Saturday, April 29, 2006

Jerome on Recensions of the LXX


With respect to purported textual families of the LXX, Jerome (Praef. in Paralipp.; compare Adv. Ruf., ii.27) states that certain regions each adopted their own particular recension of the LXX: "Alexandria and Egypt in their Septuagint acclaim Hesychius as their authority, the region from Constantinople to Antioch approves the copies of Lucian the martyr, the intermediate Palestinian provinces read the manuscripts which were promulgated by Eusebius and Pamphilus on the basis of Origen's labors, and the whole world is divided between these three varieties of text."

Thus, the idea of text-types goes back to the early fathers. However, whether this really is a legitimate description of the textual transmission of the LXX in Christian centers is another matter altogether.

1 comment:

J. B. Hood said...

Mike,

I can't wait for you to flesh this out as you work through Esdras material. LXX, text types, etc., comes up in my research as well.