Translation techniques or defective manuscripts?

koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Kyungbook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

18 March 2010

Variants in the Versions (or Bible translations) can only be seen as variants if the version is compared to a standard norm that serves as a perfect text to measure deviations.

There are essentially two different positions as to the origin of the variants in the Versions: a) it was the translation technique of the scribe b) it was due to defective manuscripts.

In 1984 this researcher attended a Semitic linguistic conference and one of the presentations was, the translation technique of the Septuagint. The speaker was emphasizing that one can get a literal translation and a free translation. The Pentateuch was considered a literal translation but the prophets were considered as free translations in the Septuagint. Looking at the examples in Genesis upholding a literal translation, it became clear that the issue was not that simple. There were misreadings in the "literal zone" of ligatures, division of letters problems, slips of the ear and other evidence. Suddenly, the whole idea of translation technique was under suspicion and since then that suspicion never ended.

Variants in the versions

As to why variants are in the Versions, E. Tov listed a number of reasons and this researcher has also added his own:

a. careless translator; b. misreading (human weakness); c. genre differences; d. dynamic equivalence translation technique; e. word divisions; f. Aramaisms; g. exegetical considerations; h. harmonizations; i. contextualization; different Vorlage. Almost all these examples are involved in translation techniques or translation modes and only the last item, different Vorlage is a different issue.

When one claims variants from a translation technique then one is actually saying that the translator was not strongly bound to his text and that he had some freedom to be creative with the text. He may translate with the thinking that not the words but the thoughts are important and that semi-paraphrase is no problem.

A short history of translation technique investigations

According to E. Tov (1987: 337-359), the study of translation technique started in modern times in 1841. The works of Thiersch and Z. Frankel are mentioned. There is also the work of George Stock and F. C. Conybeare in 1905. In the decades that followed, the translation technique was often incorporated in studies that analyzed the amount of adherence of the translators to the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition or Hebrew Vorlage (Tov 1987: 345). There are also the studies of Viteau in 1893 and 1896, the work of J. H. Moulton in 1906 and that of W. F. Howard in 1919-1929 and N. Turner in 1963 and 1976.

Realities about "Septuagint"

The following realities are to be taken into account for a clearer understanding of the translation technique of the socalled LXX:

1. No manuscript or fragment of the LXX predates the year 280 CE.

2. The Göttingen-edition of the LXX is only a reconstructed attempt and do not claim to be the original LXX.

3. We do not have a pre-Roman IV text of the LXX.

4. The acclaimed LXX texts from Qumran shows a tendency to be socalled "reworked" toward the Masoretic tradition.

5. Each book of the acclaimed LXX was not necessarily the work of one translator so that it is better to treat characteristics according to translation unit than books. In this regard S. Olofsson stated that the Pentateuch cannot be treated as a unit as regards the translation technique. He felt that it was done by different translators and there are variations between the units as to the translation technique. Anyone who has worked with the Lucian manuscripts g, n, w, l and v, t, p, and d, will know that these variants are due to the copyist errors and that in n and w there may be even two or three different copyists so that the idiosyncracies of the manuscripts in certain zones should be understood for that reason. That cancels translation technique completely (For Olofsson see S. Olofsson, The LXX Version: A Guide to the Translation Technique of the Septuagint [Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1990], 42). 

6. Certain words of the Septuagint or LXX has been recorded in outside sources only in the second century CE (see here the work of J. A. L. Lee, LXX: A Lexical Study of the Septuagint Version of the Pentateuch [Chico, California: Scholars Press, 1983], 40 and 41).

What are the implications of all this?

It means that the designated LXX by scholars is in essence and form that of an early byzantine text or Late Roman IV text. Even if the reconstructive process is involved, it nevertheless can only reach to a form that existed ca. 280 CE. The supposedly earlier Greek texts from Qumran (that is, earlier than 280 CE) do not support the notion that the form of the LXX remained the same between 280 BCE and 280 CE. There is a 500 year ugly ditch between the earliest LXX manuscripts and the original date of its translation. Since we do not have a full earlier text to compare the LXX with, it is very difficult to access how much of the material was added, reworked, corrupted or deleted. That all the phenomena were found to be in the LXX is clear from a comparison with the MT and Qumran Greek texts. Olofsson found that scholars are divided into three groups regarding the variants between the LXX and the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition: a. those who are seeking an original text behind the differences in the LXX; b. those who are calling it a misinterpretation or corruption of the text due to translation techniques and c. those that 'favour in-between shades rather than those extreme and outspoken positions' (Olofsson 1990: 79).

Are there differences between the versions and the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition, because a scribe has decided intentionally to translate different, to harmonize, to change from singular to plural, to add preposition where there are none and to omit preposition where there are? Why is the word order of nouns disturbed?

The most instructive analysis was the one that this researcher undertook with Qumran. Looking at the scribal practices at Qumran, this researcher became convinced that defective scribal practices gave origin to defective Hebrew copies that finds a correlate with defective scribal practices in the Kennicott lists of the Hebrew manuscripts between 1200 and 1500. Suddenly, the whole issue of a scribe intentionally wishing to change his tune during translation, was shelved by this researcher. Rather, the scribe wished to be as correct as possible but that aim was elusive due to the difficult times they were living in. Good Hebrew copies were not always available and the methods of copying them had to be all but direct view copying. A reader had to read it, memorize it and then dictate it to a scribe and this defective Hebrew text then had to be translated by a scribe who tried to be as literal as possible.

The hundreds of manuscripts that are in Greek and are used to reconstruct the socalled Septuagint, are all based on defective Hebrew copies. Some errors are transmission errors in which the copyist committed errors. Others are errors of translation due to a defect in the Hebrew manuscript he was using. When people are using a manuscript with the impression that it is the correct one, then a mutation can transmit these errors to others.

Can one then talk of a translation technique in the Septuagint? Barely or never.

Where is the Word of God then? Definitely not in the version. The version contains defective information about the Word of God but it is only in the consonantal text of the Masoretic Hebrew tradition that we find the very Word of God for the Old Testament.

The origin of variants in the versions, Septuagint, Vetus Latina, Vulgate, Syriac, Targum, Coptic, Arabic, Armenian, Georigian, Ethiopic, are all due to the defective Hebrew copies that they were using for their translations.