A New Approach to Using the Old Greek in Hebrew Bible Textual Criticism

Emanuel Tov’s published methodology for using the Old Greek in textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible has been the gold standard for all such methods. I present a new approach by building on Tov’s methodology. Although Tov accounts for the reality of Hebrew variants within the mind of the translator, he explores the idea only with regards to scribal errors, leaving most changes stemming from “contextual exegesis” to be categorized as inner-translational and inadmissible in the text critical endeavor. I argue for an extension of Tov’s method by considering other ways in which a scribe working in Hebrew could have made the changes commonly attributed to the translator. In contrast to Tov’s method, I suggest we center our use of the Old Greek in textual criticism around one main criterion: if Hebrew can be reconstructed on the basis of clear translation patterns, the evidence should be used in textual criticism.