correct reading is Samson, not Sampson.

7. What we need to learn from this experience is that one site or city in the ANE has so many variants for the same name during the same time period and thus, differences of spellings in the consonantal text of the Masoretic Tradition is not evidence of different scribes or authors but of biligualism, dictation of Isaiah to his scribe or Jeremiah to his scribe or phases in the life of the author who spent an early life surrounded by his parental Hebrew but his later life surrounded by Aramaic, Akkadian or other inhabitants and languages.

End item