So I continued looking in the vision of the night on my bed and, lo, a holy eir descended from heaven (
v. 13). By
eir he refers to the watcher, the meaning in Greek. By watcher he means an angel,
110 thus bringing out its bodiless form: what is clad in a body is subject to sleeping, whereas what is rid of a body is superior to the need for sleeping. So he means, I saw an angel, bodiless in nature, who descended from heaven.
Footnote 110: It is not that Theodoret goes behind his text to cite the Hebrew form ir: he finds it thus in Theodotion. This is the only use of the word in the Old Testament in reference to an angel, though it is (according to Alexander Di Lella, “Daniel,” NJBC, 413) frequently so used in Jewish apocryphal works and at Qumran.
17 comments:
"The churches of the Lord savior do not read the prophet Daniel according to the seventy interpreters, using [instead] the edition of Theodotion, and I do not know why this happened. For whether because the speech is Chaldean and differs in certain properties from our expression, [or whether] the seventy interpreters were not willing to preserve the same lines of language in the translation, or whether the book was edited under their name by some unknown other who did not sufficiently know the Chaldean language, or whether I am ignorant of anything else which was the cause, I can affirm this one thing, that it is much discordant from the truth and with proper judgment is repudiated."
Jerome
"While lying in his bed, Nebuchadnezzar continued to see developments that affected the tree. In the Aramaic text, he is quoted as saying, “I was seeing in the visions of my head on my bed.” The Greek text of Theodotion refers to a “vision of the night upon my bed,” whereas the Septuagint indicates that Nebuchadnezzar continued “looking in [his] sleep.” He saw a “watcher” (an “angel” [LXX]; “ir” [a transliteration of the Aramaic word ‘ir in the text of Theodotion]), a “holy one,” descending “from the heavens.” According to the Septuagint, the “angel was sent in power from heaven,” suggesting that the angel was empowered or granted the authority to make the proclamation that had to be unfailingly fulfilled. (4:13 [4:10])"
https://wernerbiblecommentary.org/?q=node/732
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43075270?read-now=1&seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents
From http://www.bible-researcher.com/isbelxx01.html
Long extracts from Theodotion are preserved in codex Q in Jeremiah. As regards the additional matter contained in Septuagint, Theodotion was inconsistent; he admitted, e.g., the additions to Daniel (Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, and the Song of the Three Children), but did not apparently admit the non-canonical books as a whole. The church adopted his Daniel in place of the inadequate Septuagint version, which has survived in only one Greek manuscript; but the date when the change took place is unknown and the early history of the two Greek texts is obscure. Theodotion’s renderings have been found in writings before his time (including the New Testament), and it is reasonably conjectured that even before the 2nd century AD the Septuagint text had been discarded and that Theodotion’s version is but a working over of an older alternative version. Theodotion is free from the barbarisms of Aquila, but is addicted to transliteration, i.e. the reproduction of Hebrew words in Greek letters. His reasons for this habit are not always clear; ignorance of Hebrew will not account for all (compare VIII, 1, [5], below).
http://www.kalvesmaki.com/LXX/lxxfaq.htm
I respect Kalvesmaki's work, and have read his site for years. His introduction is good for the non-specialist, but I notice that he does not mention Theodotion, etc., on that page. Maybe elsewhere. Thanks.
Note also what Jerome writes about Theodotion here: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf206.vii.ii.viii.html
It was just that theodotion is regularly compared to the lxx as if the lxx is a single entity.
http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00001421/00001/1j
Just came across this but have yet to read.
https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004276093/B9789004276093-s015.xml
https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/58706/1/Bledsoe_Relationship.pdf
I've got both volumes of the Brill work on Daniel. Have not read them yet, but they look well done. Also downloaded the Bledsoe article. Thanks.
I like that contrast between sleeping and the being awake as a "Watcher."
Good point, Jim. Ancient Judaism seemed to like this contrast and the language regarding watchers.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt22nmb25
http://www.augsburgfortress.org/media/downloads/9780800699789Chapter1.pdf
https://www.academia.edu/23341221/Stars_and_Spirits_Heavenly_Bodies_in_Ancient_Jewish_Aramaic_Tradition
https://www.academia.edu/3411829/The_Figures_of_the_Watchers_in_the_Enochic_Traditions_1-3_Enoch
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