The Polak and Marquis CATSS Study:
Emanuel Tov and Robert Kraft co-directed a project for the creation of a database designed to allow the study of the Septuagint with the aid of computer technology. The project was known as “Computer Assisted Tools for Septuagint Studies”, or CATSS.11Tov, E. and Kraft, R.eds . Computer Assisted Tools for Septuagint Studies (CATSS): A computerized data base for Septuagint studies: the parallel aligned text of the Greek and Hebrew bible . United States: Scholars Press, 1986. The database contains “the major types of data needed for the study of the Septuagint (LXX) and its relation to the Masoretic Text (MT) … in particular … translation techniques, variant readings, grammar, and vocabulary of the LXX.”22Polak, F. and Marquis, G. A Classified Index of the Minuses of the Septuagint: Part 1: Introduction . Tov, E. ed. Stellenbosch. Cape Town. 2002, Preface. Polak and Marquis in 2002 used the CATSS database to produce a comprehensive analysis of the “minuses” exhibited by the LXX of the Pentateuch when that text is compared to the MT. A “minus” in formal terms is found “if a given element is present in the MT but is lacking” in another text form.33Polak and Marquis. Introduction. p 7 In regard to a comparison between texts in different languages, such as the MT and the LXX, though, there are two possible explanation for variances. It is possible that the Hebrew from which the Greek was translated did not include the element that appears to be a minus. It is also possible that the apparent minus simply reflects the choice made by a translator. While the data available in the study by Polak and Marquis does not include the Joshua and Ezekiel instances in our study, it does provide a means to analyze the instances in those books. And an analysis that is in part mechanical should help avoid potential bias. On the other hand, the output of database manipulation is dependent on the accuracy of both the database itself and the method of its manipulation. What does the CATSS database tell us when it is subjected to the analysis of minuses by Polak and Marquis?
First, CATSS finds the entire בעצם היום הזה phrase to be lacking in the LXX of Exod 12:41. In this instance, it supports all our previous analyses. In five other instances, the CATSS analysis identifies the עצם element of our phrase as a minus; that is, it finds that the word עצם was not in the text from which the LXX was translated. Those five instances are shown in Table 3.
Table 3: Instances Identified by CATSS as “Minuses” in the LXX44Polak, F. and Marquis, G. A Classified Index of the Minuses of the Septuagint: Part II: The Pentateuch . Tov, E.ed. Stellenbosch. Cape Town. 2002. Preface.
MT Verse LXX Translation Indicated Hebrew TextPage 55Indicates page number in Polak and Marquis Part II.
Gen 7:13 εν τη ημερα ταυτη היום הזה 9
Exod 12:17 εν γαρ τη ημερα ταυτη היום הזה 160
Exod 12:51 εν τη ημερα εχεινη היום הזה 160
Lev 23:21 τατην την ημεραν היום הזה 192
Deut 32:48 εν τη ημερα ταυτη היום הזה 338
While the Polack-Marquis study does not address the other instances of our study directly, it provides interesting evidence. For example:
  1. Polak-Marquis does not identify a minus in any of the three Leviticus verses that detail the requirements of the Yom Kippur observance. That suggests that the CATSS database does have the עצם element in the MT of Lev 23:28–30. But the LXX text of our phrase in each of those verses is the simple: τη ημερα ταυτη. It does not seem reasonable that the translator of Leviticus would use that translation where the MT did include עצם but essentially the same phrase; that is, τατην την ημεραν in Lev 23:21, where עצם is identified as a minus.
  2. Polak-Marquis does not identify a minus in either of the two verses that frame the text of the Abrahamic circumcision event: Gen 17:23 & 26. The LXX in both cases is εν τω χαιρω της ημερα εχεινης. If the MT contains עצם in those verses—that is, if there is no minus—we must ask where the word עצם is reflected in the Greek. Since we have the word εχεινη in Exod 12:51, which does exhibit a minus, the only “new” element in the Greek phrase in Gen 17:23 & 26 is the word χαιρω, meaning “time,” which we would not expect to represent the Hebrew עצם.66We do find עצם paralleled by the Aramaic זמן or, time, in the later Targum Neofiti, discussed below. How is it that there is no minus in these cases?
  3. While Polak-Marquis does not extend to the book of Joshua, we can observe that the LXX of Joshua 5:11, εν ταυτη τη ημερα, is the clear equivalent of the LXX of both Deut 32:48 and Gen 7:13, which read εν τη ημερα ταυτη, both of which are identified as representing minuses with respect to עצם. If there is a minus in those two cases, we would expect there to be one in Joshua also.
  4. Similarly, Polak-Marquis does not extend to Ezekiel, but we can observe that in Ezek 40:1, the LXX has εν τη ημερα εχεινη which is identical to the passage in Exod 12:51, which is identified as exhibiting a minus. That suggests that the Ezekiel 40:1 instance would also exhibit a minus.
In each of the five cases where the Polak-Marquis analysis finds that the LXX exhibits a minus relative to the MT, the balance of the phrase; that is, היום הזה, is shown as present in the MT. And, as we have seen above (see Case 2), that phrase, lacking the עצם term, is translated in exactly the same way as some of our instances that do include עצם.
Mechanical analyses do protect against bias but, by their nature, they are liable to miss unusual cases and our set of eighteen MT instances where עצם and יום are associated represent a systematically unusual case. Raising questions about a small number of the many thousands of conclusions the Polak-Marquis study presents is not intended to impugn either its quality or its value, or the quality of the CATTS database. In this specific case, though, the output of the study does seem inconsistent. If it is true that, in the case of the five instances specifically cited as minuses (six, if we include Exod 12:41), the text from which the LXX was translated did not include the term עצם, both logic and comparison of those instances to others would suggest that most, and perhaps all, of the other instances were also lacking that term. And that does seem to be likely. We can interpret the output of the Polack-Marquis study as explicitly supportive of our analysis in the six cases cited and as generally or implicitly supportive overall.
Next, we want to avoid the possibility that a decision to look only at instances of עצם that appear in the Pentateuch, Joshua, and Ezekiel might cause us to miss an important treatment of the word in the other books of the Hebrew Bible. So, we will now review all instances of עצם in the MT other than those included in Table 2 and the eighteen that are our subject. For convenience, the results will be presented at the level of the book, rather than the verse.
Table 3: Instances of עצם in Other Books of the Hebrew Bible
Categorized by LXX Translation Approach77For example, this table indicates that there are 2 instances of the Hebrew עצם in the book of Judges, both of which are clearly translated in the LXX using forms of the Greek word meaning bone . In Isaiah, there are 3 instances clearly meaning bone , 5 that have meanings of strength, might, power or a large number , 2 have the unusual meaning ofclosing the eyes , and 1 has the unusual and less clear meaning of your counsels .
Clear Greek Translation as: Unclear/Unusual:
Book Bone s, p, m, n (1) Other
Judges 2
1 Samuel 1
2 Samuel 10
1 Kings 4
2 Kings 7
Isaiah 3 5 3
Jeremiah 7 3
Joel 4
Amos 2 2
Micah 2 2
Nahum 1
Habakkuk 1
Zechariah 1
Psalms 16 10
Proverbs 3 2 2 1
Job 10 2 2
Lamentations 3 1
Ecclesiastes 1
Daniel 5
1 Chronicles 2 1
2 Chronicles 1
Totals 75 37 4 8
Meanings including forms of s trength, p ower,m ight, or n umerous/multitude.
In Table 2, which presented the translation approach to the Hebrew עצם in the LXX Pentateuch, Joshua, and Ezekiel we found that in 112 cases of 122, the LXX rendering was clear and common. The Greek words used to render the Hebrew were unambiguous and reflected the most common meanings of the Hebrew. In the analysis in Table 3, we looked at the instances of the Hebrew עצם in all the other books of the Hebrew Bible to confirm that limiting the analysis in Table 2 did not cause us to miss an important systematic pattern. It did not. There is nothing unusual; certainly, nothing systematically unusual; in the LXX treatment of עצם in any of the books of the Hebrew Bible, except in the eighteen cases we are studying where there is an association between עצם and יום.
Evidence from the Targums :
The Septuagint was the earliest translation from the Hebrew, but it was not the only early translation. The Aramaic Targum translations were made in the rabbinic period, and they were the product of knowledgeable Jewish translators working from the Masoretic Text. We know those translators faced the problem of rendering into Aramaic the unusual phrases in which the Hebrew עצם is associated with the Hebrew יום. Their solutions to the problem provide valuable insight. The Targums that are of specific interest to us are those whose aim was the literal reproduction of the texts of the Pentateuch and Prophetic books. For the Pentateuch, Targum Onkelos is the most common, and for the Prophetic books, Targum Jonathan is the standard text. Those texts represent a version of Aramaic that Flesher and Chilton term Jewish Literary Aramaic (JLA) and they were the versions accepted by the medieval Jewish commentators.88Paul V. M. Flesher and Bruce Chilton. The Targums: A Critical Introduction . Baylor University Press. Waco, TX. 2011. p 9 Another dialect of Aramaic, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic (JPA), is represented in Targum Neofiti , which translates the entire Pentateuch. So, in Onkelosand Neofiti we have two Aramaic versions of the same Hebrew text of the Pentateuch, giving us two different rabbinic views from the early rabbinic period.
There is a clear and common Aramaic word for “bone,” i.e., גרמא, and its meaning is familiar from uses such as “bone of my bones” in Gen 2:23; in references to the bones of the Passover sacrifice in Exod 12:46 and Num 9:12; and, in the account of the prophet’s vision of the “dry bones” in Ezek 37. But that is not the word the authors of the Targums use in the locations where the MT has the word עצם in the phrases of interest to us. In both Onkelos and Jonathan , the same Aramaic phrase is used consistently and exclusively to render the Hebrew בעצם היום הזה. The Aramaic is בכרן יוםא הדין. The Aramaic parallels of the variants of the phrase follow the same pattern. Where the MT has עד עצם היום הזה the Targums have עד בכרן יוםא הדין and in Ezek 24:2, the direct object marker את is replaced by the equivalent Aramaic ית.
Not only is the Aramaic כרן the consistent parallel to the Hebrew עצם in each of the eighteen cases under study; it is unique to those eighteen cases. It is found nowhere else in the Aramaic text except in two instances in which it is used as a proper name. The Targum translators, faced with the problem of rendering a Hebrew word that had a clear and common meaning, but one that was unusual in the specific context, chose to use an Aramaic word that did not have a clear and common meaning. Later Aramaic dictionaries find meanings for כרן but those meanings do not come from the use of that word in Targum translations. Jastrow, for example, gives “roundness, fullness, essence” as meanings for כרן.99We can find some support for those understandings by looking at other words that share the same consonants. He also notes that כרן יומא is the Aramaic equivalent of בעצם היום and that it can be understood as “the very day.” I will address dictionary issues more fully below but will note here only that Jastrow seems to have constructed his dictionary entry in this case more from Hebrew translation history than from Aramaic evidence.
Ramban tells us centuries later that he had seen a version ofOnkelos in which the word appears as קרן rather than כרן. That does have a clear and common meaning, i.e., horn, corner, projection, ray. Ramban argues that the two words mean the same thing; that כרן means the same thing as קרן and so he can avoid the issue of the unusual word. Regardless, it is clear and interesting that the translators ofOnkelos and Jonathan seem to have selected an Aramaic word for which we have no contemporaneous evidence of meaning, to use in rendering our eighteen instances. The Aramaic phrase directly parallels the Hebrew, and it includes both the word for day and the word uniquely chosen to translate the Hebrew עצם when it is associated with the word יום.
Targum Neofiti presents a very different Aramaic equivalent of the עצם phrases. Like Onkelos , it is a translation of the Pentateuch only, and like Onkelos it includes clear parallels to each of our subject phrases. But unlike Onkelos , Neofiti’stranslation is not the same in all eighteen cases. Its approach is consistent, but its actual language varies; not dramatically, but still obviously. Where Onkelos and Jonathan use כרן as their parallel to עצם, Neofiti uses זמן, which has the same meaning in Aramaic as it does in Hebrew, i.e., time , or a specified time. The phrase as it appears in Neofiti’s Genesis 7:13, for example, is בזמן יומא הדין. There are several variations on that phrase in Neofiti ,1010בזמן יומא דין, בזמן יומא הדן, זמן יומא הדין, הכזמן יומא הדין, כזמן יומא הדין, כזמן יום צומה but all include separate words that directly and clearly parallel עצם and יום. And, lest there be any doubt about the Hebrew source, in two instances, Gen 7:13 & 26, the manuscript of Neofiti provides an actual translation note, in the scribe’s text itself, informing the reader that בזמן יומא is the translator’s rendering of בעצם היום. The Hebrew phrase is given as a note in the body of the Aramaic text.1111The text I refer to is a photocopy of the hand-lettered Neofitiscroll held in the Vatican library.
The differences in Neofiti’s translations do not materially affect meaning. In the case of Lev 23:29, though, the “day” referenced is not described by הדין as it is elsewhere, but rather by צומא, specifically identifying the day—Yom Kippur—as a fast day. The key distinction for our purposes between the Targums written in Jewish Literary Aramaic and Targum Neofiti , is that Neofiticonstructs its translation of the עצם phrase around an Aramaic word that is both common and clear.
The key distinction between the LXX translations and the Targum translations is that the Targums provide direct parallels for the word עצם whereas the LXX does not. The differences between theOnkelos/Jonathan use of כרן and Neofiti’s use of זמן is an interesting study in itself, but the fact that both are direct renderings of the Hebrew עצם is unambiguous. The evidence from the Targums suggests that the translators of the LXX did not work from a Hebrew text that included the word עצם in the eighteen verses that are our subject.
There is another translation from roughly the same period as the Targums that we should consider also, and its evidence is less straightforward. The Peshitta is an important translation from the Hebrew to the Syriac dialect of Aramaic made in the first centuries CE. Tov says that its Hebrew source was “close to MT, although reflecting more variants than the Targumim.”1212Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 152 Flesher and Chilton conclude that its source was proto-MT.1313Flesher and Chilton, The Targums, 356 The word peshitta means “simple,” which is understood to convey an idea similar to that of the Latin Vulgate. That is, it intended to be a plain and understandable version of the text. The translation of the individual books was done “at different times by different authors … using different translation approaches.”1414Flesher and Chilton, The Targums, 357 But the Peshitta phrases that are parallel to the Hebrew עצם phrases are very close to being uniform. In twelve of the fourteen instances of the Hebrew בעצם היום הזה the Peshitta gives the Syriac בה ביומא הנא,1515For convenience I do not use the Syriac script. which is specific and emphatic but lacks a word directly corresponding to עצם. In one additional case the difference is inconsequential. In the three עד עצם variants the Peshitta gives clear parallels to the Hebrew, also lacking the עצם term, with minor differences in form.
Flesher and Chilton note that the Peshitta translators took a generally literal approach to their renderings of the Hebrew text but that, in seeking clarity, they used substitution, omission, addition, transposition, and paraphrase. They find that, “the Peshitta frequently uses omission … by simply leaving out words without making any changes in the surrounding text.”1616Flesher and Chilton, The Targums, 360 If the source text of the Peshitta was very close to the MT of the first centuries CE, it almost certainly contained the Hebrew phrases that are our subject. The Targum translators, working at the same time, found it necessary to represent the עצם term. It seems likely that the Peshitta translators, seeking simplicity, did not find it necessary to do so. They retained the Hebrew references to a specific day, and they did so with an approach that is consistent and uniform. Allowing themselves to avoid the difficulty of providing a direct parallel to the word עצם might have seemed a reasonable choice. We cannot be certain, of course, but the lack of certainty from thePeshitta evidence does not diminish the strength of the evidence from the Targums.