Theodotion
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Theodotion (mid- 2nd century AD) was a Hellenistic Jewish scholar[1], perhaps working in Ephesus [2], who translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek, but whether he was revising the Septuagint, as most readers think, or was working from manuscripts that represented a parallel tradition that has not survived is debated. His finished version, which filled some lacunae, notably in Septuagint's Book of Jeremiah and Book of Job, formed one column in Origen's Hexapla, which presented six Hebrew and Greek texts side-by-side: two Greek versions, by Aquila of Sinope and Symmachus, preceding the Septuagint, and Theodotian's version following it, apparently reflecting a contemporary understanding of their historical sequence.
Theodotion's translation was so widely copied in the Early Christian church that it virtually superseded the Septuagint Book of Daniel [3]. Jerome (in his preface to Daniel) records the rejection of the Septuagint version in Christian usage, asserting that its translation was very faulty. It is plain that Theodotion did not translate Daniel directly from the Hebrew-Aramaic, Masoretic textual tradition, and for the additions considered apocryphal by Protestant scholars, no Aramaic (or Hebrew) original is assumed (J.E.). The original language of the additions to existing mixed Aramaic-Hebrew accounts of Bel and the Dragon or of Susanna and the Elders was Greek. Theodotion's version elaborates this Greek original, and his translation of the text of Daniel also is manifestly a working over of a previous Greek rendering (J.E.).
In the second century Theodotion's text was quoted in the Shepherd of Hermas and in the Christian apologist Justin Martyr's Trypho.
His caution in transliterating Hebrew words for plants, animals, vestments and ritual regalia, rather than adopting a conjectural Greek rendering, gave him an undeserved reputation of being "unlearned" among more confident post-Renaissance editors, such as Bernard de Montfaucon.
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[edit] Notes
- ^ The only contemporary reference to him is that of Irenaeus (Adversus Haereses, III.xxi.1), who ranks him with Aquila of Pontus, another translator, as "Jewish proselytes" in the course of taking exception to their rendering of the "virgin" prophesied in Isaiah vii. 14 as "damsel", "following whom the Ebionites pretend that he was begotten of Joseph."
- ^ "Theodotian of Ephesus" in Irenaeus
- ^ The LXX Daniel survived in a single mss. the Chigi codex, Codex Chisianus.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ The only contemporary reference to him is that of Irenaeus (Adversus Haereses, III.xxi.1), who ranks him with Aquila of Pontus, another translator, as "Jewish proselytes" in the course of taking exception to their rendering of the "virgin" prophesied in Isaiah vii. 14 as "damsel", "following whom the Ebionites pretend that he was begotten of Joseph."
- ^ "Theodotian of Ephesus" in Irenaeus
- ^ The LXX Daniel survived in a single mss. the Chigi codex, Codex Chisianus.
[edit] References
- Jewish Encyclopedia: "Theodotion" Details of Theodotion's insertions.
- Gaster. 1894. "The Unknown Aramaic Original of Theodotion's Additions to Daniel" in Proceedings of the Society for Biblical Archaeology Vol. xvi. Demonstrating that the existing Aramaic text is itself an adaptation from the Greek of Theodotion, not its original.
- Schürer in Herzog-Hauck, Real-Encyclopädie für protestantische Theologie i. 639 (1909)
- (GJGW), A Dictionary of Christian Biography: "Theodotion"
