Hexapla

Last updated • 4 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

The inter-relationship between various ancient versions of the Old Testament, between ca. 400 BC and AD 600, according to the Encyclopaedia Biblica. Origen's Hexapla, here labelled with the adjectival Hexaplar, is shown as the source of the Codex Sinaiticus (A), Codex Alexandrinus (A) and Codex Vaticanus (B), three of the oldest extant manuscripts of the Greek Old Testament, as well as of two early Syro-Aramaic translations, the Harklean and Palestinian versions. Texts of the OT.svg
The inter-relationship between various ancient versions of the Old Testament, between ca. 400 BC and AD 600, according to the Encyclopaedia Biblica . Origen's Hexapla, here labelled with the adjectival Hexaplar, is shown as the source of the Codex Sinaiticus (א), Codex Alexandrinus (A) and Codex Vaticanus (B), three of the oldest extant manuscripts of the Greek Old Testament, as well as of two early Syro-Aramaic translations, the Harklean and Palestinian versions.

Hexapla (Koinē Greek : Ἑξαπλᾶ, lit.  'sixfold'), also called Origenis Hexaplorum, is a critical edition of the Hebrew Bible in six versions, four of them translated into Greek, [1] preserved only in fragments. It was an immense and complex word-for-word comparison of the original Hebrew Scriptures with the Greek Septuagint translation and with other Greek translations. [2] The term especially and generally applies to the edition of the Old Testament compiled by the theologian and scholar Origen sometime before 240.

Contents

Text from the Hexapla showing Proverbs 3. Tetragrammaton Lat JOVA Hexapla Prov 3 19.JPG
Text from the Hexapla showing Proverbs 3.

The subsisting fragments of partial copies have been collected in several editions, that of Frederick Field (1875) being the most fundamental on the basis of Greek and Syrian testimonies. The surviving fragments are now being re-published (with additional materials discovered since Field's edition) by an international group of Septuagint scholars. This work is being carried out as The Hexapla Project [3] under the auspices of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, [4] and directed by Dr Neil McLynn. The members of the editorial board are: Peter J. Gentry (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and the Göttinger Septuaginta-Unternehmen), Dr Alison G. Salvesen (Oxford University), and Bas ter Haar Romeny (Leiden University).

History

Origen with his disciples. Engraved by Jan Luyken, c. 1700 OrigenStudentsLuyken.jpg
Origen with his disciples. Engraved by Jan Luyken, c. 1700

Origen began to study Biblical Hebrew in his youth; forced to relocate to Palestine during the persecution of Christianity in Alexandria, he went into biblical textology. By the 240s, he commented on virtually all the Old and New Testament books. His method of working with the biblical text was described in a message to Sextus Julius Africanus (c. 240) and a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew:

Origen, in his Commentary of the Gospel of Matthew, explained the purpose for creating the Hexapla:

[D]ue to discrepancies between the manuscripts of the Old Testament, with God's help, we were able to overcome using the testimony of other editions. This is because these points in the Septuagint, which because of discrepancies found in [other] manuscripts had given occasion for doubt, we have evaluated on the basis of these other editions, and marked with an obelus those places that were missing in the Hebrew text [...] while others have added the asterisk sign where it was apparent that the lessons were not found in the Septuagint; we have added the other, consistent with the text of the Hebrew editions. [5]

Structure

Hexapla fragment (Taylor-Schechter 12.182). The text of the Hexapla is the faint text visible in the upper part of the page; the page has been overwritten by a younger Hebrew text (shown upside down in this image). Cambridge, University Library Taylor-Schechter Collection 12.182.jpg
Hexapla fragment (Taylor-Schechter 12.182). The text of the Hexapla is the faint text visible in the upper part of the page; the page has been overwritten by a younger Hebrew text (shown upside down in this image).

The text of the Hexapla was organized in the form of six columns representing synchronized versions of the same Old Testament text, which placed side by side were the following:

  1. the Hebrew consonantal text
  2. the Secunda – the Hebrew text transliterated into Greek characters including vowels
  3. the translation by Aquila of Sinope into Greek (2nd century)
  4. the translation by Symmachus the Ebionite into Greek (late 2nd century)
  5. a recension of the Septuagint, with (1) interpolations to indicate where the Hebrew is not represented in the Septuagint (taken mainly from Theodotion's text and marked with asterisks), and (2) indications, using signs called obeloi (singular: obelos), of where words, phrases, or occasionally larger sections in the Septuagint do not reflect any underlying Hebrew
  6. the translation by Theodotion [6] into Greek (mid 2nd century)

At the end of his life, Origen prepared a separate work called the Tetrapla (a synoptic set of four Greek translations), placing the Septuagint alongside the translations of Symmachus, Aquila, and Theodotion. [7] Both Hexapla and Tetrapla are found in Greek manuscripts of the Septuagint, as well as manuscripts of the Syro-Hexaplar version. However, in a number of cases, the names of "Hexapla" and "Octapla" (in the Book of Job from the manuscripts of the Syro-Hexapla and the hexaplar Psalms) are also applied to the work of Origen. This caused a discussion in its time about whether these were separate works. According to Eusebius, the Hexapla contained three more translations of the Greek Psalms (Quinta, Sexta and Septima), which, however, have not been preserved (for a total of 9 columns, a so-called Enneapla). [8]

[Origen] was looking for translations that exist in addition to the Seventy and in addition to the generally used translations of Aquila, Simmachus and Theodotion. I do not know from which unknown places, where they lay long ago, he extracted them into the light of God. The owner of them remained unknown to him, and he only said that he had found a copy in Likopol, near Actium, and another - in some other place. In the Hexapla, he, along with four famous translations of the psalms, places not only the fifth, but also the sixth and seventh with notes to one: he found it under Caracalla, the son of the North, in Jericho, in an enormous clay jar (Ancient Greek - πίθος)

—  Hist. Eccl., VI, 16

According to Epiphanius of Salamis, the original Hexapla compiled by Origen had eight columns. It included two other anonymous Greek translations, one of which was discovered in wine jars in Jericho during the reign of Caracalla. [9] The so-called "fifth" and "sixth editions" were two other Greek translations supposedly discovered by students outside the towns of Jericho and Nicopolis: these were later added by Origen to his Hexapla to make the Octapla. [10]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Septuagint</span> Greek translation of Hebrew scriptures

The Septuagint, sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy, and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek title derives from the story recorded in the Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates that "the laws of the Jews" were translated into the Greek language at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus by seventy-two Hebrew translators—six from each of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bible translations</span>

The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. As of November 2024 the whole Bible has been translated into 756 languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,726 languages, and smaller portions of the Bible have been translated into 1,274 other languages according to Wycliffe Global Alliance. Thus, at least some portions of the Bible have been translated into 3,756 languages.

Symmachus was a writer who translated the Old Testament into Greek. His translation was included by Origen in his Hexapla and Tetrapla, which compared various versions of the Old Testament side by side with the Septuagint. Some fragments of Symmachus's version that survive, in what remains of the Hexapla, inspire scholars to remark on the purity and idiomatic elegance of Symmachus' Greek. He was admired by Jerome, who used his work in composing the Vulgate.

Aquilaof Sinope was a translator of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, a proselyte, and disciple of Rabbi Akiva.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polyglot (book)</span> Multilingual book or manuscript

A polyglot is a book that contains side-by-side versions of the same text in several different languages. Some editions of the Bible or its parts are polyglots, in which the Hebrew and Greek originals are exhibited along with historical translations. Polyglots are useful for studying the history of the text and its interpretation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theodotion</span> Translator of the Bible from Hebrew to Greek

Theodotion was a Hellenistic Jewish scholar, perhaps working in Ephesus, who in c. A.D. 150 translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tetragrammaton</span> Four-letter name of God in the Hebrew Bible

The Tetragrammaton is the four-letter Hebrew theonym יהוה‎, the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four letters, written and read from right to left, are yodh, he, waw, and he. The name may be derived from a verb that means "to be", "to exist", "to cause to become", or "to come to pass". While there is no consensus about the structure and etymology of the name, the form Yahweh is now accepted almost universally among Biblical and Semitic linguistics scholars, though the vocalization Jehovah continues to have wide usage.

Frederick Field (1801–1885) was an English theologian and biblical scholar.

"They have pierced my hands and my feet", or "They pierced my hands and my feet" is a phrase that occurs in some English translations of Psalm 22:16.

<i>English Hexapla</i> Parallel New Testament translations

The English Hexapla is an edition of the New Testament in Greek, along with what were considered the six most important English language translations in parallel columns underneath, preceded by a detailed history of English translations and translators by S. P. Tregelles; it was first published in 1841. The six English language translations provided are Wycliffe's (1380), William Tyndale's (1534), Cranmer's, the Geneva Bible (1557), Rheims (1582), and the Authorised version, or King James Bible (1611), arranged in columns underneath.

Codex Chisianus 45 (also Codex Chigianus 45; Vatican Library, Chigi R. VII 45; numbered 88 in Rahlfs Septuagint manuscripts, 87 in Field's Hexapla ) is a biblical manuscript variably dated to the 10th century or the early 14th century or early 14th-century biblical manuscript, first edited in 1772.

The Syro-Hexaplar version is the Syrian Aramaic (Syriac) translation of the Greek of the Septuagint as found in the fifth column of Origen's Hexapla. The translation was made by Bishop Paul of Tella at the monastery of the Enaton in Egypt around 617.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Codex Marchalianus</span> 6th-century Greek manuscript

Codex Marchalianus, designated by siglum Q, is a 6th-century Greek manuscript copy of the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible known as the Septuagint. It is now in the Vatican Library. The text was written on vellum in uncial letters. Palaeographically it has been assigned to the 6th century. Marginal annotations were later added to the copy of the Scripture text, the early ones being of importance for a study of the history of the Septuagint.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Book of Job in Byzantine illuminated manuscripts</span> Book of Job, illuminated manuscript

There are fourteen known Byzantine manuscripts of the Book of Job dating from the 9th to 14th centuries, as well as a post-Byzantine codex illuminated with cycle of miniatures. The quantity of Job illustrations survived in the fifteen manuscripts exceeds 1800 pictures. The total is aggregated considerably by single images of Job in other manuscripts, frescoes and carvings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ambrosiano O 39 sup.</span>

The ms. Ambrosiano O 39 sup. – is a manuscript of the Hexapla of Origen dated to the late ninth century C.E. written in a codex form. This is a palimpsest, meaning that the current text is written on leaves which had been written on before and cleaned.

The Papyrus Vindobonensis Graecus 39777 signed as SymP.Vindob.G.39777 – is a fragment of a Greek manuscript of the Psalms of the translation of Symmachus. It was written in papyrus in a scroll form. The papyrus contains fragments of Psalm 69 and Psalm 81. The P.Vindob.G.39777 is dated to late third century or beginning fourth century AD.

Aq<sup>Taylor</sup>

The siglum AqTaylor are fragments of a palimpsest containing a portion of the Palestinian Talmud in upper script, and part of the Book of Psalms of Aquila's Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible in lower script. This latter is a Greek biblical manuscript written in codex form. This manuscript has been dated after the middle of the fifth century C.E., but not later than the beginning of the sixth century C.E.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kaige revision</span> Group of revisions to the Septuagint

The kaige revision, or simply kaige, is the group of revisions to the Septuagint made in order to more closely align its translation with the proto-Masoretic Hebrew. The name kaige derives from the revision's pervasive use of Koinē Greek: και γε to translate the Hebrew: וְגַם.

On Weights and Measures is a historical, lexical, metrological, and geographical treatise compiled in 392 AD in Constantia by Epiphanius of Salamis. The greater part of the work is devoted to a discussion on Greek and Roman weights and measures.

The Samareitikon is the name given to the Greek translation of the Samaritan Pentateuch.

References

  1. ↑ Epiphanius' Treatise on Weights and Measures - The Syriac Version (ed. James Elmer Dean), University of Chicago Press 1935, p. 36
  2. ↑ Trigg, Joseoph W. - Origen - The Early Church Fathers - 1998, Routledge, London and New York, page 16. Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  3. ↑ "Website of the Hexapla Project". Archived from the original on 27 March 2019. Retrieved 13 January 2020.
  4. ↑ Website of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
  5. ↑ Origen, Commentary on the Gospel according to Matthew, K. Augustyniak, Kraków: WAM 1998, p. 246.
  6. ↑ Würthwein, E. (1987). Der Text des Alten Testaments. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. p. 66.
  7. ↑ Eusebius, Church History , VI/16:4
  8. ↑ Słownik pisarzy antycznych ("Dictionary of Ancient Writers") red. Anna Świderkówna WP Warszawa 1982
  9. ↑ Epiphanius' Treatise on Weights and Measures - The Syriac Version (ed. James Elmer Dean), University of Chicago Press 1935, pp. 33–34, 36
  10. ↑ Cave, Wm. A complete history of the lives, acts, and martyrdoms of the holy apostles, and the two evangelists, St. Mark and Luke , Vol. II. Wiatt (Philadelphia), 1810. Accessed 6 Feb 2013.

Literature

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.