A Comment on “The Dictionary Objection”:
An objection might be raised that Hebrew dictionaries allow עצם to have
a meaning of “self,” and that a reading of the LXX translations might
find a similar meaning, even absent a Greek term directly parallel to
the Hebrew עצם. There are Hebrew sources that support such a meaning,
e.g., Mishnah Pirke Avot 1:15, where לעצמי is understood to mean
”for myself.” Jastrow gives several examples from the Talmud, theTosefta, and the early halachic midrashim to further illustrate
such uses.11Jastrow, Marcus. Dictionary of the Targumim,
Talmud Bavli, Yerushalmi and Midrashic Literature . The Judaica Press.
New York. 1996 But where we find עצמי in the biblical text, the word
is understood to have its common meaning of bone . In Gen 29:14
and in several other instances, for example, עצמי ובשרי is understood as
“my bone and my flesh” (NRSV) or in other versions sometimes
idiomatically as “my flesh and blood.” Vocalized differently it is
understood as a plural possessive in several instances, e.g., Hab 3:16
or Psalm 31:11, or as all the bones together as in Psalm 139:15, where
it is understood as “my frame,” meaning the complex of bones
comprising the skeleton. Similarly, instances that later Hebrew might
understand as an inflected form of a pronoun or noun such as עצמו or
עצמך are not understood in that way in the biblical text. They are
understood as referring to actual bones as opposed to
either actual or metaphorical selves . There are a few unusual
uses of forms of עצם in the Hebrew text, besides those that are our
subject, e.g., Exod 24:10 וכעצם השמים which is understood to mean
“very,” as in “like the very heaven.” In that specific case, as we
found in Table 2, there is no direct parallel to עצם in the LXX. Or, in
Job 21:23 where בעצם תמו is understood by NRSV to mean “full
prosperity” or by NJPS as “robust health.” But ideas of עצם as
meaning “self” in Hebrew dictionaries seem to derive from two sources:
1) usage that is later than the biblical texts,22Of the texts
found in the Judean Desert, only the Temple Scroll (11QT) contains our
subject phrase. At Col 25:12 the phrase is found in text that
parallels Lev 23:29, which deals with observance of Yom Kippur. At Col
18:3 it includes a parallel to the variant of the phrase found in Lev
23:14 marking the beginning of the period of counting the omer ,
leading to Shavuot. which does not provide evidence for earlier use,
or 2) attempts to support a meaning using our subject instances as
examples. In that case the argument becomes circular.
Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)33Brown, F, Driver, S., and Briggs, C.The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon .
Hendrickson; Peabody, MA Seventh Printing. Reprinted from 1906 edition
by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. p 782, for example, cites our
subject phrase to support the definition “self” as used in “this
selfsame day.” But that phrase comes from the first translation of the
Hebrew to English by John Tyndale in 1530. And Tyndale, as he searched
for a way to render the unusual phrase, might have found it in Chaucer’s
use of “selfsame” in The Canterbury Tales .44TheOxford English Dictionary cites lines 1037–1040 of Chaucer’s
1386 work, The Wife of Bath’s Tale, as the earliest use of
self-same. Some editions of Chaucer lack the word self-same in that
passage but include it in The Knight’s Tale , The Nun’s
Tale , or The Man of Law’s Tale . The example given in the OED
entry supports an understanding of the word as meaning “exactly.”
BDB built on the work of Wilhelm Gesenius whose German version of theHebrew Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures was
translated into English by Samuel Tregelles in 1857.55Gesenius,
Wilhelm. Hebrew Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament
Scriptures . Samuel Tregelles, trans . S. Bagster. London. 1857
Gesenius allowed the Hebrew עצם the meaning, “itself … but only
used of things, e.g., בעצם היום הזה.” That is contrary to the personal
use in Pirke Avot , but similar to the approach taken by The
Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT),66Koehler,
Baumgartner, et al. Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old
Testament . Leiden. Brill. 2000 which finds that עצם in our phrases
functions as ”an expression of complete agreement,” finding it to mean
“this day exactly.” The understandings of both Gesenius and HALOT are
consistent with the way Chaucer used the word “selfsame” and the idea
that Tyndale might have wanted to convey in his translation. Cline’sDictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH)77Clines, David J. A.Dictionary of Classical Hebrew . 7 vols. Sheffield Academic
Press. Sheffield. 1993-2001 provides a meaning of עצם as “self,
substance,” citing “עצם היום הזה, this selfsame day, this very day,
lit. ‘bone of this day.”’ DCH, then, acknowledges both the literal
meaning and the renderings found in prior translation history. “This
selfsame day” and “this very day” are both common English
translations. But using a translation to support a definition is not the
same as finding independent support in the text itself or in other
contemporaneous sources.
There is no question that forms of עצם came to be used in reflexive
senses by the time of the early midrashim and of the Mishnah , but
we do not find עצם having the meaning of “self” in the MT, certainly
not in the simple singular form. Later understandings found in both
Hebrew and Aramaic dictionaries have been influenced by the uses in the
early rabbinic period and by the early English translation history. But
that is not evidence of the approach the translators of the LXX would
have taken. It seems far more likely that the LXX translators, or at
least one of them, would have approached the problem as the Targum
translators did, finding a specific Greek word to occupy the place of
עצם in association with the Greek equivalent of יום. What purpose might
have been served by a deliberate and systematic decision to avoid
providing a literal translation or at least an unambiguous parallel to a
common Hebrew word in the eighteen cases of interest to us? The
dictionary objection does not seem persuasive.
Summary :
- In eighteen instances, the text of the MT associates the Hebrew word
for “day” with the Hebrew word for “bone.” In one case the LXX has
no parallel to the MT. In the seventeen cases where the LXX does have
a parallel, none contains the Greek for the word “bone;” that is, no
form of the Greek οστεων parallels the Hebrew עצם (see Table 1).
- It is clear, however, that the LXX translators understood quite well
the common meanings of עצם. In the biblical books in which the
instances we are studying appear, we can find many other cases in
which forms of עצם are used and in essentially all of those cases the
LXX translators provide clear Greek equivalents. Our eighteen
instances are notable as exceptions. It is the association of “bone”
and “day” that defines those exceptions as a class (See Table 2).
- Analysis of the LXX translations of other MT instances of the word יום
finds that the same Greek translations that parallel our eighteen
instances are often used to translate Hebrew phrases that do not
include the word עצם. That is, in some cases a Hebrew instance as
simple as היום or היום הזה is translated in the LXX in the same way as
the more complex בעצם היום הזה. (See Cases 1–6, above). One obvious
explanation for the lack of a reflection of עצם in the Greek is that
it was not present in the Hebrew.
- Frank Polak and Galen Marquis produced a comprehensive study of the
cases in which the LXX does not contain material that is found in the
MT, which they term “minuses.” Their study found that the LXX had no
parallel for the MT instance at Exodus 12:41, confirming other
approaches detailed above. It also identified five of our instances as
specific “minuses;” that is, cases in which the LXX does not reflect
a Hebrew source text that contained the word עצם. The Polak-Marquis
study was only of the Pentateuch, but we can see by direct examination
that the instances in both Joshua and Ezekiel would fit the pattern of
“minuses” produced by their study. There are other instances in
which Polak-Marquis found a given more complex Greek
translation of a phrase to exhibit a minus, which suggests thatless complex Greek phrases among our eighteen are also likely
to be minuses. The Polak-Marquis study provides support to the
argument that the Hebrew text from which the LXX was translated lacked
the עצם term in the instances we are studying.
- The Aramaic Targum translations render our subject Hebrew phrases into
parallel Aramaic phrases. Both Targum Onkelos and Targum
Jonathan consistently use the unique word, כרן, to translate the
Hebrew עצם. That word is used nowhere else in the Aramaic except as a
proper name. Both the Hebrew words for “bone” and for “day” are
clearly paralleled in the Aramaic phrase. The Hebrew is directly
paralleled also in Targum Neofiti . In that version, the
translator varied the Aramaic parallel text somewhat, but in all cases
provided a direct parallel for the word עצם using the Aramaic זמן. We
would expect that, among the multiple translators of the LXX texts, at
least one would have taken an approach similar to that of the Targum
translators, providing a directly parallel Greek word to render the
Hebrew עצם if, in fact, עצם were present in their Hebrew source.
- The “dictionary objection” can be answered. The understanding of the
word עצם as “self” is not found in the biblical texts. The fact that
it came to have such a meaning later cannot be used to argue that the
LXX translators would have found it to have that meaning. Nor can the
use of English translations of our phrase that include the word
“selfsame” to render עצם be used as evidence of such a meaning.
Conclusion:
There is no evidence that the Hebrew text from which the LXX was
translated included the Hebrew word עצם in the eighteen instances under
study. We can conclude that the Hebrew source of the LXX did not include
עצם in those eighteen locations.
Bibliography
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Online text resources :
Greek, English, and Hebrew Texts of the bible were accessed at
https://www.academic-bible.com/en/online-bibles, which uses the
Septuagint edited by Alfred Ralfs in the Second Revised Edition of
Robert Hanhart. Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. Stuttgart. 2006 andThe Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia edition by Deutsche
Bibelgesellschaft. Stuttgart. 1967/77.
Texts of rabbinic sources were accessed at www.sefaria.org
Greek and English Texts of The Apostolic Polyglot were accessed at
https://www.biblehub.com/interlinear/apostolic/
Greek and English Texts of the LXX were accessed at
www.ellopos.net, which uses the Brenton
translation of (Primarily) Codex Vaticanus
Greek and English Texts were accessed at Tyndale House STEP bible at
www.stepbible.org, which uses a
morphologically tagged Ralfs Version of the LXX.
Greek and English Texts were accessed at
www.studylight.com