Every day now. I promise.

This is going to be a sneaky bit of sleight of hand, where I intend to segue seamlessly from what I have been explaining (namely the particulars of Dominique Barthelemy's theory of Revised Greek texts being harmonised to a different Hebrew tradition) to a broader discussion of how the books of the Old Testament where used and understood, and most importantly a glimpse at the process of canonisation.


So, all the stuff I've explained already (the fact we have a Hebrew and Greek OT; the period of greek translation and all the problems that went along with that; the evidence of an effort to harmonise these different traditions at the turn of the era) lets call that point A.

And lets call where we want to be at the end of this post point B.

By tracing the path from A to B, I will hopefully have conveyed the titanic shift in direction I've made in my dissertation in the last month. And to extend the titanic analogy, something that every seems to be doing at the moment, I can only hope that come April the 24th I won't have horribly gored the side of this doomed experiment in large-scale essay-building.

A. Things we know

• We have two traditions of Old Testament texts Greek (LXX) and Hebrew (MT)
• These two traditions are extremely similar, but differ on several points: book order (Micah after Jonah?), Additions to books (Jeremiah, Daniel), Entirely new books (Judith, tobit)
• While these differences co-existed happily for the most part, some efforts can be observed to make the Greek more like a Hebrew text (whether or not the Revised Greek text was revised to the Masoretic/proto-marosetic is a separate, contentious issue)

My original trajectory (lets call that point C) was to examine the Greek quotations in the New Testament Gospels to see if there was evidence of this revision to harmonise two traditions. However, the sample size was simply not big enough and the evidence too complicated for this particular line of argument to bear fruit. 

But fear not, the same research that I have put into the OT quotations can be used, with a slight change of focus. 

Having squeezed all the linguistic and theological goodness out of my quotation lemons I had hoped to find lots of Greek that agreed with the Hebrew. And there is some evidence of that. But these harmonised Greek passages only made up some of the fine juice I had made, and I was being very wasteful. Not only could I find evidence of harmonised Greek-to-Hebrew, there was also: 

• Some quotations that were extremely faithful to the LXX and suggest an understanding of inspiration that values textual fidelity
• Some quotations that were bat shit crazy and showed that a text can be re-cast, re-interpreted or even completely rewritten and still be understood as inspired and authoritative
• Some long quotations that demonstrated a middle point of both fidelity to the text tradition but also an understanding of interpretation and creativity as part of the inspiration process
• And some quotations that appeared in more than one Gospel and said something about the relationship between the Gospels

And with all these other interesting bits floating around I figured I could talk about all of them. 

I was just going to look at how individual words and phrases demonstrate that the pluriform nature of the scripture was coming to an end through harmonising traditions into one super-tradition. 

I'm instead looking at entire quotations and trying to understand what an authoritative text was (why is this inspired by God and not just a nice poem or speech?), and how it was used (When should I quote directly and when is it acceptable to change the words I know). 

Instead of asking "how is this quotation showing revision to the Hebrew?", I will be asking "Does this quotation show fidelity or creativity to the text tradition?"

Point B will hopefully be an understanding of how sacred texts were used at the turn of the Era. Imagine a semi-circular dial (I would have drawn it but its late and I'm tired). At one end is a detailed, meticulous understanding of scripture that demands a literal copying of the text. At the other end is a free-flowing, creative and ever-changing understanding of scripture where the text gains authority by being engaged by the scribe and interpreter. In the middle are many degrees of grey. 

And the New Testament Gospel writers inhabit all of these positions at different times, its in that juicy goodness I squeezed out of my 20 minor prophet quotations.