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    Septuagint: Habakkuk
    Septuagint: Habakkuk
    Septuagint: Habakkuk
    Ebook57 pages42 minutes

    Septuagint: Habakkuk

    By Scriptural Research Institute

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    The Book of Habakkuk is generally considered one of the older surviving books of the Hebrew Scriptures, with most scholars dating it to before the Torah was written, or at least heavily redacted in the time of King Josiah. Most scholars accept that Habakkuk was written by a prophet called Habakkuk around 612 BC, however, virtually nothing is known about him. He was also in the Septuagint's Book of Daniel, however, was cut from the Masoretic version. In the Septuagint's Book of Daniel, Habakkuk was carried by an angel to Babylon to help Daniel, which, although the text was cut from the Masoretic version has influenced the view of Habakkuk's life.

    His world was very different from the later Kingdom of Judea that emerged in the 2nd-century BC, as the Israelites of his time were still polytheistic, worshiping the Canaanite gods, as well as statues of Iaw (Masoretic Yahweh), the God the Jews and Samaritans would later worship. The Book of Habakkuk is considered unique among the books of the bible, as Habakkuk openly questions his Lord's actions, which in the Masoretic version of the book, means he is questioning God. In the Septuagint's version, his Lord was differentiated from God, and prior to the Hasmonean redaction, appears to have been Qetesh, which was the title of Asherah, the wife of El and mother of Yahweh in the early Israelite religion.

    Habakkuk describes the rise of the Chaldeans, who, at the time ruled Babylon, and this is accepted as a reference to the rise of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The Neo-Babylonian empire rose as the Neo-Assyrian empire collapsed, beginning with the revolt of Babylon in 626 BC, and the coronation of Nabopolassar as the king of independent Babylon. In 612 BC, the combined forces of Babylon, the Persians, Medes, and Scythians laid waste to Nineveh, effectively ending the Neo-Assyrian Empire. This is the era that Habakkuk's life is generally dated to, as the Chaldeans (Babylon) was rising, however, this is not the only era suggested. The battles between the Babylonians and the remnants of the Assyrian forces, continued until the Babylonians captured Haran in 609 BC, and their war against the Assyrians ally, Egypt, continued until the Battle of Carchemish in 605 BC when the Babylonians effectively defeated the Egyptians. After 605 BC, the Babylonians dominated Mesopotamia, Syria, and Samaria as far south as the border of Egypt, while the small Kingdom of Judah remained effectively landlocked between Babylonian-occupied Samaria, Amman, Moab, and Edom. In the decades that followed, the Babylonians occupied these smaller kingdoms, destroying the city of Jerusalem in 587 BC, and took the leaders of Judah to Babylonia, where they remained until the Neo-Babylonian empire fell to the Persians decades later.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherScriptural Research Institute
    Release dateAug 8, 2020
    ISBN9781989852507
    Septuagint: Habakkuk

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      Book preview

      Septuagint - Scriptural Research Institute

      Copyright

      While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

      Septuagint: Habakkuk

      Digital edition. December 2, 2021

      Copyright © 2021 Scriptural Research Institute.

      ISBN: 978-1-989852-50-7

      The Septuagint was translated into Greek at the Library of Alexandria between 250 and 132 BC.

      This English translation was created by the Scriptural Research Institute in 2020, primarily from the Codex Vaticanus, although the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus were also used for reference. Additionally, the Westminster Leningrad Codex and Aleppo Codex of the Masoretic Text, and the Dead Sea Scrolls MurXII and 8HevXIIgr were used for comparative analysis.

      The image used for the cover is ‘A donor praying with the Prophet Daniel, an angel carrying Habakkuk beyond’ by The Master of 1518, painted circa 1518.

      Note: The notes for this book include multiple ancient scripts. For your device to properly render them, it will require a Unicode font capable of displaying Akkadian Cuneiform, Armenian, extended Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Imperial Aramaic, Old Persian Cuneiform, Phoenician, and Ugaritic.

      Forward

      In the mid-3rd century BC, King Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Egypt ordered a translation of the ancient Israelite scriptures for the Library of Alexandria. This translation later became known as the Septuagint, based on the description of the translation by seventy translators in the Letter of Aristeas. The original version, published circa 250 BC, only included the Torah, or in Greek terms, the Pentateuch. The Torah is the five books traditionally credited to Moses, circa 1500 BC: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. According to Jewish tradition, the original Torah was lost when the Babylonians destroyed the Temple of Solomon, and it was then rewritten by Ezra the Scribe from memory around 350 BC. In approximately 132 BC the Library of Alexandria published the final edition of the Septuagint, and books that translated later were added as appendixes.

      It is generally accepted that there were several versions of the ancient Israelite scriptures before the translation of the Septuagint, and that it was translated from an Aramaic copy, something which the Hasmonean High-Priest/Kings objected to. Before being translated into Greek, the book of Habakkuk had been circulating among an Aramaic collection of books of the prophets, which the Greeks translated as the Dodeka sometime during the 3rd-century BC. The name Dodeka means ‘twelve’ in Greek, although it is not clear if the Aramaic book was considered to be a collection of 12 books of the prophets, or more, as the final section is clearly mixed up in both the Greek and Hebrew translations. The Dodeka was added to the Septuagint in the early 2nd-century BC, along with other Israelite books that had been translated into Greek.

      The books comprising the Dodeka span Israelite history, from before Samaria was conquered by Assyria through the middle Persian Era when Zerubbabel’s Temple was built, and therefore the Aramaic collection of books must have been compiled some in the late Persian era. As the books are set during the decline of the old Samaritan and Judahite Kingdoms, and parallel the histories contained in the Septuagint’s books of Kingdoms and Paralipomena (Masoretic Samuel, Kings, and Diḇrê Hayyāmîm), it has been suggested that they were collected into a volume by either Nehemiah or Ezra, although this cannot be known for sure.

      The books of Hosea, Amos, and Micah are set during the 8th-century BC, when the kingdom of Samaria fought a series of wars against its more powerful northern neighbor Assyria, ultimately being conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire 722 BC. The books of Joel, Obadiah, and Jonah follow, although their exact settings are not clear. The books of Nahum and

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