TEXT, VERSIONS, LANGUAGES OF OT TEXT, VERSIONS, LANGUAGES OF OT

dropped out; the fact is obscured in the RV (text), which mistranslates; the Hebrew text really reads, 'And Cain said to Abel his brother'; the Samaritan text and the LXX have the additional words, ' Let us go into the field'; this is probably right (see next clause).

12. The Samaritan Targum. — No thoroughly critical edition of the Samaritan Pentateuch at present exists. The material for establishing a critical text consists of the several MSS and also of the Samaritan Targum — a translation of the Samaritan recension into an Aramaic dialect. The colloquial language of the Samaritans, like that of the later Jews, was different from that in which the Scripture was written.

13. Papyrus payment ofOT text. — Thanks to a recent discovery, we have a further witness to a fragment of the Hebrew text of the Pentateuch. This is the Nash papyrus. The papyrus is apparently not later than the 2nd cent. a.d. ; and it contains the Ten Command-ments and Dt 6«'- in Hebrew. The text, which is of course unvocalized, is several times in agreement with the LXX against the Massoretic text. This fragment was edited by Mr. S. A. Cook in PSBA (Jan. 1903).

14. (2) Versions: Earliest MSS. — We come now to the second main branch of evidence for the text of the OT. The evidence of Versions is of exceptional import-ance in the case of the OT. In the first place, the actual MSS of the Versions are much older than the earliest Hebrew MSS; the earliest Hebrew MSS date from the 10th cent, a.d., but there are Greek MSS of the OT of the 4th cent. a.d. and there is a Syriac MS of the greater part of the Pentateuch of the date a.d. 464. But secondly, and of even greater importance, the Versions, and especially the LXX, represent different lines of tradition; in so far as the original text of the LXX itself can be established, it is a witness to the state of the text some two to four centuries before the date at which the stereotyping of the Hebrew text by the Massoretes took place.

The Versions of the OT are either primary, i.e. made direct from the Hebrew text, or secondary, i.e. made from a Version. Secondary Versions are of Immediate Importance in establishing the true text of the primary version from which they are made; and only indirectly witness to the Hebrew text. Among them the Old Latin Version is of exceptional importance in deter- mining the text of the LXX-^ On this and other versions of the LXX, see Greek Versions of OT, § 11.

15. Brief account of the Primary VersiOTis. — The Primary Versions of the OT, arranged in (approximately) chronological order, are as follows: —

(1) The earliest Greek Version, commonly known as theSeptuagint. Theearliest part of this version, namely, the translation of the Pentateuch, goes back to the 3rd century b.c. The remaining parts of the OT were translated at different later periods; but the version was probably, in the main at least, complete before the end of the 2nd cent. B.C. See Gr. Versions of OT.

(2) The Targums. These Aramaic versions may be considered next, inasmuch as they rest on a tradition earlier than the date of the versions yet to be mentioned; it is probable, however, that no Targum was actually committed to writing till some centuries later, after the later Greek versions, perhaps, too, after the Syriac Version, had been made.

The quotation from Ps 22< in Mt 27" II Mk 15" is in Aramaic; and Eph 4^ agrees more closely with the Targum than with the Hebrew text of Ps 68*. From these facts we may perhaps infer that an Aramaic version had to some extent become orally fixed by the 1st cent. a.d.

TheTargumsarein large part very free, and even diffuse, paraphrases rather than translations of the Hebrew text. They owe their origin to the custom of explain-ing the Hebrew passages of Scripture read in the syna-gogues in the language spoken by the people, which was Aramaic. Thelearliest (as is most generally believed) and least paraphrastic of these versions is the Targum

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of Onkelos on the Pentateuch; it does not appear to have been committed to writing before the 5th cent, a.d., and is first mentioned by name by Saadiah Gaon in the 9th century. Far more paraphrastic is the Targum of the Pentateuch known as the Targum of Jonathan, or the Jerusalem Targum. Fragments of yet a third Targum of the Pentateuch survive, and are known as the 2nd Jerusalem Targum. Quite distinct from these is the Samaritan Targum, whichis atranslationoftheSamaritan recension of the Hebrew text (see § 11). The chief Targum of the Prophets is that known as the Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel : it is not much younger than the Targum of Onkelos, and is by some considered to be even earlier. There are also fragments of another Targum of the Prophets. Targums of the Hagiographa (with the exception of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel) exist, and there are two of the Book of Esther. Cf. art. Targums.

The text of the Targums will be found in Walton's (and other) polyglots, with a Latin translation. Onkelos has been separately edited by Berliner (1884), and the Prophets and Hagiographa by Lagarde (1872, 1874). See, further, Hastings' DB, art. ' Targum.' There is an English translation of the Targums of the Pentateuch by Etheridge (2 vols., London, 1862-1865).

(3), (4), and (5) The Greek Versions (which have survived in fragments only) of Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus, all of the 2nd cent. a.d. See Greek Versions of OT, §§ 15-18.

(6) The SyriacVersion, commonly called the Peshitta. The date at which this version was made is unknown. The earliest extant MS of part of this version is, as stated above, of the year 464 a.d. ; and the quotations of Aphraates (4th cent, a.d.) from all parts of the OT agree with the Peshitta. The character of the version differs in different books, being literal in the Pentateuch and Job, paraphrastic for example in Chronicles and Ruth. 'The text in the main agrees closely with the Massoretic Hebrew text, though in parts (e.g. in Genesis, Isaiah, the Minor Prophets, and Psalms) it has been influenced by the LXX.

(7) The Vulgate. — The OldLatin Version was a trans-lation of the LXX. To Christian scholars acquainted with Hebrew the wide differences between the LXX and versions derived from it and the Hebrew text then current became obvious. As it seemed suitable to Origen to correct the current LXX text so that it should agree more closely with the Hebrew, so at the close of the 4th century Jerome, after first revising the Old Latin, making alterations only when the sense absolutely demanded it, prepared an entirely fresh translation direct from the Hebrew text. The Vulgate is derived from this direct translation of Jerome's from the Hebrew in the case of all the canonical books of the OT except the Psalms; the Psalms appear commonly in editions of the Vulgate in the form of the so-called Galilean Psalter; this was a second version of the Old Latin, in which, however, after the manner of Origen's Hexaplario text, the translation was brought nearer to the current Hebrew text by including matter contained in the later Greek versions but absent from the LXX, and obelizing matter in the LXX which was absent from the later versions. Jerome's Latin version of the Psalms, made direct from the Hebrew, has been edited by Lagarde {Psalterium jfuxta Hebrwos Hieronymi, 1874). On the extent to which editions of the Vulgate differ from Jerome's translation, see Vulgate. In some cases additional matter (e.g. 1 S 14", on which passage see § 24) has been incorporated from the Old Latin.

The effect of the substitution of Jerome's version from the Hebrew text for the Old Latin version of the LXX was to give the Church a Bible which was more elegant and intelligible and in much closer agreement with the Hebrew text current in the 4th cent, a.d., but which at the same time was in many passages more remote from the original text of the OT.

16. Two groups of versions. Pre-eminence of the