When God Spoke Greek by Timothy Michael Law

Author:Timothy Michael Law [Law, Timothy Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780199781720
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2013-01-15T07:00:00+00:00

The apostle Paul shaped Christian theology more than any other New Testament writer, even though the canonical form of the New Testament contains voices from others whose theological vision sometimes appears different, or at least nuanced differently, from that of the man from Tarsus. How was the Septuagint used in the rest of the New Testament?

Other New Testament Voices

The remainder of the New Testament outside of the books traditionally attributed to Paul consists of the epistle to the Hebrews, which makes no authorial claim; small epistles attributed to Peter, John, James, and Jude; and Revelation. All of these show evidences of their authors’ use of the Septuagint and its revisions instead of the Hebrew, but we shall look at only a few examples.25

For the epistle to the Hebrews, there can be no question: this author demonstrates an undeniable dependence on the Septuagint and its Greek revisions. There are around three dozen direct citations and around two dozen allusions. The author frequently changes the citations such that few of them appear to resemble any of our modern editions of the Septuagint. Nonetheless, our evidence suggests that the author of Hebrews did not use the Hebrew scriptures. Even though some of his material appears to be similar to some of the Hebrew texts at Qumran, the similarities can be explained by exegetical techniques shared by Jews in this period all over the Mediterranean world. One scholar has gone so far as to say that there is not “a single Hebrew or Aramaic relic in the citations or elsewhere in Hebrews.”26

In the Septuagint translation of Genesis 47:31, we find the parting words of Jacob to his son Joseph, and the Septuagint translator misread the Hebrew “bed” as “staff,” since both nouns have the same consonantal spelling (Hebrew mth). In Hebrews 11:21 the writer quotes from the Septuagint, “By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, ‘bowing in worship over the top of his staff,’” instead of what the writer of Genesis 47:31 intended to say, “And he said, ‘Swear to me’; and he swore to him. Then Israel bowed himself on the head of his bed.” It is also evident the author was referring to Greek texts since his development of the idea of “rest,” a very important theological concept in Hebrews, depends on a formulation in Greek, not Hebrew. In Hebrews 4:3–5, the author borrows the concept of rest from Psalm 95 and Genesis 2:2.

For we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, “As in my anger I swore, ‘They shall not enter my rest,’” though his works were finished at the foundation of the world. For in one place it speaks about the seventh day as follows: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” And again in this place it says, “They shall not enter my rest.”

The Hebrew terms for rest in Psalm 95:11 and in Genesis 2:2 are different from one another, so the reader would not have made the connection if he were reading the Hebrew alone.

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