charles

Where can I get a source for that information about the Greek translation of Daniel?

DCHindley

You could try a simple Google search on: Daniel Theodotion "old greek" (use the quote marks where indicated)

Doing so brought up this hit from The book of Daniel: composition and reception, by John J. Collins, Peter W. Flint & Cameron VanEpps. The link is to the article "The Textual History of Septuagint-Daniel and Theodotion Daniel" by Alexander A. Di Lella.

The terminology is fairly loose in this article. He uses Septuagint (LXX), which properly refers to the five books of the law, for what is really the Old Greek (OG) version of the Christian Old Testament, which includes all books of the OT. However, most manuscripts of the Christian Old Testament have a different version of Daniel, known as the Theodotion version (although it does not appear to be from the translation of Jewish scripture made by a very real Theodotion in the 2nd century CE, but an earlier version that competed with the OG version of this book). As far as I know, there are only two somewhat fragmentary Greek mss of the OG of Daniel, and one literal Syriac translation based on the OG.

DCH

darstec

I think you meant Pentateuch.

The Septuagint (LXX) refers to the supposed translators of the Hebrew into the Greek.

stephan huller

No DCHindley has it right. He is very well informed. There was a Greek translation and then it was replaced by Theodotion. Why? My suspicion - that the LXX DIDN'T help the argument for Agrippa.

Does everyone see where I am going with this? The Agrippa interpretation seems to have taken over in the late first century. And then there is the curious report that Theodotion was connected with the Marcionite sect (Epiphanius de Mens. et Pond. 17). What was a Marcionite translating the 'old Testament'?

As you may know I think all the 'Mark sects' were related.

And then there is the curious situation that Daniel represents one of the last great prophesies to have fulfilled by a universally acknowledged historical event BUT then there is a deliberate and conscious effort to diminish its significance in the later rabbinic tradition.

Daniel was considered a prophet in the Qumran library (4Q174 aka 4QFlorilegium), and later by Josephus (Antiquity of the Jews 10.11.7 §266); the Book of Daniel was grouped among the prophets in the Septuagint, and by Christians BUT Daniel is deliberately NOT numbered with the prophets in the Tanakh. The 'ghettoizing' of Danel to the Ketuvim is a deliberate effort by later exegetes (Maimonides) to destroy the acknowledged truth that Agrippa was the messiah (Sanhedrin 98b, 97a).

One can't help see that Agrippa and his circle of sages or 'flatters' (the term later gets associated with 'Christians') so infected the Jewish and Christian traditions that it took nothing short of a massive reaction AGAINST his influence to counter his influence.

stephan huller

And to follow my original point about the equation of the Cross with the abomination (that causes) desolation. I would also look at the doctrine being present in 1 Corinthians chapter 1:

If you look at the range of meanings of skandalon in Kittel it means 'trap,' 'stumbling block' and 'cause of ruin' in the LXX, Aquila and other translations. I am particularly attracted to 'cause of ruin' because it cuts across all translators.

http://books.google.com/books?id=ltZ...ter%22&f=false

The skandalon of the cross seems to me at least to be very close to the idea in the Slavonic Josephus's use of Daniel.

charles

But skandalon is never used to translate the Hebrew of 'abomination of desolation.' The Jewish Encyclopedia says

jgreen44

"...the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets.... The wrath of God has come upon them at last. (1 Thessalonians 2:14-16)

stephan huller

Uh huh

DCHindley

According to the Letter of Aristeas, the Jewish apocryphal tale about the creation of the Greek translation of the Pentateuch in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, the seventy two elders translated only the Jewish Law, not the prophets or other writings. The term LXX, Latin numerals for "Seventy (two)" = Septuaginta, properly refers to the Pentateuch, the five books of the Jewish Law.

The confusion comes from the fact that there were apparently several competing versions of individual books of the Prophets and the Writings (which includes Daniel). There were certain ones that became preferred by Greek speaking Jews, and these were known as the Old Greek (OG). Apparently the OG-Daniel was competing with the version now known as Theodotion-Daniel. The Christians tended to prefer the OG of the Prophets and Writings, with the exception of Daniel, preferring the version known as Theodotion-Daniel.

This version is apparently NOT the same as that translated by the 2nd century CE Jew Theodotion, as there are several citations of this version of Daniel in the NT. It does appear that early church fathers thought that Greek Daniel of the Christian OT came from the Theodotion column of Origen's Hexapla, but supposed mss copies of this or that column of that work has only come to us in horribly corrupt and mixed form, so the Hexapla tradition is not very secure.

I shoot from the hip, sorry.

DCH

stephan huller

Everyone has asked this question at some time:

I disagree complete. That doesn't make sense. There had to be a reason why people picked Theodotion over the LXX of Daniel.

So Adler comes to our rescue again (I love this book!) when he makes explicit at the very beginning of his discussion of the reason why the OG (LXX) was abandoned:

Yet I think that we can also suggest that the text of Theodotion may well have been part of an effort to reshape the material "to correspond as closely as possible with recent events as the translator(s) understood them" AGAIN IN THE FIRST CENTURY. In other words, the received text of Daniel may well have only been one which was finally reshaped to 'fit' the events of the Jewish War.

I can't say that 'I know this is exactly what happened' but as we are discussing matters here in the forum I think it represent a distinct possibility as to what happened to the text of Daniel.