It is my life’s ambition to be able to read Greek translations of the Old Testament. Do you have any advice?
This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1999.
I am interested to hear that your life's ambition is to be able to read the Greek translations of the Old Testament that were read by Greek speaking believers in the early centuries of the present era. That, I have no doubt, is a very laudable ambition—I have myself given years to studying these ancient Greek translations of the Old Testament. So that I may help you more to achieve your life's ambition, I think I need to ask you to explain in a little bit more in detail why you feel it so important to read the Old Testament in Greek.
In your letters you talk much about the difference in textual traditions. For instance, you have read Justin Martyr's accusations against the Jews in his day, that they had changed Scripture; whereas in a later time, Jerome insists on going back to the Hebraica Veritas1, and understandably these two different attitudes perplex you. On this, we can begin by saying that Justin Martyr had very little idea of the deficiencies of the Greek translations. Augustine, in his later time, when he became aware of the great differences between the Greek translations and the Hebrew text, admitted the fact that these differences existed, but claimed that the Greek translations were as equally inspired as the Hebrew original.
In my opinion, that was nonsense; but it is a view that has continued throughout Christendom, right down to this present time. That position claims that, even though the translations are different from the Hebrew, they are just as authoritative as the Hebrew. In fact, about sixty years ago, the then pope issued a statement that changed the attitude the Catholic Church had taken all down the centuries, and informed the faithful that biblical scholars now had a duty to seek the expressions which flowed from the pens of the sacred writers2. Hitherto the Catholics had regarded the Vulgate translation of the New Testament of equal authority as the original New Testament in Greek.
I think you also would hold the view that the original texts have greater authority than a translation. However good any translation of the New Testament is, you would hold that no translation is perfect, and that the original New Testament in Greek is the authority by which translations must be judged.
Similarly with the Old Testament. The original Hebrew is by definition far more authoritative than any of the Greek translations, or indeed than any other translation in other languages. The King James Version of the Old Testament, for instance, is a wonderful translation; but it is only a translation, and it cannot be regarded as a substitute for the original Hebrew. In this respect, therefore, Jerome was right and Augustine and Justin Martyr were wrong. This, then, is a matter which should be very clearly distinguished in our thinking from the other problem, which is: how does one decide what the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament was?
Now, when we come to deal with this practical problem of the differences in the Hebrew manuscripts, we find that the Greek translation can sometimes be a help, because there are places where the Greek translations are based upon a Hebrew that is self-evidently original, compared with copying mistakes in the Hebrew manuscripts.
But if one takes the Old Testament as a whole, the occasions when the Greek translations may be considered to have preserved the original Hebrew text better than any surviving Hebrew manuscripts are comparatively rare. Certainly, they are a tiny proportion of the Old Testament. The Greek translations are well worth detailed study, so that we can take advantage of their evidence in such places; but I am not quite sure why someone would wish to read the Greek translations with all their mistakes, additions, omissions, paraphrases, misunderstandings and so forth, when he could read a direct translation of the Hebrew.
The intricate textual problems are certainly very complicated, but one should be wary of supposing that there is deliberate deceit on one side or the other. The Greek translations were done first by Jews, and then by Christian missionaries and others who had the very best intention. They were not aiming to deceive. But then translators have different standards; not all translators realize the need for great accuracy in translation, and so they content themselves with general paraphrases, and where they cannot be sure of the meaning of the original, they simply make a guess at it. In addition, translators will consciously or unconsciously interpret Scripture according to their own understanding, so that the result is not a straight translation, but translation-plus-interpretation. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that the early translations were sometimes good, and sometimes very poor. There was no intention of deceiving anybody.
The same thing would be true of the translations that were done by missionaries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in different countries. They did the best they could. But nowadays, when modern missionaries look at these translations, they perceive that they are full of mistakes and misunderstandings, and require to be revised if not replaced by better and more accurate translations.
To some extent, the same thing is true of the KJV and many other versions. There are places, as we all know, where the KJV is mistaken. That does not mean that the translators were setting out to deceive.
So, to sum up my questioning so far, I would say this. Are you:
Wishing to become a rigorous textual critic; that is, an expert on all the different readings to be found in the Hebrew manuscripts and in the various translations of them? To do that, as you have realized, would mean learning not only Greek but Hebrew, and eventually some of the other languages into which the Greek translations were themselves translated. That is a lifetime's occupation, and in order to be able to begin to do it well you would need to spend years on studying these things.
Or are you wishing to inform yourself of the history of the text of the Old Testament, so that, when you read your English translation of the Old Testament, you may have confidence that you have there an authentic translation of the message that the Holy Spirit originally gave the authors of the Old Testament by inspiration?
Lastly, on your secondary question with regard to the survival of biblical manuscripts, all manuscripts are photographed with high precision cameras, and the photographs kept in maximum security. Likewise, the manuscripts themselves are kept in storage at exactly the appropriate temperature and humidity and in darkness, except when they are being consulted, so that the writing will not fade more than is absolutely inevitable.
And, further, we may be sure that God, who has seen to it that his word has been preserved all these centuries, will continue to watch over the preservation of that word. It is the fact, for instance, that if all the New Testament manuscripts were destroyed, we should still have 95% of their contents preserved in the writings of the early church fathers; and then, of course, we have the translation of Scripture in over a thousand languages, and many printed facsimiles of the manuscripts of the Bible stored in many different parts of the world. So I think your heart may be at rest over this particular matter.
God bless you and your interest in his word, and make it fruitful and profitable to you and all those for whom you are spiritually responsible.
Yours very sincerely in Christ,
1 The belief that it was the Hebrew Bible, as transmitted in rabbinical circles in the early centuries AD, that was the “original” Old Testament text
2 The 1943 encyclical on Promoting Biblical Studies (Divino Afflante Spiritu). See paragraph 15 in http://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_30091943_divino-afflante-spiritu.html