Parallel Old Testament – TANAKH®

Dn 3:15-18 (note courage of the three “worthies” who are about to be thrown in the furnace and miraculously spared.

15 . . . But if you all do not pay homage, in that moment you all will be thrown into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. And who is He, the God that will rescue you all from my hands? 16 And answered Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to give you an answer on this matter. 17 If that is so,i our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace. And from your hands, O king, He will deliver us! 18 And if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods. And we will not pay homage to the golden image, which you have erected.”

Nm 14:10-15 (Greek Septuagint column); note Moses’ intercession with God for Israelites when God promises to make of his descendants a new nation. Greek spelling of Moses is Mouses.

10 And all the congregation said to stone them with stones. And the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud over the Tent of Witness before the sons of Israel. 11 And the Lord said to Mouses, “How long will this people provoke Me to wrath?ii And how long will they not believe Me among all the signs that I do in their midst? 12 And I will strike them with death, and I will destroy them. And I will make you and the house of your father into a great nation, and much greater than this.”

13 And Mouses said to the Lord, And Egypt will hear, for You brought up this people by Your might from them. 14 And moreover, all those dwelling on the land will hear that You, You are Lord among this people, You who are seen with eyes by eyes, Lord. And Your cloud stands over them. And in a pillar of cloud You go before them by day, and in a pillar of fire by night. 15 And if You rub out this people as one man, then the nations, as many as have heard of Your name, will speak, saying, 16 ‘Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land that He swore to them, He killed them in the wilderness.’

 We are presenting to the reader two new English translations of the First Testament, commonly known as the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) or the Christian Old Testament. We position these two translations side by side in a parallel format, with the translation from the Greek in the left column and the translation from the Hebrew in the right. (Daniel has a third column, Theodotion’s Greek). Why do we need two new translations of these 39 books with so many translations already available? Several characteristics about this work make it unique and unlike any other translation currently available. 

Nearly all Bible translations, English and otherwise, share certain characteristics. The Old Testament is based on the best ancient Hebrew manuscripts (of which roughly eight chapters are in Aramaic), while the New Testament is based on the best ancient Greek manuscripts.

 However, this raises a question. If the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew and Aramaic, why would we desire to translate it from any other language? What is the benefit to today’s reader of having translations from both Hebrew and Greek? The Greek translation, commonly known as the Septuagint, is valuable for the following reasons: 

1. It is the first accurate translation of all Hebrew Scriptures into a new language. An earlier Aramaic translation was an incomplete paraphrase.
2.  After Jewish scholars translated it, the Greek Septuagint was the Scripture that Jews used most frequently for the 300 years immediately prior to and during Jesus’ time. Jews did not return to primary usage of the Hebrew Scriptures until after the Septuagint became popular with Christians. The Septuagint, therefore, provides valuable insights into several hundred years of Jewish understandings, traditions, and theologies, particularly during the time when Christianity developed from Judaism. 
3.  The Greek Septuagint frequently reflects older Hebrew textual readings, which are closer to the original, more accurately than does the Hebrew text we have today. The Septuagint often reads very close to some Dead Sea Scroll readings, which together sometimes read differently than today’s Hebrew text. Today’s Hebrew text dates from 500–1000 CE and reflects small changes that entered the text. Access to older texts should be useful to Jews, Christians, Moslems, and other serious students of the original Hebrew Scriptures. 
4. Along with other early translations of the Hebrew Bible, such as the Syriac, or Aramaic, the Greek Septuagint preserves and witnesses to a certain “Messianic luster” in key passages throughout the Old Testament, which once were a part of the original Hebrew text. This is important for those who want to understand Jewish messianic expectations before the time of Jesus of Nazareth.
5.  Over 300 passages in the New Testament consist of quotations from the Old Testament that primarily employ wording that comes from the Greek Septuagint. About 80% of New Testament quotations from the Old Testament come from the Greek Septuagint, rather than from the original Hebrew. This is to be expected because (a) both Jews and Christians in the first century CE preferred the Greek Old Testament over the Hebrew Old Testament (see #2 above) and (b) the New Testament was also written in Greek. 
6. The Greek Septuagint was the Scripture used most consistently by Jesus and His apostles—both orally and in writing (as in #5 above). They frequently prefaced quotations of the Greek Old Testament with formulas such as “as it is written,” or “to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet” (e.g., Matt. 4:14). They therefore recognized its divine inspiration.
7. The Greek Septuagint Old Testament and the Greek New Testament were the Scriptures used by the Christian church for the first 400 years of its existence. Therefore, these Greek texts had a profound impact on the development of early church doctrines and theologies. Early church fathers used these Greek Scriptures almost exclusively when developing such concepts as (a) the nature of Christ, (b) which books should be included and excluded in the Christian Bible, and (c) the order in which these books should be arranged.

The books of the Old Testament were written in Hebrew between roughly 1400 and 500 BCE.

Abraham, father of many nations, including Jews, moved from Ur, or Babylon (the region of modern Iraq), to Canaan (the region of modern Israel and Palestine) around 1800 BCE. His descendants occupied that land continuously (except for a 400 to 430-year removal to Egypt) until 586 BCE, largely keeping their language and culture intact. In 586, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, began forcibly moving the Jews to Babylon. There they largely lost their Hebrew language. Aramaic, closely related to Hebrew, was the language they learned and used while in Babylon. After 70 years, groups of Jews returned to their homeland under the Persian and Greek Empires.

Aramaic was the first language the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into. A translation from Hebrew into Aramaic was known as a “targum.” Many of the earliest targums were expansionistic. That is, they were explanations, such as Jewish legends and traditions reflecting Hebrew thought, that were often added to the basic text. Later Aramaic translations, though incomplete, tended to be more literal.

Beginning with Alexander the Great’s conquests in 330 BCE, the Greek culture and language became predominant throughout the civilized world. Even after the Roman Empire dominated the world scene and their Latin language made inroads, the Greek language remained the universal language the world over. The Greeks killed many Jews. Many of the Jews in Palestine that survived, as well as Jews in Egypt, Babylon, and the rest of the known world, assumed Greek culture to a large extent, or were “Hellenized.” While the Pharisees and other Jewish groups clung to traditional Jewish culture, most educated Jews became fluent in written and spoken Greek. Tradition says that the Greek ruler in Alexandria, Egypt, commissioned 70 (or 72) Jewish scholars to translate their Hebrew Scriptures into Greek for the famed Alexandrian library. While this tradition may be largely a public relations story, the translation process did begin around 300 BCE, and scholars believe it continued for at least another 250 to 300 years. The result was the Septuagint (abbreviated as “LXX”), named for the 70 (or 72) scholars who traditionally began the process. 

By Jesus’ day and certainly when Christianity began around 30 CE, the scholars of most Jewish communities used the Greek Septuagint as their Bible. Aramaic was the language of the common Jew, but Greek was the language of the educated elite. Many, likely including Jesus and His disciples, were bilingual, knowing both Aramaic and Greek. Hebrew, as a language, was nearly dead to all but scholars such as Paul. Christians continued using Greek. Few used Hebrew as a primary language until many died when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 and 135 CE and dispersed the Jews to the farthest reaches of the Roman Empire. 

Those Jews who survived restored the Hebrew language and culture so as to survive as a people. Not only had the Romans destroyed their nation, but Christians were using their Greek Bible to convert them. Thus, the original Hebrew language experienced a renaissance or revival among the Jews. There was first a transition period in which both Jews and Christians used, edited, and revised the Greek Septuagint. But by 350 to 400 CE, the Jews had largely abandoned the Greek Bible in favor of the original Hebrew. This left the Septuagint to the Christians.

 There are many ways in which the Greek Septuagint continues to influence the Christian Bible today. The first of these is the fact that the Old Testament books are organized in the same order as found in the Septuagint, which was an effort to place them roughly in historical progression. However, the Jewish Bible places the books in the order in which they were accepted as canonical.

Another example of how the Septuagint affects Christian Bibles is the fact that some communities, such as the Roman Catholic and the Greek Orthodox, consider the apocryphal books to be part of the inspired canon because they were included in the Septuagint. These apocryphal books were originally written by Jews as were the books that made it into the Jewish Bible. The Jews, however, abandoned the apocryphal books as being non-inspired when they went back to the Hebrew text. Many of the apocryphal books were originally written in Greek and not Hebrew. Protestants eventually accepted the Jewish canon in the 1840s by rejecting the Apocrypha, though they kept the book order of the Septuagint.

Christians continued using their Greek Bible for 400 years. The earliest complete Bible manuscripts that we have are in Greek. The New Testament was also written in Greek, so it was completely natural for the New Testament writers to prefer quoting from the Greek—rather than the Hebrew—Old Testament. To this day, the Eastern (or Greek) Orthodox Church considers the Greek Bible to be the most authoritative. The rest of the Christian church switched to Latin for 1000 years, from 400 CE to 1400 CE, using Jerome’s translation.

The Septuagint has its own rich textual history, with several varieties and different degrees of competency. It was edited and adjusted by both Jewish and Christian scholars. From 230 to 240 CE, Origen attempted to standardize the Septuagintal text by presenting, in six parallel columns (making the first parallel Bible), (column 1) the Hebrew text, (column 2) a transliteration into Greek, (column 3) the Jewish versions of Aquila, Symmachus, and (column 6) Theodotion. Lastly, column 5 was the Septuagint, which he edited on the basis of the Hebrew text. His work highlighted the differences and similarities between the Hebrew and Greek texts. 

Jerome broke with tradition in translating the Bible into Latin (known as the Vulgate) from the original languages. Thus, for the New Testament, he translated from Greek into Latin because Greek was the original language the New Testament was written in. However, for the Old Testament he went back to the original Hebrew to translate into Latin. He completed this work of translation in 404 CE. Gradually, Jerome’s innovation of translating from the Hebrew became so accepted that it remains the norm to this day.

As a result, the Septuagint gradually fell into disuse for many centuries. It was considered to be an inferior translation when compared to the original Hebrew. There are many differences between the two, as will become apparent in this book. A few of these differences can correctly be attributed to faulty translation, so many came to assume that the entire Greek translation was inferior.

This belief was proven largely invalid with the discovery, from 1947 to 1956, of ancient Hebrew biblical manuscripts dating, in some cases to 250 BCE. These manuscripts are commonly called the “Dead Sea Scrolls” or the “Qumran scrolls.” Suddenly, scholars had Hebrew manuscripts dating over 1,000 years older than any manuscripts previously available. Many of the differences in the Septuagint were now supported by the older Dead Sea manuscripts.

We now know that large portions of the Greek Septuagint reflect readings found in ancient Hebrew manuscripts. In many cases, the readings of these ancient Hebrew manuscripts are not available to us in any other form. The Septuagint has now, therefore, been elevated to the most important non-Hebrew textual witness to many of the earliest Hebrew readings.

 As alluded to earlier, English translations, almost without exception, utilize the Masoretic Hebrew text as the basis for translating the Old Testament. The Masoretes were a group of Hebrew scholars operating from roughly 400 to 1000 CE. There are several reasons why it is necessary to develop a new translation of the Masoretic Hebrew from the “Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia,” the recognized standard Hebrew Masoretic Text. 

1.  Few, if any, English translations purely reflect only the Masoretic Hebrew text. There are many witnesses to the Old Testament text, including the Greek, Qumran Hebrew, Syriac, and Aramaic texts, to name a few. Modern translations, on occasion, select readings from one of these other sources as being more authoritative. Modern versions, therefore, are not an exact translation of only the Masoretic Hebrew. Most modern English translations make frequent use of the Septuagint and other sources—often with no indication of the fact. We too will sometimes vary from the Masoretic Text if evidence supports a Dead Sea Scroll or other reading. However, when we do, we have taken care to ensure that the reader knows how the Masoretic Text reads. 
2. No modern English translation renders the original Hebrew as faithfully as is needed for our purposes. The closest would be the Geneva Bible, with its many Hebraisms, but it is not readily available today. Robert Alter’s translation is very faithful to the Hebrew. He strongly advocates for this faithfulness. His expertise is centered on both English literature and the Hebrew language. He occasionally adopts readings that exhibit Jewish bias over accuracy. The King James is also exceptionally literal, but its vocabulary is sometimes dated and misleading. Hebrew sometimes has what are perceived as awkward constructions that modern translations “smooth over” to accord with the way a modern English writer would write. Often, however, the Septuagint literally and faithfully translates these Hebrew renderings into Greek more faithfully than does any modern English translation of the Hebrew, Fox and Alter excepted. 

The best way to faithfully reveal the relationship of these two texts to each other is to create fresh translations of each. The process, then, requires that each passage be translated from Hebrew and from Greek. The resulting translations must be compared to ensure that any differences or similarities that result are real and not artificial. Where a given Hebrew and Greek word has the same meaning, we will endeavor to reflect that sense by using precisely the same English word. Conversely, if the two translations have similar but somewhat different meanings, we will reflect that to be the case. We have attempted to avoid forcing equivalency where using the same word strays from accurately reflecting the text.

Sometimes the differences between the two translations are significant. One may have a phrase or sentence or even paragraph or section that is completely missing in the other. In such instances, where one text has a gap when compared to the other, we will insert a gap in the text. This will allow the reader to tell at a glance where something is missing in one text that is present in the other.

We endeavor, then, to keep both texts in alignment with each other. Though this is not always possible, it is a key goal. Such representation is not a science but an art.

Greek has a closer affinity to the English language than does Hebrew. In fact, many English words come from Greek originally. When it is possible to do so, in this translation, we will tend to use the English word that not only means the same thing but is actually the same word. For example, the English word “deep” often is translating the Greek word “abyss” (abussos). When it does, we will use the word “abyss” instead of “deep” (see Gn 7:11). Another example is the Greek for “flood,” which is kataclysmos. To retain this connection, we will say “cataclysmic flood” (see Gen. 9:11).

We observe certain other conventions as well. Greek and Hebrew words are translated as accurately as possible into English. As we will see, many proper names in our English translations are derived from the Greek. Gomorrah is Gomorrah in Greek, but Gomorrah is Amorah in Hebrew, as can be seen in our translation of Genesis 14:2. Likewise, we translate Damascus as “Dammasek” in translating the Hebrew (Gen. 14:15), Moses as “Mosheh,” Isaac as “Yitzchak,” etc. Here, we follow the stellar example of the Geneva Bible, of Fox and of others who have been concerned that the Hebrew and Greek be allowed to speak and be presented as they actually read.

Furthermore, you will see Hebrew rhythms and manners of speech found in no other English translation. Genesis 17:1 reads: “And Avram was the son of ninety-nine years.” Similarly, in Genesis 18:7, when Abraham has three divine visitors, he selects a “son of the herd,” or a calf, for dinner. Genesis 43:20, 44:18; Numbers 12:11 contain a Hebrew phrase that literally means “On me my lord,” which most translations render “please.” Its true meaning is an elaborate request for permission to speak. It means “On me my lord let there come whatever negative consequences result from our conversation.”

Words that must be supplied for the Hebrew and Greek texts to make sense to the English reader are placed in italics, much as in the King James Version, New King James Version, and New American Standard Bible. We discussed earlier how Dead Sea Scroll texts confirm that the Greek Septuagint often preserves an earlier reading closer to the original Hebrew than does the Masoretic Hebrew text. We have added a couple conventions to enable the reader to more easily observe these Dead Sea Scroll influences, as outlined in Abegg, Flint, and Ulrich’s “Dead Sea Scroll Bible.” If an endnote discusses the Dead Sea Scrolls and their contributions to a deeper understanding of the text, we preface the endnote number with a “Q” superscript. The Q stands for “Qumran,” which follows scholarly designations elsewhere, such as in the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). Khirbet Qumran is the modern Arabic name for the settlement closest to the area of eleven caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found between 1947 and 1956.

Our Hebrew translation includes many variant textual readings from the Dead Sea Scrolls. If a Dead Sea Scroll reading provides a textual variant that can be introduced to the text without confusing the reading of the Masoretic Hebrew text, we will usually include it. In addition, if scholarly consensus, as measured by usage in standard English Bible translations or as discussed in “The Dead Sea Scroll Bible,” suggests that the Dead Sea reading was likely the original reading, we will include it—even if it means altering the reading of the Masoretic Text. Another indicator that a Qumran reading is likely the original is that it is supported by at least two other ancient witnesses to the original Hebrew—the Septuagint, Theodotion’s Greek, the Samaritan Pentateuch (for Genesis-Deuteronomy), or another Dead Sea Scroll. If it is supported by only one of these, it becomes less certain that it is the original reading, unless supported by internal textual evidence. These readings will be enclosed by brackets and a roman font (see Daniel 2:20).

Where we include a Qumran text that is not so likely to represent an original reading, we will put the text in italics (e.g., Daniel 2:23). This will distinguish it from words in italics we have supplied to facilitate understanding, such as “every” in Daniel 1:5. In addition, these textual variants of both varieties will have the endnote number and the Q superscript following the last bracket (e.g., Daniel 2:20, 23). Textual variants that do not meet these criteria will only be discussed in an endnote. All variants identified by the Abegg-Flint-Ulrich “Dead Sea Scrolls Bible” will be discussed. Even though they make no difference in the English translation, to be thorough, we will discuss certain variants that are little more than synonyms or differences in spelling or gender in the original Hebrew (e.g., Dan. 1:20; 5:6).

Earlier we emphasized how the New Testament quotes the Old Testament. We have added a tool in our endnotes to facilitate a study of this phenomenon. Every time an Old Testament passage is quoted in the New Testament, we discuss the quotation in an endnote. We link these references for each book so the reader can follow the trail forward and backward through the book. If you find one of the 30 endnotes for these 30 texts, it will lead you to the other 29 notes, one by one. In addition, we have placed these passages in bold letters to indicate that they are quoted in the New Testament. Jewish readers who have little or no interest in the New Testament will note that many of these passages are significant to their faith as well.

Often the Greek and Hebrew read differently. This can account for differences between the Old Testament passage and the New Testament quotation. With our translation, it will usually be obvious when the New Testament quotes from the Greek (left column) rather than the Hebrew (right column). See Genesis 47:31 and Hebrews 11:21 for an example of this kind.

The goal of this work is to present the original Hebrew and Greek as accurately as possible in the hope that they will show their relation to each other, their textual history, and their similarities and differences. Some of these differences affect our theology. The Septuagint, to cite one example, has Cain’s sacrifice being a perfectly acceptable one (Gen. 4:7). But what does this say about God? Why, then, did Cain kill his brother if God did not reject his offering?

Some of the differences in the Greek text that we will note are a reflection of the Greek culture that historically existed in the intertestamental period when the Septuagint was created, both within and without Judaism. Other differences will reflect changes in Jewish theology. For example, around 250 BCE, Jewish teachers began avoiding references to God as an inanimate object. In the Hebrew of Psalm 18:2 and 2 Samuel 22:2, David says, “YHWH is my rock.” This was unacceptable to Jewish ears after the Babylonian Captivity because they had been cured of worshiping idols. So the Greek Septuagint reads: “The Lord is my firmness, or my steadfastness.”