Romans 3 Pauline wonderful scripture pastiche - interpolation into Psalm 14 (13 in LXX) of the "LXX" socalled

[Steven Avery]

Ask Maria, ulrich, marrero

Bryant Jacob Williams III -
Thanks!

I definitely think that “deletion” is textually appropriate, **in terms of our knowledge today. **

However, that does not solve the puzzle of deciding what was the meaning that the brackets were meant to convey, when they were placed in the text.

The Greek text was popular with the Psalms words in the early centuries. So marking the words for deletion would be unlikely. To be fair though, the words are not in Alexandrinus and are said to be not in the Lucianic text.

Perhaps a commentator in the 1840-1860 period, with access to the Masoretic Text, would be more likely to show the deletion. Sinaiticus has a number of indications of awareness of the Hebrew Bible Masoretic Text, such as a paper by Paul Jouon on Hebraicisms in Tobit. These indications have never been viewed as a textual phenomenon as a group.

Steven

 

[Steven Avery]

New Testament Verses Clarified by Old Testament Verses
Bruce A. Klein
https://books.google.com/books?id=JaX1AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA221

CONTINUES

 

[Steven Avery]

Did the New Testament influence the text of the Greek Old Testament? (12-03-2024)
Roger Pearse
https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog...nfluence-the-text-of-the-greek-old-testament/

W. Sanday and Arthur C. Headlam
A critical and exegetical commentary on the epistle to the Romans (1902), p.77-8, on Rom. 3:9-10. (Online here).

A critical and exegetical commentary on the Epistle to the Romans : Sanday, W. (William), 1843-1920 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Includes bibliographical references and indexes

archive.org

===================================

MYPOST

Thanks, everyone, Roger, Hugh, Tom and Ralph!

As to the verse connections, I have my visual layout of the verse connection in post 5 here with a bit of vivid colour-coding. Please share any potential changes or additions.

Pure Bible Forum
Romans 3 Pauline wonderful scripture pastiche - interpolation into Psalm 14 (13 in LXX) of the "LXX" socalled
https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...o-psalm-14-13-in-lxx-of-the-lxx-socalled.419/

While posts #3 and #18 are the best for "newer" scholarship. (Which is often less than helpful, I tried for the better ones.)

Also the superb Sanday and Headlam section, along with John Gill, Franz Delitzsch, Douglas Moo and a bit more are in post #5.

A whole separate thread discusses Vaticanus, Alexandrinus and Sinaiticus, link in post #1.

Grace and peace in Jesus,
Steven Avery

Dutchess County, NY USA
https://linktr.ee/stevenavery

 

[Steven Avery]

Comments Above
Tom says:
December 4, 2024

First, given the nature of what you are talking about, I’m not seeing a problem with the scholarship being from 1902. The only reason to pine for later scholarship is if since 1902 there was significant progress in our understanding of which direction the influence was (i.e., Paul quoted the Lxx, or the only reason the Lxx reads the same as Paul’s quotation is because the Christian scribes responsible for creating the extant Lxx manuscripts thought Paul’s version of the OT was more accurate than the version contained in the OT manuscripts themselves). I know of no such significant progress. The notion that Christian scribes of the surviving fragments of the Lxx assimilated their OT text to make it match Paul’s own use, is no less reasonable than the standard theory that says the reading we have in the Lxx existed before Paul. quoted it.

Second, more recent scholarship on the matter can be found in Jobes and Silva, Invitation to the Septuagint (Baker Academic, 2000), pp. 191-192, in the sense that 98 years after your own quoted scholar’s comments, whether the Christian scribes who created the extant Lxx manuscripts gave us a reading that existed in the pre-Christian Lxx, or gave us a reading that originated with a NT author, cannot be a matter of dogmatic certainty:

“Paul quotes this verse in Romans 9:26 in the form LXX’^, and the passage is textually secure (i.e., the NT manuscripts have no competing variants). In other words, Romans 9:26 must be added to the list of witnesses in support of the first variant. But how much weight should be given to this Pauline evidence? Can we simply assume that the reading in question was already present in a document used by Paul?

Or is it possible that this variant originated with Paul himself and that
subsequent manuscripts of the LXX were affected by what he had
done? We need to remember that the scribes who copied the surviving
manuscripts of the LXX were by and large Christians who would have
been familiär with the NT writings. When, in the process of producing
a LXX manuscript, they came to a passage that was quoted in the NT,
they sometimes adjusted the text, either inadvertently (because of
their memory of the NT form) or purposely (because they assumed the
NT form was correct)…On the other hand, if we assume that Kai
a)Xoi was in fact original and that Paul was responsible for reading
LXX’^, we can easily explain what caused its change to eKei in LXX
manuscripts: scribes may well have been influenced by the form in
which Paul quoted the passage,'”

Since Hebrew Psalm 40 neither expresses nor implies anything about Jesus becoming incarnate, the fact that Paul found support for such a thing in the Lxx of that Psalm makes me suspicious that he did not in fact get that reading from any Lxx manuscript available to him, nor was this reading a case of Paul’s peculiar “translation” of Psalm 40’s Hebrew. Instead, the Christians who created the Lxx manuscripts for Psalm 40 after Paul died, merely inserted the reading they knew Paul employed in Hebrews 10:5-7. Being Christians and followers of Paul, they could not have likely resisted the urge to think that Paul’s version of Psalm 40, being a version provided by a divinely inspired person more recent than any OT author, thus provided more “light” than the original Hebrew of that Psalm. That is, the reason it looks like Paul quoted the Lxx is because the (Christian) Lxx (translators are) actually quoting Paul. Since we have no Lxx manuscripts that pre-date Christianity, Christians cannot positively verify that the form of the text we get from Paul actually existed before the first century.

For these reasons, the tactics apologists employ to harmonize this problem with their theory of the biblical authors being incurably honest about everything 24 hours a day (i.e., Paul was employing synecdoche) are fatally presumptuous. It is by no means the least bit “clear” which source is being quoted and which is original. That makes it possible for the skeptical position to be reasonable, even if not demonstrably infallible.

=====================================


Ralph Cleminson says:

December 10, 2024 at 5:10 pm


It would be rather easier to follow this discussion if one were to disentangle the three NT passages concerned. The first is Rom. 3.10–18, which is a catena consisting of Pss. 13.1–3, 5.10, 139.4, 9.28, Isaiah 59.7–8 and Ps. 35.2. (It seems to be generally accepted that quotation begins immediately after the usual introduction καθὼς γέγραπται ὅτι, but the exact words immediately following, οὐκ ἔστιν δίκαιος οὐδὲ εἷς, do not appear in the Psalms, or indeed anywhere else in the Old Testament: it might be better, and would make good sense, to repunctuate with a colon after εἷς and begin the quotation at verse 11.) At this point there has certainly been reverse influence of the Epistle on the Psalter, so that in most (but not all) branches of the Septuagint tradition Ps. 13 continues after v.3 with the same text as Rom. 13–18 (For more detail see Pulkkinen, M. L. T. “There is no one righteous”: Paul’s Use of Psalms in Romans 3. – In: M. S. Pajunen & J. Penner (eds.), Functions of Psalms and Prayers in the Late Second Temple Period. Berlin, 2017: 384–409, and in particular pp. 404–408). This shows that the NT can influence the text of LXX.
The second is Rom. 9.26, which quotes Hos. 1.10 in a form which is attested in one tradition of the LXX text (so-called LXXᴬ), but not others. There is an opinion (which I am not qualified to judge) that LXXᴬ is susceptible to NT influence; however, since there is no evidence for the LXX text that antedates St Paul, it is impossible to say whether he was quoting an existing text, or whether later copyists of Hosea “corrected” the text to conform to a reading that was more familiar to them.
The third is Heb. 10.5-7, which quotes Ps. 39.7-9 with a reading (σῶμα δὲ κατηρτίσω μοι) which has no support from the Hebrew, but does seem to be universal in LXX, so that it is hard to state categorically that it did not exist before the epistle was written.
It is also worth considering that to the Jewish mind versions of the scriptures in languages other than Hebrew (targumim) in principle were not definitive, but were exegetical in character. This means that a writer when quoting might deviate from the letter of the original for hermeneutic purposes. One might imagine that the quotation from Ps. 67.19 at Eph. 4.8 was just such an instance.

 

[Steven Avery]

Karen Jobes (b. 1952)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Jobes

Moises Silva (b. 1945)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moisés_Silva

Invitation to the Septuagint
p. 191

p. 192

p. 193

 

[Steven Avery]

Twitter discussion to JD Hall
Also let Peter Boland know
in response to their Stola Scriptura

https://x.com/StevenAveryNY/status/2046030482366730496
https://x.com/StevenAveryNY/status/2046402088012333546

Hi JD, In Psalm 14 MT (13 in "LXX") the "LXX" takes in the NT verses of Romans 3:13-18, where Paul has a scriptural pastiche from the OT Psalms, Isaiah & Proverbs. This adds an important twist that is often missed, Greek text that is NT-->"LXX". Do you discuss this phenomenon?


JD™ @LostMyHats Replying to @StevenAveryNY
Not yet.

Comments ?
More Stola Scriptura spots

The Protestant Reformation was one of the most courageous institutional breaks in the history of Western Christianity. Men died for their stance on the Word of God. Tyndale was strangled and burned at the stake for translating the Bible into English, and Luther stood before an empire and refused to recant. Praise God, they made necessary reforms. But when the Reformers gave the Roman Catholic version - the Latin Vulgate - the shaft (which was very good), they went back to the “original languages.” This sounds good when taken at face value. The problem is, they “went back” not to the Hebrew manuscripts King Josaiah had, but to that which was standardized by Jewish scholars working centuries after Christ, in academies shaped by an active theological competition with Christians who were using their own scriptures as evidence against them in every synagogue and marketplace in the empire, and they did not ask who had handed them that text, or why, or whether the men who produced it had reasons to care how certain passages read.
Question: Am I really alleging that Jewish scholars would intentionally tweak the Hebrew Old Testament manuscripts to edit out the most powerful passages used as Christian proof-texts to prove Jesus was the Messiah? Heck yes. And the more you learn about Post-Temple Judaism, the more you realize that’s not far-fetched at all.
Chapter Two of Stola Scriptura presents evidence that the Protestant tradition has spent five centuries failing to look directly at the facts. We’ll look at how scholars cataloged every Old Testament quotation in the New Testament and checked each one against both the Greek Septuagint and the Hebrew Masoretic tradition, producing a ratio of ten to one in favor of the Greek, with Paul’s personal citation ratio running better than twelve to one. For example, the author of Hebrews builds a cornerstone Christological argument on a line of Deuteronomy that doesn’t even exist in the Masoretic text. Stephen’s speech before the Sanhedrin depends on a specific reading of Amos for its entire prosecutorial force, and it’s not present in the Masoretic Hebrew. And Jesus himself read his own mission statement from a synagogue scroll of Isaiah in a form that appears in the Septuagint and not in the Hebrew Bible.
Here’s the good news. I’m not saying the Bible on your shelf is deeply flawed. Thankfully, the ESV (just as an example) departs from the Masoretic text 277 times in favor of the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls, but they don’t necessarily advertise it. Meanwhile, our Protestant confessions all declare the Hebrew “providentially pure,” which our Bible translations tacitly deny. So why do you hear so much about the “Hebrew Old Testament” as though it’s the standard of Truth? Why aren’t we taught that the Confession is contradicted by the Bible on our nightstands? This article, which is Part 2 of the book by the same title, is going to be deep stuff. No worries! We’ll talk about gay aliens or possessed Sasquatch exorcisms next time.

Most articles at I2I - even premium ones - leave tons of content on the free side of the paywall. But sometimes, when the article requires a ton of in-depth study and labor, on my part, there are I2I Top Shelf Preserves, reserved only for premium subscribers. This is one of those occasions. And at the end of this series, premium subscribers will receive all the various articles in this series compiled into a free ebook with additional helps.
But here’s the good news. For a very brief time, I’ve reinstituted a 50% discount so you can join half off and take advantage of this deal. This truly is TOP SHELF information. And if you still want to take a pass, no worries. I’ve made the audio version available to you for free. Just click the audio on Substack or Spotify. But the detailed arguments and receipts will only be available below.

 

[Steven Avery]

AI

The Evidence of Harmonization: Scholars note that several major Septuagint manuscripts—such as the 4th-century Codex Sinaiticus—contain markings like brackets or centering around the additional text, indicating it was inserted later.

Because of this textual history, it is recognized that Paul originally compiled the passage in Romans 3 by drawing from various distinct Old Testament verses (including Psalm 14, Psalm 5, Psalm 140, Isaiah 59, and Psalm 36), rather than simply quoting a single, pre-existing expanded Psalm. [1]

 

[Steven Avery]

b-greek (2019)
https://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5026

Christian Corruption of the LXX
Esoteric Jellyfish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bhApFWC7HM

========================================

Ken M. Penner

Flint, Peter W. 2000. “Variant Readings of the Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls against the Massoretic Text and the Septuagint Psalter.” In Der Septuaginta-Psalter Und Seine Tochterübersetzungen, edited by Anneli; Quast Aejmelaeus, 337–65. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Hiebert, Robert J. V, Claude E Cox, Peter John Gentry, and Albert Pietersma. 2001. The Old Greek Psalter: Studies in Honour of Albert Pietersma. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

Mozley, Francis Woodgate. 1905. The Psalter of the Church the Septuagint Psalms Compared with the Hebrew, with Various Notes. ATLA

Monograph Preservation Program. Cambridge, New York: University Press. Macmillan distributor. http://www.letsreadgreek.com/psalms/res ... church.pdf.

The LXX manuscripts of Psalm 13[14]:3 do contain text taken from Romans 3:12-18. This does not demonstrate a widespread conspiracy to harmonize the Septuagint to the New Testament.

Lucian's recension of the Psalms does not include the addition from Romans.

Some German resources:

Karrer, Martin, Siegfried Kreuzer, and Marcus Sigismund. Von der Septuaginta zum Neuen Testament: Textgeschichtliche Erörterungen. De Gruyter, 2010.

Rahlfs, Alfred. Psalmi cum odis. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1967.


===============================================

Stephen Nelson » November 5th, 2019, 12:32 pm

Thank you! This will sure keep me busy for a while!

I do see that my Rahlfs-Hanhard edition of the Septuagint has that bold section of Psalm 13 ["τάφος ἀνεῳγμένος... τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν αὐτῶν.] in brackets. And the NETS doesn't even include it.

Obviously, it's in Swete's Septuagint. Does anyone know if it's in the 1906 Brook-McLean Major "diplomatic" edition (based on Vaticanus)? Or is it in the critical Göttingen Septuagint?

Peter Flint's paper is an excellent resource. It doesn't address these Psalms in detail. But it does list some examples from Qumran in its Collation of Variants from Psalm 14:1, 14:5 and 53:4, 53:5, 53:7 (screenshots attached).

It's all Greek to me... I mean it's all Hebrew... which is Greek to me... But I would understand it if it were Greek...

So I'm not sure what to make of the Hebrew variants vis-à-vis the LXX and the MT. If anyone with knowledge of Hebrew can elucidate, that would be awesome.

The references listed to the Dead Sea Scrolls are to 11QPs^c (for Psalm 14) and 4QPs^a (for Psalm 53).

My Florentino Garcia Martinez translation of the DSS lists the identifiers 11QPs^a & 11QPs^b under Apocryphal psalms included in copies of the biblical psalter (pg. 303-310). So these aren't the right Psalms.

I can't for the life of me seem to find these Psalms in this translation. 11QP^c is listed under "CAVE 11 Biblical manuscripts" (pg. 517) under the bullet listing 11Q7, with reference to some other books. It seems like Martinez may have included them in a separate volume 'Texts from Cave 11'. So I guess this collection simply doesn't include translations of those fragments. Or I simply can't seem to find them.

====================================

FGM doesn't include the biblical scrolls. For that you'll need

Ulrich, Eugene. The Biblical Qumran Scrolls: transcriptions and textual variants. Leiden: Brill, 2010.
and/or

Abegg, Martin G., Peter Flint, and Eugene Ulrich. The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible: The Oldest Known Bible Translated for the First Time into English. HarperOne, 2002.

====================================

Post by Stephen Nelson » November 5th, 2019, 9:56 pm

Here are images of Psalm 14:3 (LXX 13:3) from Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus.

In Sinaiticus the part matching Romans 3:13-18 has marks all around it, like modern-day brackets [].

It also appears to be set apart in Vaticanus, where "οὐκ ἔστιν ἕως ἑνός" is centered on its own line, so the next line begins left-adjusted with "τάφος..."

I believe these mss represent the Kaige-Theodotian recension. Does anyone have a recommendation for finding online versions of mss that represent the Lucianic recension (b, o, c2, e2)?

========================================

Stephen Nelson » November 6th, 2019, 2:07 am

Correction - I should have said, "It also appears to be set apart in Vaticanus and Sinaiticus..." since the layout of Psalm 14:3 is IDENTICAL between those 2 mss, with the same words filling the same lines. It seems rather remarkable...

Aside from simply finding mss that represent the Lucianic recension, I should have mentioned that, specifically, how can I find Psalm 14 among LXX mss to confirm whether or not Lucian's recension has this bit matching Romans.

In case anyone's interested, here are the excerpts of Romans 3:13-18 from Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.

Note that, despite having the standard reading of "οὐκ ἔστιν ἕως ἑνός" in Psalm 14, Sinaiticus has the variant reading - "οὐκ ἔστιν ἕως αἰνός" for some reason (presumably just a 'typo').

========================================

Ken M. Penner » November 6th, 2019, 7:20 am

Stephen Nelson wrote: November 6th, 2019, 2:07 amNote that, despite having the standard reading of "οὐκ ἔστιν ἕως ἑνός" in Psalm 14, Sinaiticus has the variant reading - "οὐκ ἔστιν ἕως αἰνός" for some reason (presumably just a 'typo').

We consider αι for ε to be not a variant but an alternate (phonetic) spelling. The two sounded the same. The same goes for ει interchanged with ι.
While we're here: the apparently missing ν at the end of a line ... those ν's are indicated by a high line.
The apparently missing αι on και ... that's the hook on the κ.
Jongkind, Dirk. Scribal Habits of Codex Sinaiticus. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2007. Abstract

For those looking for the larger Cambridge Septuagint:

McLean, Norman, Henry St. John Thackeray, and A. E Brooke. The Old Testament in Greek According to the Text of Codex Vaticanus, Supplemented from Other Uncial Manuscripts, with a Critical Apparatus Containing the Variants of the Chief Ancient Authorities for the Text of the Septuagint. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1906.

I think the answers to some of your questions about which manuscripts contain what can be found in the apparatus to Psalmi cum Odis mentioned earlier.

The apparatus, as I interpret it, says:

Rahlfs wrote:3.3–10 Vaticanus Sinaiticus Bohairic; further 2008 2014 2019 2039 2042 2044 2049, also 2037 2051 2019 U Sahidic 1221 R Latin Syriac 1219] marked with ÷ in Gallic Psalter, omitted by Lucianic manuscripts and Theodoret and Alexandrinus: from Rom. 3:13–18, where Paul joins these words (= Ps. 5:10, 139:4, 9:28, Is. 59:7, 8, Ps. 35:2) with Ps. 13:3, compare Preface § 44 & Septuaginta-Studien 2, p. 42 & 229

We don't have high quality images of this part of Alexandrinus available online, but there is a black-and-white facsimile.

Kenyon, Frederic G., ed. The Codex alexandrinus in reduced photographic facsimile. London: British Museum, 1909.

========================================

the Brook-McLean edition for the "Octateuch" (994 pages long). I don't now recall where I eventually found it but with a bit of searching you may find an online downloadable copy of the volume which includes the psalms. If you do, please let us know!

Michael J. Miles: The Public Domain PDF of the work may be found together here:
https://archive.org/details/OldTestamentGreeklxxTextCodexVaticanus
https://archive.org/details/oldtestamentgreek.vat.8vc.brooke.mclean.thackeray.1906.1935.

========================================

by Stephen Nelson » November 6th, 2019, 12:54 pm

Thank you so much for all of the help and resources!

I guess my remaining question, which I'm still researching, is why the Rahlfs-Hanhard Septuagint encloses the section in question (matching Romans 3) in square brackets and why the NETS felt the need to omit it completely, considering its wide textual support in the key LXX mss.

Is this done simply in deference to the MT? Or is there manuscript evidence for the idea that this section was NOT in the "OG Greek Septuagint"? The omission from NETS strikes me as quite odd.

Here's what it says in the NETS in Albert Pietersma's introduction to the Psalms:

At not a few places, Rahlfs enclosed within square brackets items of text, which, although they could not in his judgment justifiably be regarded as original, nevertheless have widespread support in the textual traditions. Since in all of these cases I agree with Rahlfs' conclusion, I have taken the next step and have excluded these items from NETS without comment.

Further improvements to Rahlf's edition have been made in the light of additional textual information (chiefly II-V CE; especially the famous P. Bodmer XXIV [Rahlfs 2110]) and more recent study. All these, however, have been included in the footnotes to NETS. Nevertheless, there remains good reason to emphasize that a liturgical text such as the Psalter, with its long and intensive transmission history, can hardly be expected to have been fully restored as yet to its pristine purity.

========================================

Ken M. Penner
It’s not in deference to the MT. As Rahlfs noted, scribes brought words from Romans into psalm 13.
It’s easy to explain why those extra words would be added in B and S. it’s harder to explain why they would be omitted in A. So A is considered original. B and S are corrupted at this point.

========================================

by Stephen Nelson » November 6th, 2019, 5:12 pm

Thanks for correcting me on the paleography.

That blurry facsimile of Codex Alexandrinus is hard to decipher. But it clearly lacks that addition to Psalm 14(13):3. So that's good to note.

The only textual variant I can detect is "εὐφρανθήσεται Ἰσραήλ" for "εὐφρανθήτω Ἰσραήλ" at the end.

Also, Ἰσραήλ seems to be represented by 2 distinct nominem sacra - ΙΣΛ (4 lines from the end) and ΙΗΛ (at the end). Is that correct? Or am I misreading?

How do we determine whether scribes brought the words into B and S from Romans, as opposed to copying from a vorlage that contained the longer version?

It seems easy to explain why they would be omitted in A - either in deference to the MT or copying from a shorter Greek vorlage. Am I missing something?

Presumably, Paul got this from whatever version of the LXX he was quoting (the OG or the Kaige Revision). Right?

As far as I know, both Alexandrinus and Vaticanus are supposed to represent the Theodotian revision (not sure about Sinaiticus, but I imagine - the same). So if Theodotian's revision moved closer to the MT, then it makes sense to see the shorter version of Psalm 14(13) in Alexandrinus. And it would make Vaticanus an outlier.

========================================

Ken M. Penner » November 6th, 2019, 10:13 pm

Stephen Nelson wrote: November 6th, 2019, 5:12 pmAlso, Ἰσραήλ seems to be represented by 2 distinct nominem sacra - ΙΣΛ (4 lines from the end) and ΙΗΛ (at the end). Is that correct? Or am I misreading?

Right. The nomen sacrumfor Israel is not entirely consistent.

Stephen Nelson wrote: November 6th, 2019, 5:12 pmIt seems easy to explain why they would be omitted in A - either in deference to the MT or copying from a shorter Greek vorlage. Am I missing something?

There was no MT at this point. The earliest Masoretes were in the 6th century CE. So I'm guessing you are simply using MT as shorthand for "Hebrew".
But the copyists of the Septuagint probably had no idea what the Hebrew text said. We know of only a few Christians from the second to fifth century who knew Hebrew. Origen and Jerome are unusual in that regard.

Stephen Nelson wrote: November 6th, 2019, 5:12 pmPresumably, Paul got this from whatever version of the LXX he was quoting (the OG or the Kaige Revision). Right?

Do you agree that Paul wasn't quoting just Psalm 13[14] in Romans 3, but that he was quoting a catena of several scattered verses (including Psalm 53)?

========================================

by Stephen Nelson » November 7th, 2019, 12:57 am

Ken M. Penner wrote: November 6th, 2019, 10:13 pmThere was no MT at this point. The earliest Masoretes were in the 6th century CE. So I'm guessing you are simply using MT as shorthand for "Hebrew".
But the copyists of the Septuagint probably had no idea what the Hebrew text said. We know of only a few Christians from the second to fifth century who knew Hebrew. Origen and Jerome are unusual in that regard.

No. By "MT" I mean what's typically represented by 𝕸 (which I refer to anachronistically as "M.T."). Alternatively - "Proto-MT", or "𝕸-like texts", or the 𝕸-group, which gave rise to revisions (recensions) of the Septuagint like kaige-Th+ (1st century BC), Aquila+ (mid-2nd century AD), Symmachus (late 2nd century), Origen's Hexapla (early 3rd century). All of these recensions (revising the OG Greek LXX toward 𝕸) pre-date codices S, B and A.

So even if the copyists of the LXX had no idea what the Hebrew said (which you think is probable), there were several extant Greek versions back then had been harmonized with 𝕸. They may have had little-to-no access to the OG LXX. Or their mss could have had eclectic readings (i.e. εὐφρανθήσεται vs εὐφρανθήτω). Who knows...

Ken M. Penner wrote: November 6th, 2019, 10:13 pm Do you agree that Paul wasn't quoting just Psalm 13[14] in Romans 3, but that he was quoting a catena of several scattered verses (including Psalm 53)?

I was thinking that, like in many other instances, Paul was simply quoting from a Greek version that looked like codices S and B (with the long edition to verse 3). Emmanuel Tov argues that Paul quotes from a variety of texts - the OG and kaige-Th. And he may very well be quoting from one of those versions, but pulling together scattered verses, as you suggest. So yes, I agree that this seems plausible.

I think one of the points in the video was that Paul was doing precisely this; and that this patchwork quote was then interpolated into the Psalms in codices S and B. So ultimately, you agree with this thesis vis-àvis Psalm 13[14}, but you don't think this is evidence that such harmonization happened in other instances of the NT quoting the LXX?

========================================

Stephen Nelson wrote: November 7th, 2019, 12:57 amI think one of the points in the video was that Paul was doing precisely this; and that this patchwork quote was then interpolated into the Psalms in codices S and B. So ultimately, you agree with this thesis vis-àvis Psalm 13[14}, but you don't think this is evidence that such harmonization happened in other instances of the NT quoting the LXX?

Ken Penner
Right. That's the scholarly consensus. Harmonization happened in Psalm 13[14] but that doesn't mean it happened systematically or pervasively.

Apparently I'm a little behind the times regarding "the scholarly consensus" on this issue. This article reflects more recent research:

Karrer, Martin, and Ulrich Schmid. “Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament and the Textual History of the Bible-the Wuppertal Research Project.” In Von der Septuaginta Zum Neuen Testament: Textgeschichtliche Erörterungen, edited by Martin Karrer, Siegfried Kreuzer, and Marcus Sigismund, 155–96. Arbeiten Zur Neutestamentlichen Textforschung 43. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010.

Von der Septuaginta zum Neuen Testament: textgeschichtliche Erörterungen (2010)
Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament and the Textual History of the Bible - the Wuppertal Research project
(Martin Karrer - Ulrich Schmid)
p. 155-196
p. 170-171
https://books.google.ca/books?id=lG-eeQIBNhMC&lpg=PA155&ots=RHaWbwvvjW&dq="LXX Ps 13"&lr&pg=PA170

========================================

Stephen Nelson » November 7th, 2019, 12:29 pm
Thanks Ken!

That article was a perfect treatise of this topic. Great find!

I'm a little confused by the concluding paragraphs, and the point the author is trying to make by observing the brackets ("deletion marks") surrounding Psalm 14 in Codex Sinaiticus (which I also noted), which are attributed to a comparison with the Lucianic text.

Here is my confusion (cf. page 171):

Hence "ca" knew the Pauline version of Ps 13:3 as well. Yet the corrections in the LXX and the NT are made independently: ca does not alter the marginal attribution at Rom 3:10.

So??? The corrector knew the Pauline version of Ps 13:3? Does that mean the corrector knew what it says in Romans 3? Romans was in the same codex... Or does this imply that the corrector knew of a longer version of Ps 13:3 from another LXX manuscript? I'm not sure what this is trying to get at. What alteration to the marginal attribution at Rom 3:10 does the author expect the "ca" corrector to have made?

The consequence is as follows: the corrector used further manuscripts of the LXX and the NT. His or her interest was agreement with the best available text of the biblical books (in his or her opinion). This purpose was best served by these additional high-quality manuscripts. In sharp contrast, the internal equivalence of LXX (quoted text) and NT (quotations) was not an issue. The corrector simply ignored it.
As a result, the work of the corrector corresponds to our main observation: the transmission of the New Testament and the Septuagint is less interdependent than is often expected.

So, conversely, it's often expected that the transmission (of the NT and the LXX) is more interdependent (than observed in this instance)? And this constitutes an exception to the rule? Why is that?

Essentially, if it were not for the NT quote of Romans 3:10-18, we would expect the shorter version of Psalm 14 to be copied into codices S and B. So it seems that the conclusion should be that the transmission IS, in fact, quite interdependent.

Maybe I'm missing the point that the author is trying to make in the conclusion. It seems a bit ambiguous. But maybe I'm just obtuse.

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Brian Gould » July 12th, 2021, 1:50 pm

Stephen Nelson wrote: November 4th, 2019, 11:34 amThere seems to be a hidden premise - that the original, pre-Christian Septuagint must have conformed exactly to the Proto-Masoretic text, prior to its corruption by Christians. The other hidden premise would be that the 'corruptions' originated with the NT authors (such as Paul in Romans 3:10-18), even without a clear motive. Thus any departure from the Masoretic Text by the LXX must be a result of Christian corruption. It’s essentially a conspiracy theory. And this reportedly is the first of a series of videos that will attempt to demonstrate this.

There are two books (that I’m aware of ― there may be more) that examine the triangular relationship, so to speak, between the MT, the LXX, and OT allusions/quotations in the NT. The more recent of the two, Timothy M. Law’s When God Spoke Greek, is very much into the opposite conspiracy theory, namely that, wherever there is a discrepancy, it is usually the LXX text that is the older and more authentic, the original Hebrew text having been adjusted ― as Justin Martyr suspected ― to doctor passages that Christian apologists might be tempted to read as prophecies of Jesus.

However, I don’t now have either of these books on my shelf, which means unfortunately I can’t check to see whether either of them deals specifically with Ps 14:53. If you happen to know what either Law or Beckwith has to say about this verse, would you perhaps be so kind as to post something about it here at B-Greek?

Roger T. Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon in the New Testament Church, Eerdmans, 1986, reissued by Wipf & Stock in 2008

Timothy M. Law, When God Spoke Greek, OUP, 2013

The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church: and its Background in Early Judaism
Paperback – November 1, 2008
by Roger T. Beckwith (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Old-Testament-Canon-New-Church/dp/1606082493/

When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible
Paperback – July 19, 2013
by Timothy Michael Law (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/When-God-Spoke-Greek-Septuagint/dp/0199781729/

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Ken M. Penner » July 12th, 2021, 2:20 pm

Brian Gould wrote: July 12th, 2021, 1:50 pmIf you happen to know what either Law or Beckwith has to say about this verse, would you perhaps be so kind as to post something about it here at B-Greek?

Law and Beckwith do not address this verse.
Well, Beckwith does mention the citation formula, but that's all.

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Brian Gould » July 12th, 2021, 2:55 pm

Thank you, Ken!

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