The Asterisked Materials in the Greek Job (review)

Hebrew Studies 37 (1996) 207 Reviews assistance" (Tg. Ps-J. 18:4), I would render "the God of my father was my help" (cf. Tg. Neo! 18:4; Tg. Ps-J. 3:12; 10:10; 18:19). Jerome A. Lund Hebrew Union College Cincinnati, OH 45220 THE ASTERISKED MATERIALS IN THE GREEK JOB. By Peter John Gentry. SBL Septuagint and Cognate Studies 38. pp. xxxvii + 559. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995. Paper, $33.95. Peter Gentry's study of the asterisked materials in the Greek Job is a "slightly revised and corrected version" of his Ph.D. thesis, prepared under the supervision of John Wevers and Albert Pietersma and submitted at the University of Toronto in 1994. Gentry undertakes to carry out a thoroughgoing investigation of the extent, character, and textual affiliation of these materials based upon the edition of the Greek Job which offers the most comprehensive picture of textual evidence available, the one prepared by Joseph Ziegler and published in the Gottingen Septuagint series (lob, Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum, 11/4). Ziegler's lemma or printed text is not, in fact, a critical reconstruction of the Septuagint (LXX)-the usual goal for editors of the Gottingen Septuagint-but of the so-called ecclesiastical text of Job. This is a hybrid consisting of the LXX and of R, a subsequent revision/translation attributed to Theodotion, which was used by the Christian church after the textual activity of the third century scholar, Origen, the compiler of the Hexapla. Origen's aim in putting together the Hexapla was to bring the LXX-which in Job manifests a quite free, rather than a literal, translation techniqueinto conformity with the Hebrew, employing Greek versions like that of Theodotion which were already more closely aligned to it. To that end, wherever he found that the LXX was shorter than the Hebrew he would add what was "missing" from one of the other versions available to him and bracket the addition with an asterisk (*) and a metobelus ('<'). Ziegler's lemma consists both of lines that are marked by, and those that lack, the above-mentioned Aristarchian signs. In the first chapter of his book, Gentry scrutinizes these marked readings which comprise the bulk of the R corpus and concludes that 389.5 stichs-approximately one-sixth of Hebrew Studies 37 (1996) 208 Reviews the ecclesiastical text-belong to R. The remaining R materials, "gleaned from the Church Fathers and from the Catena manuscripts" (p. 12), are published by Ziegler in Apparatus II of his edition and by Ursula and Dieter Hagedorn in Nachlese zu den Fragmenten der jiingeren griechischen Ubersetzer des Buches Hiob (Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Gottingen, I, Philologisch-Historische Klasse, no. 10). Gentry provides lists of readings that are attributed to Theodotion alone as well as those that are associated with Theodotion and other sources, but he decides that only those whose attribution is solely Theodotionic may be included , along with the 389.5 lines described above, in his analysis of the character of R. His careful study of this delimited corpus reveals homogeneity with respect to translation technique and confirms that all these materials have a common source. Gentry devotes chapter two of his book to an exhaustive (nearly 300 pages) investigation of R materials in Job in order to delineate the habits and patterns of the revisor/translator and so determine the nature of his text. This is accomplished by means of a detailed examination of R's technique in rendering the Hebrew text both structurally and lexically. This analysis shows that R's approach is quite literal, though tempered at times by contextual considerations. In chapter three, Gentry tackles the question of R's affiliation and place within the textual tradition of the Greek Old Testament. His procedure is to compare and contrast R with the LXX and with three additional congeners: the Greek Minor Prophets Scroll published by Dominique Barthelemy in Les Devanciers d'Aquila, which exhibits the so-called Kaige text (designated thus because of the characteristic 01/01' =KalYE equivalency); the Greek Psalter; and Aquila. This exercise shows that R has more in common with these latter three than with the LXX. In fact, Gentry's conclusion with regard to R and the LXX is that R is an independent and later translation of "roughly the same Hebrew parent text" that lies behind the LXX (p. 385). As for R and the others, Gentry determines that: (1) R and the Minor Prophets Scroll agree to some extent with regard to translation technique but differ in that the latter is a revision of an earlier Greek translation, not a de novo translation; (2) there is some evidence of the influence of the Greek Psalter on R, though other LXX translators have influenced R as well; (3) the extremely literal version of Aquila constitutes "a high refinement of the translation technique developing in R" in that "it is a more rigid and systematic attempt to represent the Hebrew quantitatively" (p. 492). Hebrew Studies 37 (1996) 209 Reviews In chapter four, Gentry summarizes his main conclusions about R's textual character and place within the textual tradition. He goes on to assert that the attribution of R to Theodotion, which is ultimately derived from Origen's Hexapla, is reliable and that the date of this translation is, like that of the Minor Prophets Scroll, "the early first century A.D." (p. 497). This is earlier than the second century date normally assigned to Theodotion based on patristic testimony. However, the later date has given rise to the theory of a Proto- or Ur-Theodotion to account for a text type that exhibits Theodotionic style but that is attested prior to the second century. Gentry rejects the possibility of more than one Theodotionic version of Job, declaring emphatically that "the materials analyzed here constitute true Theodotion" (p. 498). But he does not speculate as to who this translator was, or what the relationship between Theodotion in Job and Theodotion in other parts of the Bible might be. Such questions, he maintains, fall outside the scope of his study. The book concludes with four appendixes which round out Gentry's presentation and discussion of the evidence for R, a list of proposed corrections to the ecclesiastical text of Ziegler's edition and a bibliography of cited works. Peter Gentry's volume is a significant contribution to Septuagint studies. It evinces erudition and sound methodology. His grasp of the issues and control of the literature in the field is good. He thoroughly investigates translation technique in order to gain leverage on the crucial questions of R's textual character and place within the history of the transmission of the Septuagint. Gentry's book is not without deficiencies, although, on the whole, they have to do with presentation rather than substance. A more comprehensive list of sigla and abbreviations would be helpful to the reader. For example, Gentry uses the prefix "j" to distinguish references of R materials recorded in Ziegler's Apparatus II from those found in the lemma. This infonnation is buried in footnote 52 on page 26. Similarly, the siglum "H" is used to differentiate between material gleaned from the Hagedoms and that recorded in Ziegler's Apparatus II. This is explained only on page 40 in the middle of chapter one. Indexes of at least subjects and authors would also be welcome. Occasional spelling mistakes and transliteration errors have escaped detection. On page 25, there is a transposition of Hebrew words at the break of a line ('l::l c·n?~(i1». Sections of awkward prose are in need of refinement. Hebrew Studies 37 (1996) 210 Reviews The preceding shortcomings do not, however, diminish the importance of Gentry's study. It breaks new ground in elucidating the complex textual picture of the Greek Job. Robert J. V. Hiebert Ontario Bible College and Theological Seminary North York, Ontario M2M 4B3 Canada FROM EVE TO ESTHER-RABBINIC RECONSTRUCTION OF BIBLICAL WOMEN. By Leila Leah Bronner. Pp. 214. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1994. Paper, $18.99. Leila Leah Bronner's From Eve to Esther presents rabbinic reconstructions of biblical women. The book is one in a series on "Gender and the Biblical Tradition," which includes Katheryn Darr's Far More Precious Than Jewels: Perspective on Biblical Women (1991) and Cheryl Anne Brown's No Longer Be Silent: First Century Jewish Portraits of Biblical Women (1992). Bronner has introductory and concluding chapters, a chapter on "Aggadic Attitudes towards Women," chapters on Eve, Sarah bat Asher, Ruth, Hannah, and Deborah, and on daughterhood and marginalized women. Bronner carefully distinguishes between the portrayal of biblical women in halakhic literature, which has received the greater scholarly attention, and the portrayal of women in aggadic literature . She also underscores that female modesty was a dominant value to the rabbis-what she describes as "a form of social control" {p. 6)-and pursues how this value is reflected in the rabbis' literary portrayal of women. Bronner is careful not to make sweeping assertions. Her study of rabbinic sources reveals that the rabbinic attitude toward women is complex, what she calls "problematic," and "riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions " (p. 15). Rabbinic interpretation subordinates Eve to Adam and, consequently, women to men; Eve's name is not connected with life but with forbidden knowledge, lust and temptation, sin and death. Her depiction justifies male dominance and female subordination in Judaism. Bronner accurately subtitles the chapter on Eve as "Temptation, Modesty, and the Valorization of Matrimony." On the other hand, rabbinic interpretation takes Sarah, granddaughter of Jacob, and transforms her, endowing her with spiritual and prophetic qualities totally absent from her role in the biblical text. In rabbinic literature she receives from Asher the secret of ...