Book Description

This volume of the new DSI series is the most comprehensive investigation of Hebrew and Greek translation equivalents in Ps 42-43 in the Psalter and in the Septuagint as a whole currently available. This detailed study does not only include the translation equivalents in the Septuagint, the semantic meanings of the Hebrew and Greek words are also discussed and parallels in the LXX as well as in the Hebrew Bible are included. A systematic investigation of the translator's method must be carried out before one can use the manuscripts in a proper way. Accordingly, the extensive translation-technical emphasis and the discussion of text-critical matters make it possible to present a more accurate Old Greek text and this book may thus contribute to a new critical edition of the Greek Psalter. The book is also in some respects in itself a text-critical study, since all variants in Rahlfs' edition of the Septuagint Psalms, with the addition of Papyrus Bodmer XXIV (Rahlfs 2110), as well as Hebrew variants, are referred to and studied. This includes suggestions and evaluations of the Hebrew Vorlage behind the Septuagint text. It is also a commentary on the Hebrew and the Greek texts of Ps 42-43. Like other commentaries, it describes the position of the psalm, it presents the unity and form of the psalm, its structure and its relation to the close context. As a commentary on both the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint, it gives an overall interpretation of the psalm in Hebrew and in Greek separately. The book can be read by the specialist in Septuagint studies as well as all scholars interested in translation, textual criticism, and in the book of Psalms, not least its use of metaphors and the reflection of temple theology.