The Bible, one of the most widely read and influential texts in history, has been translated into numerous languages over the centuries. The earliest translations of the Old Testament were crucial in making the scriptures accessible to people who no longer spoke Hebrew. These translations into Aramaic and Greek allowed broader audiences to engage with the texts, significantly shaping the religious and cultural landscape of the ancient world.
1. The Old Testament
The Old Testament, originally written in Hebrew, underwent its first translations into Aramaic and Greek. These early translations played a vital role in preserving the scriptures and making them accessible to communities that had adopted new languages due to historical circumstances.
A. The Aramaic Targums
By around 400 B.C., the Jewish people began translating the Old Testament into Aramaic, the language they started speaking during and after their Babylonian captivity. This translation is known as the Aramaic Targums. The term “targum” means “translation” or “interpretation” in Aramaic, reflecting the role these texts played in explaining the Hebrew scriptures to a Jewish population that had largely transitioned to speaking Aramaic as their everyday language.
The Aramaic Targums were not just direct translations but also included interpretative elements that helped explain difficult passages and made the scriptures more understandable to the common people. This made the Targums an essential tool for teaching and religious practice among Jews who had lost fluency in Hebrew.
B. The Greek Septuagint
Around 250 B.C., the Old Testament was translated into Greek, resulting in what is known as the Septuagint. The Septuagint was the first translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek, and it became especially significant for Jewish communities living outside of Israel, particularly in Alexandria, Egypt.
In Alexandria, many Jews had become more familiar with Greek than Hebrew. Greek had become their everyday language, so they needed the scriptures in a language they could understand. Tradition holds that the Septuagint was created by seventy (or seventy-two) Jewish scholars, which is why the translation is named after the Latin word “Septuaginta,” meaning seventy. This is often abbreviated as LXX, the Roman numerals for seventy.
The translation likely began with the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.). Over time, the entire Old Testament was translated, including the apocryphal books such as Tobit, Judith, 1 & 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and Baruch. Although the historical accuracy of the story of seventy-two scholars completing the translation in seventy-two days, as recorded in the Letter of Aristeas, is debated, the importance of the Septuagint is undisputed.
The Septuagint became the Bible for Greek-speaking Jews throughout the Roman Empire and was widely used in synagogues. Its influence extended to the early Christian Church, where the Greek translation was often preferred over the Hebrew text by New Testament writers when quoting the Old Testament. It is also believed that Jesus Christ himself used the Septuagint as his Bible, underscoring its significance in the religious life of the time.
In the Greek-speaking world, the Septuagint’s importance was immense as it provided a version of the Old Testament in the commonly spoken language, allowing the scriptures to reach a broader audience and facilitate the spread of Judaism and Christianity.
C. The Masoretic Text
Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the earliest known surviving manuscripts of the Old Testament in Hebrew dated back to medieval times. These manuscripts were the work of the Tiberian Masoretes, scholars who worked in Tiberias, Palestine, from around A.D. 500 to A.D. 1000. The Masoretes played a crucial role in preserving and standardizing the Hebrew text of the Old Testament over a period of about 500 years.
The term “Masoretic” comes from the Hebrew word “masor,” meaning “traditional.” The Masoretes were known as transmitters of tradition, ensuring that the sacred texts were accurately copied and passed down from generation to generation. The oldest dated Masoretic manuscript is from A.D. 895.
The Masoretes were meticulous in their work, taking great pride in the accuracy of their copies. This tradition of careful copying began with the Sopherim, earlier scribes who preserved the ancient text by keeping detailed statistics about the books they copied. For example, the Masoretic copyists knew the exact number of Hebrew letters in each book of the Old Testament. In the book of Genesis alone, they counted 78,064 letters. They also kept track of how many times each letter of the alphabet appeared in the text.
One of the most remarkable aspects of the Masoretes’ work was their method of verifying the accuracy of their copies. They knew the exact number of letters from the beginning and end of a text to its middle and which letter should be the middle letter of a book. After copying a book, they would count the letters to ensure that everything was correct. If any discrepancies were found, the manuscript was discarded and burned to prevent the circulation of errors.
This passion for accuracy ensured that the Masoretic Text became the authoritative Hebrew text of the Old Testament, forming the basis for many subsequent translations and playing a vital role in preserving the integrity of the biblical text through the centuries.