The Septuagint as Christian Scripture: Its Pre-History and the Problem of Its Canon (review)

Hebrew Studies 45 (2004) 356 Reviews Gog / Magog, Gr. Gw¿g / Magw¿g, Heb. gOw…g / gOwgDm, cf. Rev 20:8. Herod, Gr. ÔHrwˆ¿dhß, from Gr. h¢rwß, cf. Matt 14:3; Mark 6:17. Immanuel/Emmanuel, Gr. ∆Emmanouh/l, Heb. lEa …wnD;mIo, cf. Matt 1:23. Priscilla, Gr. Pri÷skilla, cf. Acts 18:2. Saul, Gr. Saou¿l, Sauvloß, Heb. l…waDv, cf. Acts 9:4; 13:9. Theudas, Gr. Qeuda◊ß, cf. Acts 5:36. Zacchaeus, Gr. Zakcai√oß, Heb. yA;kÅz, cf. Luke 19:1–9. I congratulate Tal Ilan for her superb work. It is really an indispensable tool for biblical scholars, Semitist researchers, students of history, and workers in many other fields: religion, social affairs, etc. It was a long-needed resource, and now we only anxiously wait for the second part, dedicated to the Greco-Roman domination and rule in Palestine from 200 C.E. onwards. But another desideratum would be welcome: the toponymy of Jewish Palestine. The same method employed by Tal Ilan would be very helpful in meeting this need. It is a pleasure to read each of Tal Ilan’s pages. Luis Díez Merino Universidad de Barcelona Barcelona, Spain diezmerino@ub.edu THE SEPTUAGINT AS CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURE: ITS PREHISTORY AND THE PROBLEM OF ITS CANON. By Martin Hengel. OTS. Pp. xvi + 153. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2002. Cloth, $49.95. £25,00. This book represents a reworked and supplemented English version of M. Hengel’s work on “the canon of the Septuagint,” available piecemeal in German for over a decade. Hengel offers a concise, focused, and accessible presentation of a broad range of data that will be useful to scholars in a variety of fields. According to Hengel, the Septuagint is far undervalued in biblical scholarship , in general, and Christian theology, in particular. At best, non-specialists use it as an auxiliary reference work for individual verses and sections. This neglect, he argues, has resulted in a distorted view of the historical and theological value of the Septuagint. Against such a background, the purpose of the book is two-fold. Writing as an historian of antiquity, Hengel aims to present an overview and synthesis of the historical evidence pertaining to the origin and reception history of “the Septuagint,” with particular reference to “the problem of its canon.” This task is largely descriptive. In Hengel’s own estimation, the book is “in essence…only an extensive outline of the problem Hebrew Studies 45 (2004) 357 Reviews (with a few idiosyncratic marginal comments)” (p. 19). Writing as a Neutestamentler and Christian theologian, however, Hengel’s underlying concern is theological and prescriptive. In a broad sense, the book is an argument regarding the proper object of inquiry for biblical theology. In Hengel’s view, the Septuagint is vitally important because it shows “particularly in its latest writings…that the ‘Old Testament’ lasted into the first century AD, that is, until the time of Jesus and early Christianity” (p. xii). This provocative statement is left undeveloped in the preface. The reader unacquainted with other Tübingen tradition-historical approaches to biblical theology and canon (e.g., Hartmut Gese, Peter Stuhlmacher) must wait until the final pages of the book for the full implications to unfold. Hengel begins with a chapter aptly titled “A Difficult Problem.” Given the fact that we have no evidence for a pre-Christian “collection of canonical value, unambiguously and clearly delimited, distinguishable through its greater scope from the canon of Hebrew Bible in the realm of the historical books and wisdom writings and written in Greek” (p. 19), and given furthermore that the New Testament does not relate itself to such a “broader canon,” the difficult problem to which the book title refers is this: “How did it come about that the collection of Jewish writings in the Greek language, significantly larger than the scope of the Hebrew Bible, become, under the designation of ‘the Seventy,’ the authoritative ‘Holy Scriptures’ of the Old Testament in the Christian church?” (p. 22). In successive chapters treating the Christian appropriation and consolidation of the Septuagint (chaps. 2 and 3), the origins of “the Jewish LXX” (chap. 4) and of “the Christian Septuagint” (chap...