Well, as promised I’m going to try to talk about my upcoming oral final exam, an Old Testament homily for my late-vocations class that I’m taking. We were given the task of selecting a OT lection (reading section from the liturgical rubrics) and give an approximately 10 minute homily on that topic. I’ve selected to give a homily on Job 2:1-10, and I might note that being Orthodox we’re using the Septuagint (for that is their Scriptural canon) and the book of Job differs considerably (it’s 400 lines shorter but is longer in some places). The Job 2:1-10 reading is significantly extended in the Septuagint. Many of the changes are not very consequential. However, the final chapter differs in some surprising ways, which indeed might affect one’s interpretations of the story.
Job 2:1-10 (LXX) is the text that I’m primarily concerned about for the homily. It reads:
Now it happened, when it was the set day and the angels of God came to present themselves before the Lord, the slanderer also came among them. And the Lord said to the slanderer, “Where are you coming from?” Then the slanderer said before the Lord, “I have come, after traversing what lies beneath heaven and waking about everything.” Then the Lord said, “So did you notice my attendant Iob — that there is no one of those on the earth like him, an innocent, genuine, blameless, religious man, staying away from all wrong? And he still maintains his innocence, though you said to destroy his possessions for no reason.” Then the slanderer continued and said to the Lord. “Skin for skin, whatever a person has he will use to pay for his life. However, stretch out your hand, and touch his bones and his flesh; surely he will blessa you to your face!” Then the Lord said to the slanderer, “Very well, I am handing him over to you; only spare his life.”
So the slanderer went out from the Lord, and he struck Iob with a grievous festering sore from his feet to his head. And he tooka potsherd, so that he could scrape away the pus, and sat on the rubbish heap outside the city.
Then after a long time had passed, his wife said to him, “How long will you persist and say, ‘Look I will hang on a little longer, while I wait for the hope of my deliverance’ for look, your sons and daughters, my womb’s birth pangs and labors, for whom I wearied myself with hardships in vain. And you? You sit in the refuse of worms as you spend the night in the open air. As for me, I am one that wanders about and a hired servant — from place to place and house to house, waiting for when the sun will set, so I can rest from the distresses and griefs that now beset me. Now say some word to the Lord and die!” But Iob look up and said to her, “You have spoken like one of the foolish women. If we received the good things from the Lord’s hand, shall we not bear the bad?” In all these things that happened to him Iob did not sin at all with his lips before God.”
a –> Hebrew: a euphemism
If you compare to a the later Masoretic text this passage is much shorter. His wife says merely: “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.” and then he replies basically as above.
Job 42:16-17 (ESV) reads:
And after this Job lived 140 years, and saw his sons, and his sons’ sons, four generations. And Job died, an old man, and full of days.
Job 42:16-19 (LXX/NETS) reads:
Now Iob lived after his calamity one hundred and seventy years, and all the years he lived were two hundred and forty eight years. And it is written that he will rise again with those the Lord raises up. This man is interpreted from the Syriac book as living in the land of Ausitis, on the borders of Idumea and Arabia, and previously his name was Iobab; now he took and Arabian wife and fathered a son, whose name was Ennon, and he in turn had as a father Zare, a son of the sons of Esau, and as mother Bosorra, so that he was the fifth from Abraam. And these are the kings who reigned in Edom, which country he too ruled: first Balak the son of Boer, and the name of his city was Dennaba, and after Balak, Iobab, who is called Iob, and after him Hasom, who was a leader from the Thaimanite country, and after him Hadad son of Barad, who cut down Madiami the plain of Moab, and the name of his city was Geththaim. Now the firnds who came to him were: Eliphaz, of the sons of Esau, king of the Thaimanites, Baldad, the tyrant of the Sauchites, Sophar, the king of the Minites.
These differences do in fact change the meaning and interpretation of the text somewhat. (Note the NETS translation transliterates the Greek, which lacks a “J” so Job -> Iob and there is no “H” and Abraham -> Abraam). Note as well the emphasized text in the above (emphasis mine). Remember, the LXX Septuagint pre-dates Jesus and Christianity by almost a century and was a translation prepared by 70 (hence the name LXX) rabbis for their Greek rulers and other Greeks for scholarly study.
Anyhow, I digress from the topic at hand (not to say it isn’t interesting in its own light). Anyhow, as I mentioned this morning, last night during my plane travels I took many notes and jotted down thoughts and ideas for my homily. I find I have written too much for one blog post. However, this piece might be interesting for discussion. More will follow on subsequent nights perhaps.
When one considers why was this lection chosen for a Holy week reading as part of the liturgical crescendo aiming toward Pascha (Easter), a number of reasons pop up. Two important ones are that Job is typologically connected with Christ (or more plainly Job is a “type” of Christ). He is the innocent sufferer whom is ultimately redeemed by God. I might add that possibly his wife is a type of Eve, and Pascha liturgical reflections definitely point out that the Resurrection rescues Adam from death (it doesn’t hurt that when Job’s wife tempts him, he does not waver). The second reason is perhaps more important, if not less clear to the casual observer.
In much of the Old Testament, and for that matter as a standard response by many people, there is a sort of moral or ethical algebra or balance which we find righteous. In short, we expect good things to happen to good people and evil for evil. This is both as a juridical matter and as a purely ethical one. Karma, fair play, and so on these are all fairly human and instinctive ideas. We might call this the natural moral algebra. Throughout the Old Testament and especially in for example Jeremiah and the books of the 12 (minor) prophets the idea that Israel and the Hebrews failing to keep right with God had a consequence of exile and slavery. Do wrong, suffer consequence. Yet Job, Christ reject this algebra. Job suffers not on account of his wrongdoing for he is blameless. Much of the text of Job follows his three friends who are convinced in the rightness of this moral algebra and discuss how Job must have sinned because he is now suffering. Jesus as well, in his teaching and his life acts in opposition to this algebra. Love those who hate you. Turn the other cheek. The list goes on. If you review Jesus life and teachings from the point of view of where he stands regarding acceptance of rejection of the natural ethical algebra as noted above, it seems obvious the answer is an emphatic and consistent rejection of the same.
The book Job itself can be seen as an early example of an exploration of theodicy. One question I have not explored or considered is that theodicy is often interpreted in the light of the natural moral algebra. How that plays out having rejected that algebra is a question worth asking.
January 26th, 2010 | 12:55 pm | #1
Thanks, Mark. Many Christians are unaware of how many differences there are between the Masoretic text and the LXX. One assumes that the LXX translators were using a Hebrew manuscript that no longer exists in the original. Do you have a copy of the Orthodox Study Bible (OSB)? I’ve not seen it, but I understand it uses the LXX as the basis for its English OT. I would be interested to know whether there are any differences of significance between the OSB and the NETS.
January 26th, 2010 | 1:56 pm | #2
David,
There were some differences between the OSB and NETS that came up during class. Our teacher encouraged us to use a variety of translations during our reading of the Old Testament which came up numerous times in discussions (I was the only one using NETS … although the class is small). A few used the OSB.. I think the OSB translators leaned on the NKJV a little overmuch while preparing their text, so it had more MT influences than it perhaps should have. Kevin Edgecomb blogging at Biblocalia had some reviews and remarks on the OSB vs NETS when it came out. You could search his site (or ask him). He is more qualified to remark more in detail on the differences than I.
I do have a copy (at home, on on the road this week) of the OSB as well. If I remember correctly the additional verses on the end of the Job were in the study Bible, but I don’t know about the additional verses in chapter 2. I’ll see if my wife has time to dig that up and compare these verses discussed above. If so, I’ll add another comment later.
There were also remarks about the significance of Maccabees 4 to early Christian attitudes and remembrance of martyrs and I’m thinking that the OSB did not include Maccabees 4 (like lots of other translations).
January 26th, 2010 | 4:53 pm | #3
Wow, that’s fascinating. A couple questions arise for me, though:
1. Why do most- if not all- OT translations nowadays use the Masoretic instead of the LXX? Based on age, I would assume we’d go with the older…
2. How should we view the LXX’s extensions? Are they the Holy Word of God, are they apocryphal, or do we not know, and since they don’t really change anything in terms of theology, it doesn’t really matter?
3. The ending text confuses me. Where does the LXX place Job- before or after Abraham, and how precisely is he related? It sounds like one of his children married a child of Esau… but I can’t be quite certain.
January 26th, 2010 | 5:35 pm | #4
Ricky,
That depends on what church/denomination you belong to as to whether the MT or LXX is used. The Eastern church uses the LXX and the Protestants and Catholics use the MT. I don’t know historically why the West went with the MT, likely it was because that is the canonical Jewish Tanakh.
Apocryphal is not a really good term for these books, as the term means “hidden books” and these aren’t hidden. Deutero-cannonical (second canon) is a term Catholics use and is probably better. See this wiki article Developement of Christian Biblical Canon.
The Masoretic text was codified by a Jewish group in late antiquity (the Masoreh I think). The oldest extant copy is from the 11th century the Leningrad Codex. Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Vaticanus are extant early Bibles based on the Septuagint and New Testament (plus some other books. For example, Clement I and II are included in the Alexandrinus New Testament and the “Canticles” liturgical hymns/poems. Examples some of the canticles are the triumphal poem spoken by Moses after crossing the Red Sea, the song of Hannah, and the Magnificat and Bennedictus in Luke.
As to your second question, well, I’m Eastern Orthodox … so I treat the LXX (and not the MT based OT) as Scripture, i.e., the Holy word of God. You need to speak with your spiritual father/advisors on how you should treat them.
I was also a bit confused by the ending, but just took point that Job is (as the previous books imply) was pre-Mosaic. Also, the beginning tends to direct one to regard this book as allegorical with the conversations between the slanderer and God. Actually there is a interesting translation choice that was made there. The LXX translators chose to translate the Hebrew “Satan” instead of transliterate it. Another instance of that is the Greek LXX calls the Philistines “Allophyles” (others) which also is a translation instead of a transliteration.
January 26th, 2010 | 7:05 pm | #5
I have in my personal library a copy of a Russian Bible published by the Moscow Patriarchate. Next to each of the so-called deuterocanonical books in the table of contents is an asterisk. At the bottom of the page is another asterisk followed by the word, “noncanonical.” This surprised me when I first saw it. But I am given to understand that the Greeks and Russians differ as to the status of these books, with Greeks opting for the expanded canon and Russians for the narrower. Is this true, Mark? What is your understanding of all this?
January 26th, 2010 | 9:09 pm | #6
David,
My Professor was using a Slavonic bible often during class (and one of our students, who spent much of his youth in Greece, used a Greek one). I thought that the only difference was the location of Maccabees IV, where the NETS translation put it in the midst of the Maccabbean books and the rest OSB and others had it as an appendix. I’ve just posted your question on our class forum. Is your Bible in English, modern Russian, or Old Slavonic?
What publisher/date does that Bible indicate?
January 26th, 2010 | 9:30 pm | #7
I’ve also read that the LXX omits many passages in Job that are found in the Masoretic text. And I too am confused by the genealogy in the extended ending.
January 26th, 2010 | 9:30 pm | #8
I’ll have to wait until I’m back in my campus office tomorrow before I can tell you the answers to these questions. I am curious about this myself. Let me know what answer(s) you get from your class forum.
January 26th, 2010 | 9:38 pm | #9
Anthony, one wonders whether the author of the extended ending was perhaps trying, somewhat artificially, to fit the Job story into the larger biblical historical narrative. Of course, this depends on whether the original author(s) intended the book to be taken as actual history or as parable, which is almost certainly beyond our ability to know.
January 26th, 2010 | 11:06 pm | #10
David,
I thought the LXX predates the MT (as the LXX was transcribed before Christ and the MT around the 8th century AD). So perhaps it happened the other way around, that a later editor decided to remove the “historical” phrasing to make it more obviously allegorical or like a parable.
The removal of “And it is written that he will rise again with those the Lord raises up” is interesting as well for it gives some ideas of pre-Christian Hebrew ideas on eschatology … or post-Christian Jewish editors decided that was to Christian sounding for their taste like what might have happened to parthenos in Isaiah 7:14.
Anthony,
The NETS translation includes the MT verses which were omitted from the LXX demarcating them with a bracket and italics. An awful lot of the verses skipped don’t really add anything of note. But you can look at the NETS book online and see. Just scan for the brackets and italics. The NETS prolog notes that the OG (Old Greek) version of the LXX is about 1/6 shorter than the MT. And as we note it is longer in other places.
Origen’s “Hexapla” is only found in fragments but must have been fascinating. This was a six column Old Testament edition, where the columns put the corresponding works side by side, columns were the Hebrew, the Hebrew in Greek transliteration, Aquila’s translation, Smmachus translation, the LXX, and Theodotion’s translation (This is from the NETS prolog). They note that Origen was chiefly interested in the Hebrew and LXX columns. The Hebrew column was the Hebrew Tanakh available to Origen in the 3rd century.
January 26th, 2010 | 11:56 pm | #11
David,
My Professor answered:
January 27th, 2010 | 9:33 am | #12
Mark, you asked: “Is your Bible in English, modern Russian, or Old Slavonic? What publisher/date does that Bible indicate?”
The Bible is in modern Russian and was published by the Moscow Pariarchate in 1989, the year following the millennial celebrations of Christianity in Russia. And, yes, the adjective used to describe the “extra” books is неканонические. The longer ending to Job is put in a footnote in this volume, as is the section you cite above from chapter 2. The three books of the Maccabees are included, but not IV Maccabees.
The supernumerary psalm is included at the end of the psalter, but I cannot locate the Prayer of Manasseh. (These days my knowledge of Russian is terribly rusty, I’m afraid, so I may simply be overlooking it.)
January 27th, 2010 | 9:37 am | #13
“In Russian it obviously does not carry such pejorative connotations, indicating, rather, that these books are not found in certain authoritative canons that list the contents of the OT (e.g., St. Athanasaius’s 39th Festal Epistle–which, while excluding these books from the canon of Scripture, nonetheless characterizes them as beneficial reading).”
This sounds very much like the Anglican Articles of Religion: “And the other Books (as Hierome saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine” (article VI).
January 27th, 2010 | 10:37 am | #14
David, I have been following this thread. I have an OSB, that I use sometimes for my Old Testament reading. My church (OCA) uses the RSV for its reading (the Gospel and the Epistle) during church so my priest directed me to get that one to do my Old Testament reading. The RSV I have includes texts used by Roman Catholics as well as Orthodox Christians not found in Protestant Bibles. The prayer of Manassah is in the back of my RSV Bible, but I have not checked my OSB.
Personally, I do not like some of the translation of the OSB, particularly with respect to some of the Isaiah prophecies, and that is what prompted me to ask my priest for another translation. I have also heard some people take issue with some of the translations of the psalms.
In addition, my church also uses the NKJ version for its reading of the psalms so I use the NKJ version to do most of my reading of the Psalter. However, there are small prayer books (one put out by Holy Transfiguration Monastery) that are helpful. I use the HTM small pocket psalter in order to read the psalms when I am away from home and don’t have a Bible handy. It is also useful because it divides the Psalter up into Kathismas.
Anyway, that is my two-cents’ worth. I am a new Orthodox Christian (only two years) so I am sure I am less knowledgeable than others who have posted here.
January 27th, 2010 | 10:55 am | #15
David,
That may be an apt comparison.
My recollection on growing up in Lutheran protestant home was that the deutero-canonical books were treated with some amount of scorn, a sort of “those papists” have them in their bibles but they are worse than worthless … that they were harmful.
Actually, different books of the OT are some less and some more applicable for the “development of doctrine” I think. Compare the doctrinal content of say, Joshua to Genesis.
January 27th, 2010 | 11:22 am | #16
I myself am a Reformed Christian (with the tongue-in-cheek moniker Byzantine-Rite Calvinist) who generally reads from the first edition of the New Oxford Annotated Bible (RSV expanded edition), which I assume is the same one that you are using, Alison. I am mostly in agreement with the Belgic Confession‘s approach to the other books:
“The church may certainly read these books and learn from them as far as they agree with the canonical books. But they do not have such power and virtue that one could confirm from their testimony any point of faith or of the Christian religion. Much less can they detract from the authority of the other holy books” (article VI).
January 27th, 2010 | 11:53 am | #17
David,
I’ve been curious about your Byzantine-rite Calvinist handle. Do you attend a church that uses the Chrysostom liturgy and the Eastern liturgical calendar and yet remain a Calvinist? How do you take in the Matins/Vigil canons and reconcile that with Calvinism?
January 27th, 2010 | 12:07 pm | #18
Yes, David, that is the one I prefer to use. And then, as I said, I use the OSB (Septuagint) sometimes for the OT if I don’t have a good commentary for the book I am reading because it has some helpful commentary. And then for the New Testament, I use a paperback copy of the Orthodox Study Bible (which includes only the New Testament and the psalms–and which is a NKJ version and which is called an OSB because it has study notes geared toward an Orthodox Christian) that my priest gave me when I converted. As I said, I do most of my psalm memorization from that NKJ version.
So obviously, I work with several translations and several Bibles. It can be quite cumbersome at times! As I continue to grow in my knowledge of Scripture, I would like to compare some of the translations. But for now, I guess three versions/copies of the Bible is enough!
I have several Evangelical friends, and they do their memorization from KJ versions of the Bible, and I think they use the NIV versions for their personal study. When I mentioned the RSV version to one of them–who has been a Christian for almost 25 years–he was not familiar with it. And he was surprised when he saw an OSB in a bookstore.
January 27th, 2010 | 1:09 pm | #19
Mark, perhaps I should have put “tongue-in-cheek” in boldface type. I am a member of a Presbyterian church, but I have paternal Orthodox roots in Cyprus. At some point I should probably post something here to better introduce myself to readers. In the meantime, read this.
I will admit to being simultaneously attracted to and repulsed by Orthodoxy, the latter mostly because the Church of Cyprus was so unequivocally supportive of the EOKA terrorists who wanted to unite Cyprus with Greece and eventually contributed to the island’s partition in 1974. Virtually all of my relatives became refugees because they lived on the “wrong” side of the island. Out of this I early came to detest the wedding of Christianity with any sort of nationalism, including the sort of American nationalism that is rife amongst so many evangelicals in that country. (And don’t get me going on Québec nationalism!)
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