"Masoretic Text versus Septuagint: A Translator’s Perspective" by Adam Boyd

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What is often overlooked is the Hebrew used for the Septuagint was a much older paleo Hebrew than the Masoretic.

This presentation deserves more views. Great information, well presented. Neither my undergraduate degree in Biblical studies, nor my seminary degree dealt with any of this information - I had to find this out, piece meal over the years from various books, lectures and the like. Thanks!

There are mainly two versions of the Septuagint text in use today: Henry Swete's and Alfred Rahlfs'. Swete's is a diplomatic edition, reproducing the text of one manuscript and putting the variants in the text-critical notes (or alternative readings in an appendix). Rahlfs' is a critical edition, amending the text variant-by-variant. Thing is, like the modern UBS/NA critical New Testament, Rahlfs' uses almost exclusively Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and Alexandrinus. What I would love to see is a push for a Byzantine Textform Majority Text Septuagint. We don't have a shortage of Byzantine manuscripts to use, and much can be derived from the Byzantine lectionaries themselves: Prophetologion (containing Old Testament readings for the whole liturgical year), the Menaion, the Triodion, and the Pentecostarion. Sadly, the current edition of the Septuagint published by the Apostoliki Diakonia of the Church of Greece is just a mildly edited Rahlfs' Septuagint. The Old Testament never got the "Patriarchal Text" treatment, as it should have. And once we have a Byzantine Majority Text Septuagint, we could theoretically reverse engineer a Septuagintal Hebrew Bible. Collating all the pre-Masoretic Hebrew manuscript evidence we have (including the version from Origen's Hexapla, as well as the Judean and DSS manuscripts), we could come to a Hebrew "majority text" baseline, and then edit and amend from there, selecting variant readings (where they exist) that conform the closest to the Byzantine Septuagint text. Where no such Hebrew variant exists, I am not opposed to conjectural amendations (the Septuagint reading came from somewhere). Once you have that, you have a Hebrew text that conforms to the Greek Bible as it was received by and preserved through the Christian Church through the ages. And this Byzantine Septuagintal Hebrew Bible could then serve as the textual basis for Old Testament translations and revisions going forward.

I am currently studying the origins of the Bible. This video helped me have some better understanding. Thank you Adam

I was very surprised to hear Adam not mention in the answer at 1:15:28 that Hebrew “alma” DOES ALSO “mean” virgin…in the sense that culturally, it typically referred to a young UNMARRIED woman, who obviously WAS a virgin culturally speaking…in fact I believe my Hebrew professor taught us there was indeed NO OTHER more SPECIFIC word that even COULD have been been used to specify virgin, alma was all they had! So it’s tricky, they didn’t have a specific word indicating only sexual chasteness apart from marital status and youth as we do…therefore alma does multiple duty, sort of meaning young and or unmarried woman and or virgin all at the same time, depending on context and other factors…

I have been researching numerous topics over many years. this is without a doubt one of the best presentations of a topic I've ever seen. thank you so much for the detail, clarity and fairness it was handled in, and for great questions.

I loved this. This was so enlightening. Thank you for sharing your insight into these issues. I am 100% behind your idea of producing a best of both worlds edition.

This was really interesting and well done. A new, thoughtful, "best of both worlds" Old Testament translation would be a wonderful gift to the Christian community.

can you /anyone tell which is a good version to read a masoretic text in english even if it is not 100% masoretic ? Thankyou.

Super super helpful and informative! Thank you.

thank you so much for this video. the subject matter is what i am researching at this time.

Thanks for sharing your work on Genesis and psalms. God Bless!

I enjoyed this video very much. I came to the conclusion myself that I should read both the LXX & the MT. I’m glad you didn’t tear down the LXX or the MT.

Very interesting. Thank you!

Question. I think I heard from the video the Dead Sea text as masoretic. I understand both the masoretic text from the 11th century as well by as the Dead Sea texts are written in Hebrew, but should both the Death Sea text and the 11th century text be named masoretic?

Thanks a lot for this video. Thankyou Adam Boyd for sharing these valuable insight.

This finally resolved the Masoretic Text vs Septuagint battle in my mind😇

At 22:30 ... What's odd is that in other places where סָבַךְ (Sabek) is present in the Masoretic, the Septuagint translates it to things like, as in Nahum 1:10, σμῖλαξ περιπλεκομένη which would means something like twisted or tangled bindweed. Or, in other Greek texts, σμῖλαξ has also variously been used to convey a Yew tree which is evident from parallel Latin renderings of the term, as Taxus. No, I didn't know this off hand... ha... I'm getting this info from LSJ + Lewis & Short But it's curious that the LXX translates the Hebrew term just fine elsewhere. And the word ‎סָבַךְ is common enough, and the Abraham & Isaac story famous enough, that it's a bit puzzling that there should be any trouble translating the term into Greek in Gen22:13 — then again, maybe the plant was common enough that there existed an aural cognate to Sabek between multiple languages at the time of translation. Interesting.

How about Nicholas King's translation of the Septuagint, now available from the Bible Society? Protestant scholars seem unaware of this translation.