When we left the Bible last time, I'd introduced the idea that the whole thing was a big mess, and that the Greek translation has had a bit of a hard time. I will continue to demonstrate the messiness, and hopefully make some progress towards being able to explain what my dissertation thesis is.
We have the Old Testament (OT) in Hebrew (Colour-coded orange) and in Greek (Colour-coded blue).
As I tried to lay out last time, the Greek version translated a Hebrew text. During this translation there were issues, which were touched on earlier. These issues (corrections, misspellings, omissions) are depicted in the arrow with 1. and the lack of orange.
However, while mistakes can be put down to poor Ted the Translator, whole books cannot. I have laid out one suggested model for how to understand the relationship between the Hebrew and Greek, and how to factor in the entirely new content.
This model relies on the idea that the books of the OT were written in one language, over a certain length of time, and then became authoritative. Genesis and Judges and Jeremiah were all written in one definite form, and then everyone decided that there was one list of books that would be used, which couldn't be added to.
So after this pause where this list, or canon, become apparent, and then the Greek-speaking Jews took this list of books and translated them. During this translation, more books, written not in Hebrew but but in Greek, sprang up and the translators of this Greek OT added them in for lol's.
This model makes sense and is elegant in its simplicity.
However, it is completely and utterly wrong.
There is no evidence at all for this theory, and has only ever been suggested, with varying degrees of difference from how I presented it, by those who need this model for their understanding of the Bible to make sense.
If you allow mistakes and drafts and revisions and alternate versions and politics and egos to effect the books of the Bible, then how can this be the word of God anymore?!
As long as you're understanding of the Bible isn't too naive this challenge can be intelligently and easily answered, but now is not the time.
Let me suggest another model:
I didn't address before my visual depiction of biblical book composition. I've gone for a mad squiggle because I think it best conveys the idea that each book of the Bible went through a colourful development that cannot be understood in a linear way.
The top half of figure 6 shows the simple split between the time of Hebrew composition and the period of Greek composition. Very much one then the other.
The bottom half shows how this is a fallacy. While some parts of the Hebrew Scripture, such as the Pentateuch (first 5 books of the Bible also known as the Torah), were pretty established and uniform, the Hebrew Scriptures for the most part were in flux.
When the Greek translation process started, it didn't have a nice simple book to copy everything from. Instead there were many competing versions of books. Some with simple changes, others greater. And in some places they used books that some other areas didn't recognise at all.
If Ted the Translator lived in Alexandria he probably didn't have access to all the diversity throughout the entire Mediterranean, but he would have ben aware of the differences and made value judgements.
Its also worth remembering that there isn't just Ted the Translator, there's also Terry and Tom and Tony and Trisha and Tilly and Tristram, all in different geographical locations, in different times and in different religious and political communities.
To sum up this little knowledge bomb: The Hebrew and Greek OT's were in a state of constant change between 300BCE and 0, and while there were some texts written only in Greek, it would be unfair to think of our dark blue friends as inferior to their orange textual counterparts.
Next time I'll explore how we this alternative model came, and how the 20th Century CHANGED EVERYTHING WE KNEW about the transmission of the OT between 300BCE and 100CE.
And then we will begin to touch on my very specific niche within that topic.
