The Asterisked Materials in the Greek Job.

• Author: Tov, Emanuel
• Position: Review

By PETER JOHN GENTRY. Society of Biblical Literature Septuagint and Cognate Studies Series, vol. 38. Atlanta: SCHOLARS PRESS, 1995. Pp. xxxvii + 559. $49.95 (cloth); $33.95 (paper).

This monograph, a slightly revised version of the author's Ph.D. thesis written at the University of Toronto, analyzes material which is important for the LXX of Job, as well as for the LXX as a whole, especially for the understanding of its recensional history. It analyzes the complicated textual situation in the book of Job, where the so-called Old Greek translation is much shorter than MT, and where the lacking elements have been supplemented in several ancient sources on the basis of MT. The textual history of these supplements is rather complicated (see chapter one). It is probably correct to say that the kaige-Theodotion revision was the first source to translate these missing elements into Greek and incorporate them into the running text of the translation. This translation influenced those of Aquila ([Alpha][prime]) and Symmachus ([Delta][prime]). At a third stage, in his monumental work, the Hexapla, Origen incorporated the versions of kaige-Theodotion, known in antiquity as Theodotion ([Theta][prime]) with [Alpha][prime] and [Sigma][prime], and he also added the translation of the supplements of [Theta][prime] in the fifth column of the Hexapla, in which he composed a version of the "Septuagint" which could be compared with that of the Hebrew text of his day. In this fifth column, the supplements were denoted with diacritical signs, an asterisk before, and a metobelus after, the supplement. Hence the term "asterisked" passages. If all the ancient evidence was in our possession, we would have access to many versions of these asterisked passages, not just [Theta][prime] [Alpha][prime] [Sigma][prime], but also quotations in Church Fathers and the fifth column of the Hexapla. That fifth column of the Hexapla took on a life of its own when translated into various languages, including Syriac (the Syro-Hexapla), and was transmitted in many manuscripts. In these manuscripts this column, later to be known as the Ecclesiastical Text, was sometimes transmitted with the diacritical signs, but mostly without them. In any event, all of the mentioned sources are known only fragmentarily and the textual evidence for the supplements is therefore very complicated, and often contradictory. True, it can now be studied more easily on the basis of the excellent critical...