̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Nicholas de Lange

Ancient Bible fragments reveal a forgotten history

ns480 — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 10:56:50 +0000

̽��ֱ��study by Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� researchers suggests that, contrary to long-accepted views, Jews continued to use a Greek version of the Bible in synagogues for centuries longer than previously thought. In some places, the practice continued almost until living memory.

̽��ֱ��key to the new discovery lay in manuscripts, some of them mere fragments, discovered in an old synagogue in Egypt and brought to Cambridge at the end of the 19th century. ̽��ֱ��so-called Cairo Genizah manuscripts have been housed ever since in Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library.

Now, a fully searchable online corpus (http://www.gbbj.org) has gathered these manuscripts together, making the texts and analysis of them available to other scholars for the first time.

" ̽��ֱ��translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek between the 3rd and 1st centuries BCE is said to be one of the most lasting achievements of the Jewish civilization - without it, Christianity might not have spread as quickly and as successfully as it did," explained Nicholas de Lange, Professor of Hebrew and Jewish Studies in the Faculties of Divinity and Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, who led the three-year study to re-evaluate the story of the Greek Bible fragments.

"It was thought that the Jews, for some reason, gave up using Greek translations and chose to use the original Hebrew for public reading in synagogue and for private study, until modern times when pressure to use the vernacular led to its introduction in many synagogues."

Close study of the Cairo Genizah fragments by Professor de Lange led to the discovery that some contained passages from the Bible in Greek written in Hebrew letters. Others contained parts of a lost Greek translation made by a convert to Judaism named Akylas in the 2nd century CE. Remarkably, the fragments date from 1,000 years after the original translation into Greek, showing use of the Greek text was still alive in Greek-speaking synagogues in the Byzantine Empire and elsewhere.

Manuscripts in other libraries confirmed the evidence of the Cambridge fragments, and added many new details. It became clear that a variety of Greek translations were in use among Jews in the Middle Ages.

Not only does the new research offer us a rare glimpse of Byzantine Jewish life and culture, but it also illustrates the cross-fertilisation between Jewish and Christian biblical scholars in the Middle Ages. "This is a very exciting discovery for me because it confirms a hunch I had when studying Genizah fragments 30 years ago," said Professor de Lange.

̽��ֱ��online resource enables comparison of each word of the Hebrew text, the Greek translation - knows as the Septuagint after the 70 Jewish scholars said to have translated it - and the fragments of Akylas' and other Jewish translations from antiquity.

̽��ֱ��resource was created following collaboration between research teams at Cambridge ̽��ֱ��, including Dr Cameron Boyd-Taylor and Dr Julia Krivoruchko, and King's College London. "This ambitious piece of collaborative digital scholarship required challenging technical difficulties to be solved," explained Paul Spence, who led the team at the Centre for Computing in the Humanities at King's. "It draws together a wide variety of materials under a standards-based framework which provides multiple entry points into the material."

̽��ֱ��research was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Image: Genizah palimpsest with Hebrew (shown upside down) written over the top of a 6th-century copy of Akylas' Greek translation (c. 125 CE) of the Books of Kings (shown the right way up); T-S 12.184r. Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, reproduced by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library.

New research has uncovered a forgotten chapter in the history of the Bible, offering a rare glimpse of Byzantine Jewish life and culture.

̽��ֱ��translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek between the 3rd and 1st centuries BCE is said to be one of the most lasting achievements of the Jewish civilization - without it, Christianity might not have spread as quickly and as successfully as it did.

Professor Nicholas de Lange

Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit

Genizah fragment

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.

Yes

̽��ֱ��Greek Bible of the Byzantine Jews

bjb42 — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

One of the greatest and most lasting achievements of Jewish civilisation in the Graeco-Roman period was the translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek between the 3rd and 1st centuries BCE. It was an unprecedented project: not only was it the first translation on such a scale, but it also opened up the core teachings of the Jewish religion to Jews who did not understand the sacred language, as well as to the non-Jewish world. Without this translation, it is doubtful whether Christianity could have spread as quickly and successfully as it did. ̽��ֱ��translated books – which came to be known collectively as the Septuagint, after the 70 Jewish scholars said to have translated them – became a keystone of teaching and worship for large numbers of Jews and Christians for centuries, and still constitute the Old Testament for Greek-speaking Christians today.

̽��ֱ��study of the Christian history of these books has long been pursued in European universities. But the Jewish origin of the translations, although not entirely forgotten, has been sidelined, according to a general supposition that Jews gave up using the translations along with their use of the Greek language.

However, evidence has been unfolding to the contrary, aided by the discovery of long-lost manuscript fragments confirming that Greek Bible translations continued to be used in Byzantine Judaism. A project led by Nicholas de Lange, Professor of Hebrew and Jewish Studies in the Faculties of Divinity and Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, is spearheading this re-evaluation of a mysterious time in biblical history. It is also providing the latest instalment of a quintessentially Cambridge story.

Rediscovering Jewish tradition

In the 1890s, the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge was the world centre of Septuagint scholarship. Cambridge academic Solomon Schechter had returned from Cairo with the largest and by far the most important hoard of Hebrew manuscripts ever discovered. One of the most exciting discoveries to emerge from a first trawl through the fragments was a palimpsest, a manuscript that had been reused for writing another text. ̽��ֱ��original writing was from a handsome Greek copy of the Books of Kings, not in the Septuagint translation but in a later translation made in the early 2nd century CE by a convert to Judaism named Akylas. This was the first evidence of the continuous transmission of Greek Bible translations; many others were to follow.

Since the 1970s, Professor de Lange has been collecting and studying evidence for the use of Greek Bible translations by Jews in the Middle Ages. Over the past three years, these have been gathered into an online corpus that, for the first time, has made the texts and analysis of them available to other scholars.

With funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the corpus is being prepared with the help of Dr Cameron Boyd-Taylor and Dr Julia Krivoruchko in the Faculty, as well as the highly specialised IT expertise of the Centre for Computing in the Humanities at King’s College London. ̽��ֱ��fully searchable corpus permits comparison of each word with the Hebrew text, the Septuagint, and the fragments of Akylas’ and other Jewish translations from antiquity.

Lifting the shroud of mystery

̽��ֱ��project will aid understanding of the Jewish tradition of Bible translation in Greek-speaking lands throughout the Middle Ages: who produced the translations, who used them, and for what purposes? How widespread was their use at different times? To what extent was it an oral rather than a written tradition? ̽��ֱ��project will offer us a rare glimpse of Byzantine Jewish life and culture, the cross-fertilisation between Jewish and Christian biblical scholars in the Middle Ages, and add to our understanding of the history of the Greek language at that time.

For more information, please contact the author Professor Nicholas de Lange (nrml1@cam.ac.uk; https://gbbj.org/) at the Faculty of Divinity.

Image: Genizah palimpsest with Hebrew (shown upside down) written over the top of a 6th-century copy of Akylas’ Greek translation (c. 125 CE) of the Books of Kings (shown the right way up); T-S 12.184r. Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, reproduced by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library.

Researchers at the Faculty of Divinity are using ancient manuscript fragments to re-evaluate a forgotten episode of biblical history.

Since the 1970s, Professor de Lange has been collecting and studying evidence for the use of Greek Bible translations by Jews in the Middle Ages.

Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit

Genizah fragment

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.

Yes