The Old Testament was translated into Greek quite early. This translation is called the translation of the Seventy (LXX), or Septuagint (Septuaginta), which in Latin means seventy. The basis for this name lies in the legend about the origin of this translation. They say that the Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285 or 282 - 246 BC), having learned from Demetrius of Phaleron, who was in charge of the royal book depository, about the existence of the Scriptures of Moses in Judea, decided to organize the translation of the Law into Greek and the delivery of books to Library of Alexandria. To this end, Ptolemy sent a letter to the Jerusalem high priest Eleazar: “Wanting to please all the Jews living on earth, I decided to begin translating your Law and, having translated it from Hebrew into Greek, place this book among the works of my library. Therefore, you will do well if you choose six elderly men from each tribe, who, due to the length of their studies in the laws, are very experienced in them and would be able to translate it accurately. I believe that this work will earn me the greatest glory. Therefore, I am sending you for negotiations regarding this […] Andrei and Aristaeus, who both enjoy the greatest honor in my eyes.” And then 72 people (or 70) settled on the island of Pharos, where each one translated the entire text of the Pentateuch alone within 72 days; and, although the translators were isolated from each other, all 72 texts (or 70) turned out to be word for word identical ( Philo. Vita Mosis.2; Josephus Flavius. Antiquitas Judaeorum.XII.2; Irenaeus. Adversum haereses.III.15; Clementus Alexandrus. Stromata.I - II).
This entire story is based on a work known in literature as Letter of Aristaeus to Philocrates, the falsity of which is currently beyond doubt. (It was compiled no earlier than the middle of the 2nd century BC.) In fact, the history of the emergence of the Septuagint is different. In the last centuries BC there was a colony of Jews in Alexandria. They forgot their native language, and Greek became their language, so that the original text of the Tanakh became inaccessible to them, and a need arose for its Greek translation. Therefore, translations of various Old Testament books gradually appeared, resulting in the Septuagint. Probably, the complete translation was carried out only in the 1st century. BC. And the composition of the books of the Septuagint, including the so-called deuterocanonical books, was formed no earlier than the 1st century AD.
Around 129 AD Jewish proselyte Aquila, originally from Pontus, and in the first half of the 2nd century AD. Samaritan Symmachus, who belonged to the Christian movement of the Ebionites ( Eusebius. Historia ecclesiastica.VI.17), translated the Tanakh in its proto-Masoretic version into Greek. Around 181 AD The Tanakh was also translated into Greek by the Ebionite (later converted to Judaism) Theodotion, born in Ephesus (Ephesus) ( Irenaeus. Adversum haereses.III.21:1; Eusebius. Historia ecclesiastica.III.8; Epiphanius.De Mensuris.14:17).
In the 3rd century, Origen attempted to create a critical text of the Septuagint. He owns Hexapla- an edition of the Old Testament, in which the following were placed in parallel in six columns: 1) the Masoretic text in Hebrew writing; 2) the Masoretic text in Hebrew, but in Greek writing; 3) translation of Aquila; 4) translation of Symmachus; 5) Septuagint; 6) translation of Theodotion ( Eusebius. Historia ecclesiastica.VI.16:1-4). This grandiose work in 50 volumes has hardly survived.
According to Epiphanius, Aquila made his translation with special hatred of Christians; Jerome, on the contrary, believed that “Aquila was not in the spirit of debate, as some think, but carefully translated from word to word.”
Book of Matthew.
Chapter 1
1 This is the genealogy of Jesus Christ, Coming from the line of David, Born of the line of Abraham.
2 Abraham was the father of Isaac. Isaac was the father of Jacob, Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers.
3 Judah was the father of Perez and Zehra, whose mother was Tamar. Perez was the father of Hezrom, Hezrom was the father of Aram.
4 Aram was the father of Abinadab. Amminadab was the father of Nahshon. Nahshon was the father of Salmon.
5 Salmon was the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab. Boaz was the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth. Obed was the father of Jesse.
6 Jesse was the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother was Uriah's wife.
7 Solomon was the father of Rehoboam. Rehoboam was the father of Abijah. Abijah was the father of Asa.
8 Asa was the father of Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat was the father of Jehoram. Jehoram was the father of Uzziah.
9 Uzziah was the father of Jotham. Jotham was the father of Ahaz. Ahaz was the father of Hezekiah.
10 Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh. Manasseh was the father of Amon. Amon was the father of Josiah.
11 Josiah was the father of Joachim. Joachim was the father of Jehoiachin and his brothers. (This was during the migration of the people of Israel to Babylon.)
12 After the exile to Babylon, Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel was the father of Zerubbabel.
13 Zerubbabel was the father of Abihu, Abihu was the father of Eliakim, Eliakim was the father of Azor.
14 Azor was the father of Zadok. Zadok was the father of Achim, Achim was the father of Elihu.
15 Eliud was the father of Eliazar. Eliazar was the father of Matthan, Matthan was the father of Jacob.
16 And Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, to whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
17 In all there were fourteen generations between Abraham and David, and fourteen generations between David and the exile in Babylon, and fourteen generations between the exile in Babylon and the birth of Christ.
18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ happened: His mother Mary was engaged to Joseph. But before their marriage took place, it turned out that she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit.
19 But Joseph, her future husband, was a pious man and did not want to expose her to public humiliation, so he decided to end the engagement without publicity.
20 But while he was pondering this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child she has conceived is of the Holy Spirit.
21 And she will give birth to a son, and you will name Him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
22 All this happened in fulfillment of the prediction of the Lord, proclaimed by the mouth of the prophet:
23 “Listen! A virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son. And they will call Him Emmanuel, which means “God is with us!”
24 When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary into his house as his wife,
25 But he kept her virginity until she gave birth to a son. Joseph named Him Jesus.
Chapter 2
1 Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in Judea, during the time of King Herod. Some time later, wise men came to Jerusalem from the east.
2 They asked, “Where is the newborn King of the Jews? We saw His star shine in the sky and we came to worship Him.”
3 When King Herod heard this, he was greatly alarmed, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem were alarmed along with him.
4 Then Herod gathered all the chief priests and lawyers and asked them where Christ was to be born.
5 They said to him: “In Bethlehem, in Judea, for this is what is written by the prophet:
6 You, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means the last among the rulers of the Jews, for from you will come a ruler who will become the shepherd of my people Israel."
7 And then Herod called the wise men and found out from them when the star appeared in the sky.
8 Then he sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and inquire in detail about the Child. And when you find Him, tell me so that I too can go and worship Him.”
9 They listened to the king and went away, and the star that they saw shining in the sky in the east moved ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the Child was.
10 When the wise men saw the star, they rejoiced.
11 They entered the house and saw the Child with Mary His Mother and, falling on their faces, they worshiped Him. Then they opened their treasure chests and began to offer Him gifts: gold, incense and myrrh.
12 But God appeared to them in a dream and warned them not to return to Herod, so the wise men went back to their country by another road.
13 After they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the Child and His Mother and flee to Egypt. Stay there until I let you know, for Herod will look for the Child to kill Him.”
14 Joseph arose, took the Child and His Mother by night, and left for Egypt.
15 He remained there until the death of Herod. This happened to fulfill what the Lord said through the mouth of the prophet: “I called My Son out of Egypt.”
16 Then Herod, seeing that the wise men had deceived him, flew into a rage and ordered the death of all the male children in Bethlehem and the area from two years old and under (determining the age from what the wise men told him).
17 Then what was spoken by the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
18 “A cry was heard in Rama, the sounds of sobs and great sadness. It is Rachel crying for her children, not listening to consolations, for they are no longer alive.”
19 After the death of Herod, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in Egypt in a dream.
20 He said, “Get up, take the Child and His Mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who tried to destroy the Child are dead.”
21 Joseph arose, took the child and his mother, and departed for the land of Israel.
22 Having heard that Archelaus ruled Judea instead of Herod his father, Joseph was afraid to return there, but, having received a warning from God in a dream, he went to the outskirts of Galilee.
23 When he arrived there, he settled in a city called Nazareth. Joseph made sure that the prophet’s predictions that they would call Him a Nazarene were fulfilled.
Chapter 3
1 In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea.
2 He said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
By the 3rd century BC. BC, after the conquests of Alexander the Great, the archaic world of the ancient Near East found itself face to face with the world of classical antiquity. After this collision, many of the most important images and themes of the Hebrew religion were rethought. At the center of this reinterpretation is the Greek translation of the Bible (Old Testament), the so-called Septuagint.
Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor at the Institute of Oriental Cultures and Antiquity of the Russian State University for the Humanities, Head of the Department of Biblical Studies of the Church Postgraduate and Doctoral Studies of the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1991–2010, he was the project manager for a new translation of the Old Testament into Russian, initiated by the Russian Bible Society.
Theses
The translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek is the first transposition of a large literary corpus from one language into another in the history of Europe and the Middle East. This in itself is incredibly interesting - it’s as if we are present at the very first steps of literary translation, becoming witnesses and researchers of the birth of the translation craft. The categories in which we are accustomed to classify and evaluate translation techniques turn out to be inapplicable here. We are talking, for example, about literal and free translations. But the Septuagint is both very literal - just not in the same way as the modern literalistic translations - and very free - just not in the same way as the free modern translations. Its authors had a different understanding of the translator’s task, different from ours.
There are many discrepancies between the canonical text of the Hebrew Bible and its Greek translation. Some of them are related to the fact that the Hebrew original that lay before the translators was different from the text that was subsequently canonized in the Jewish tradition. But in most cases, discrepancies appeared during the translation process. Any translation of a text from language to language is also a translation from one culture to another; The greater the distance between the two cultures, the more noticeable this is. The gap between the world of the Hebrew Bible and the ancient world was enormous, which led to reinterpretation of the biblical text and gave rise to new, sometimes unexpected, but very important meanings.
These differences between the Hebrew and Greek Bibles turn out to be much more relevant for Russian culture than for any Western European culture. The fact is that the Orthodox tradition, which permeates our entire cultural heritage - icon painting, prayers, liturgical reminiscences in fiction - is based on the texts of the Greek Bible. And the generally accepted Synodal translation of the Bible is based on the Hebrew text. As a result, for example, a simple person who comes to church is faced with such serious textological problems that, in theory, should only concern narrow specialists in the Septuagint. In Russian culture, exegetical Exegesis- interpretation of biblical texts. The decisions made by the Jews of Alexandria more than two thousand years ago became the subject of heated controversy - for example, disputes over the Synodal translation of the Bible.
Interview with lecturer
— Tell us why you began to study this particular topic?
— Since my youth, I have been very interested in the connection between our religious tradition and its cultural context, its historical dynamics. I became particularly interested in the relationship between the Greek and Hebrew Bibles when I was working on a new translation of the Old Testament into Russian (I supervised the translation of the Old Testament into Russian, which was initiated by the Russian Bible Society; in relation to some books, I acted as a translator - driver, to the rest - as an editor). Questions about choosing one textual option or another arose at every step, and each option had its own story, often unresolved.
— What place does the subject of your study occupy in the modern world?
— The differences between the Greek Bible and the Hebrew Bible have always been of interest to biblical scholars. But in the last quarter of a century, the study of the Septuagint has experienced a real boom - in English-speaking countries, in Germany, France, Spain, Finland, serious research centers are emerging, translations of the Greek Bible into English, French, German, and Spanish are being published. The fact is that the focus of biblical scholarship has long been on the search for the “original text” and the “original meaning”; in such a perspective, the later (even two thousand years ago, but still the latest!) adaptations and translations of the Hebrew text were marginal and uninteresting. And somewhere from the end of the last century, the scientific paradigm itself began to change: it became obvious that the history of the Bible is the history of its interpretation and re-interpretation, and every turn of this complex story has its own meaning and its own beauty.
— If you had to make a stranger fall in love with your topic very quickly, how would you do it?
— I would simply invite him to read the Old Testament together, through the eyes of a historian and philologist. It is incredibly interesting to trace how the biblical texts, which for centuries nourished and shaped our civilization, were understood in different eras. How discrepancies arose between the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible, how these discrepancies were reflected in subsequent translations and in the controversy surrounding them.
— What is the most interesting thing you learned while working with your material?
— The moment of meeting, the clash of different cultures is very interesting: you can clearly see how differently people perceive the world around them. You compare, for example, two texts and see an obvious error, misunderstanding. You look more closely and realize that it could not have been otherwise. The world of antiquity is so different from the world of the Ancient Near East that sometimes misunderstanding, or even “understanding exactly the opposite,” was inevitable and natural. I am going to give some examples of this kind - I think they are very beautiful, sometimes simply bewitching - in my lectures. But I won’t talk about it now so as not to ruin the intrigue.
— If you had the opportunity to study a completely different topic now, what would you choose and why?
— I studied many other topics related to the Bible in one way or another. For example, the history of the formation of Old Testament historical narratives - in which, in fact, historical memory is reinterpreted under the influence of motives of a theological, literary or religious-political nature. This is also incredibly interesting: the text turns out to be multi-layered, and its everyday, chronological or geographical details appear as a symbolic expression of the theological, for example, or political concepts of the ancient author. That is, biblical texts are not only reinterpreted in later traditions - they themselves arise as a reinterpretation of historical memory.
I devoted almost two decades to translating the Old Testament into Russian. I often want to return to this; I would now translate many things differently, but, most importantly, I would provide my translation with a much more detailed historical and philological commentary. I think I’ll come back and accompany you.
In general, by my first education I am a structural linguist, my teachers were Andrei Anatolyevich Zaliznyak and Alexander Evgenievich Kibrik, and sometimes I am a little sorry that I left linguistics. Of what is happening now in this area, I am perhaps especially interested in the cognitive theory of metaphor; By the way, it is also very important for the hermeneutics of religious texts - for understanding the very language of religion, its nature.
Where to find out more
Sergey Averintsev. “Greek “literature” and Middle Eastern “literature”” (collection “Rhetoric and the Origins of the European Literary Tradition”, 1996)
Averintsev's classic article can serve as an excellent introduction to the history of the meeting of the cultures of the Ancient East and Hellenism.
Arkady Kovelman. "Hellenism and Jewish Culture" (2007)
This collection was written by a leading expert on Judaism and the Hellenistic period and will allow you to find out how the clash of two cultures took place - Hebrew and Hellenistic.
Karen H. Jobes, Moises Silva. "Invitation to the Septuagint" (2000)
As for books that would introduce the reader to the problems of the Septuagint itself, the situation is worse. In English there is a whole range of different “introductions to the Septuagint” - from those designed for professional philologists to those intended for the widest audience. There are detailed and up-to-date “introductions to the Septuagint” in French, German, and Spanish. There is no such introduction in Russian yet, and I’m currently working on it.
Ilya Vevyurko. “The Septuagint: the ancient Greek text of the Old Testament in the history of religious thought” (2013)
This monograph was published recently. It is not easy to read: the point is not so much the need to know Hebrew and Ancient Greek well, but rather the fact that the text of the Septuagint is considered here from a philosophical, philosophical and theological perspective, which, in my opinion, is much more difficult to understand than a historical and philological one an approach.
Emanuel Tov. “Textology of the Old Testament” (3rd ed., 2015)
From this book you can glean brief information about the Septuagint, its textual history, and examples of its relationship with the Hebrew text. Tov is the most famous textual critic of the Hebrew Bible today; his works are always encyclopedically concise and informative. He has studies specifically devoted to the Septuagint, but, unfortunately, they have not been translated into Russian.
Exhibition for the lecture
For the lecture, employees of the Center for Oriental Literature of the Russian State Library and the research department of rare books of the Russian State Library prepared a mini-exhibition of three rare books from the library’s collections.
The exhibition presents a German edition of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible in canonical Jewish configuration) from the 16th century; Psalter printed in Venice by the Italian printer Aldus Manutius; as well as the first complete edition of the text of the Bible in Greek, prepared in the 16th century, also in the printing house of Aldus Manutius.
On the fixed flyleaf is the name of the owner of the publication, Baron Gunzburg.
"The Sacred Way" is a complete vocalized text of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) edited by Elias Gutter. Hamburg, 1587
At the beginning of each book of the Bible, small parchment bookmarks protruding from the side edge are glued to the leaves.
Storage code TsVL RSL: Ginz 4/1839 (Gintsburg Collection)"The Sacred Way" is a complete vocalized text of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) edited by Elias Gutter. Hamburg, 1587
The book comes with an extensive Latin preface by the editor, providing an overview of the basics of biblical language and grammatical tables.
Storage code TsVL RSL: Ginz 4/1839 (Gintsburg Collection)"The Sacred Way" is a complete vocalized text of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) edited by Elias Gutter. Hamburg, 1587 Storage code TsVL RSL: Ginz 4/1839 (Gintsburg Collection)
"The Sacred Way" is a complete vocalized text of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) edited by Elias Gutter. Hamburg, 1587 Storage code TsVL RSL: Ginz 4/1839 (Gintsburg Collection)
"The Sacred Way" is a complete vocalized text of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) edited by Elias Gutter. Hamburg, 1587
A separate sheet contains examples of translations of the same verse from Psalm 117 into 30 languages - Aramaic, Arabic, Syriac, Ethiopian, Greek, seven different translations into Latin, several Germanic languages in various Gothic scripts (including such exotic ones as Vandal), Icelandic , Czech, Polish, Croatian and Russian, which is called Lingua Moscouitica and is depicted in a very archaic way.
Storage code TsVL RSL: Ginz 4/1839 (Gintsburg Collection)"The Sacred Way" is a complete vocalized text of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) edited by Elias Gutter. Hamburg, 1587 Storage code TsVL RSL: Ginz 4/1839 (Gintsburg Collection)
"The Sacred Way" is a complete vocalized text of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) edited by Elias Gutter. Hamburg, 1587 Storage code TsVL RSL: Ginz 4/1839 (Gintsburg Collection)
Returning from Babylonian captivity in the mid-sixth century BC, the Jews remained under the rule of the Persian kings for almost two centuries.
But now, according to the prediction of the prophet of God Daniel, the end of the Persian monarchy has come. It had to give way to a new kingdom - the Greek. Its founder was the famous Alexander the Great. With quick and brilliant victories, he began to conquer the ancient world.
Having subjugated all of Asia Minor, Alexander moved to Palestine and its capital - the city of Jerusalem. He entered this ancient and holy city without destroying it. He respected the shrines of the Jews, did not touch the riches of the temple, and even made, at the direction of the priests, a sacrifice to the true God. Alexander granted the Jews freedom from taxes every seventh year. This year was called the Sabbath year by the Jewish people. When it came, according to the law of Moses, the Jews were not supposed to sow and harvest, remembering God, who, according to the Holy Scriptures, “rested from His work” on the seventh day. Alexander's conquests spread pagan Greek culture throughout the Middle East. This time became a test of the Jews' loyalty to their religion and the true God.
However, the century of Alexander the Great, full of amazing victories, did not last very long. The empire he founded lasted only until his death. In 323 BC it broke up into four kingdoms, two of which - Egypt and Syria - played an important role in the history of God's chosen people.
During the wars of succession that followed the collapse, Palestine became a bone of contention between the rulers of the two countries. In 320 BC, the Egyptian king Ptolemy Lag annexed it to Egypt. The Jewish people were to remain under Egyptian rule for more than a century.
It was a relatively calm and peaceful time. Egyptian rulers gave the Jews great freedom. They allowed them to freely practice their faith, settle wherever they wished, and trade with the entire Mediterranean. Little by little, the Jews settled in all the trading cities on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Wherever they were, they did not change their faith and worshiped the true God. The Jews built houses of prayer - synagogues, where they gathered for common prayer and reading the Holy Scriptures. Gentiles were also allowed into the synagogues.
Their interest in the faith of Old Testament Israel made it necessary to translate the Holy Scriptures of the Jews into Greek.
This great work was carried out during the reign of the Egyptian king Ptolemy the Second Philadelphus. At his request, the original of the Holy Scriptures and seventy learned Jews were sent from Jerusalem, who were to become translators. The translation was successfully completed and later received the name "Septuagint", which translated from Latin means "seventy".
One amazing tradition preserved by the Christian Church is associated with the Septuagint. According to it, each of the seventy translators was seated in a separate room and had to present their own version of the translated text. When they finished their work, the sages who compared their translations noted with amazement that they were all exactly the same! So they became convinced that the Lord Himself was guiding the translators.
Reading the Septuagint enlightened many idolaters and helped them believe in the true God.
From the Septuagint, the pagans learned an amazing prophecy that the immaculate Virgin would give birth to a Son, and His birth would mean that from now on God would dwell with people.
Therefore, when this time approaches, the birth of the Son of God will be expected not only in Judea, but also in many other places of the ancient world. For for God there is neither Greek nor Jew; for Him everyone is equally loved. And for the sake of saving each of us, He will ascend to the Cross.
1 βίβλος
λευκή (πρασίνη, κυανή, κίτρινη) βίβλος - watered white (green, blue, yellow) book;
2) the Bible;
3) bot. bast
2 βίβλος
ἡ βίβλος book ( Wedτὰ βιβλία Bible; library)
3 2316
{noun, 1343}
4 θεός
{noun, 1343}
5 θεός
{noun, 1343}
6 Βίβλος
[vivlos] ουσ θ Bible.
See also in other dictionaries:
BIBLE- (Greek Biblia books), or Holy Scripture, a book that includes those written in other Hebrew. language, the books of the Jewish canon, called Christians (together with several so-called books of the second canon, which came down only in translation in Greek or written ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia
Bible- (Greek τα βιβλια books) the name of a collection of works of religious literature recognized as sacred in the Christian and Jewish religions (the name τα βιβλια is borrowed from the introduction to the book of the Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach, where this name ... ... Literary encyclopedia
BIBLE- (Greek biblion book). Sacred books of the Old and New Testaments. Dictionary of foreign words included in the Russian language. Chudinov A.N., 1910. BIBLE (Greek) means books that the Christian Church recognizes as written by the Spirit of God,... ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language
Bible- - an extensive collection of books of different origins and contents (the word “Bible” comes from the Greek βιβλία “books”). It is divided into two sections: the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament consists of 48 books written in the period from the 11th century. BC e. before the 1st century n.... ... Dictionary of scribes and bookishness of Ancient Rus'
BIBLE- cannot be the work of the Almighty simply because He speaks too flatteringly about Himself and too badly about man. But maybe this just proves that He is its Author? Christian Friedrich Goebbel I read the criminal code and the Bible. Bible... ... Consolidated encyclopedia of aphorisms
