The LXX Tradition
And the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets passed on before the Lord, and afterwards the warriors entered, and the rest of the crowd behind the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and the priests sounded with the trumpets. And all the rest of the crowd encircled the city from close at hand Joshua 6:13 LXX (Pietersma and Wright, translators, Oxford University Press)
Afterwards – Many scholars argue that the LXX represents a separate source tradition from the Masoretic text. There is a good deal of evidence to support such a claim. Not only are there differences in the translated text, the LXX has additions and subtractions from the Masoretic version, and it is at least 1000 years older. As an example, let’s look at this verse in Joshua, the same one we examined yesterday concerning the jumble of verb tenses.
The first thing to notice is that the LXX doesn’t follow the same order of the groups of people. The Masoretic text records the order as the armed men, the priests, and the rear guard. From the previous verse, we also know that the general population was first in order, so that the full procession was people, army, priests, rear guard. You will recognize that this is atypical. In the wilderness, the ark and the priests always led the way with the armed men preceding the people as protection. But when the population arrived at Jericho, Joshua changed the order. There was a reason for this change. By putting the general population in the front, God demonstrated that the battle was not a usual one. In fact, it was a battle that would not be fought with the army. IT was entirely God’s doing.
However, the LXX doesn’t record this change. Instead, it says that warriors came after the priests and the general population followed behind them. Where the Masoretic text reads, “the armed men went ahead of them,” the LXX reads “and afterwards the warriors entered.” It can’t be both, can it? So, which is correct? Did the population follow the usual arrangement as suggested in the LXX, or was the arrangement deliberately changed, as the Masoretic text suggests. This might seem like an insignificant detail. After all, the real story is the destruction of the walls of Jericho. But rabbinic exegesis has made a great deal about this change, arguing that it demonstrates God’s deliberate exhibition of the miraculous event. If we follow the LXX, this foreshadowing doesn’t appear. Of course, the story is enhanced with the Masoretic reading, but the problem is that the LXX is much older and on that basis may be a more accurate rendition of the event. Time tends to expand miracles in the same way that the three-pound fish you caught becomes six pounds in later accounts.
If embellishment were the only issue, we might wink at the text and let it go. But there’s another more serious problem. Jewish tradition claims that the LXX is a perfect, divinely inspired translation of the original. In fact, the legend is that 70 Jewish scholars were each assigned the job independently and each one produced exactly the same translation (this is where LXX gets its name). This dogma precludes any variation between the LXX and the MT. And that’s a big problem. Perhaps we have to add one more step in our exegesis of the Hebrew Bible. Perhaps we need to check with the LXX each time we take a closer look.
Topical Index: LXX, before, afterward, Joshua 6:13
