One of the great things about giving your time to biblical studies and regular bible reading is—like with most things—you start to see things you never saw before.
I remember being blown away away when someone (a book or someone giving a lecture, I can’t remember for sure) first showed me how the New Testament writers regularly quoted the Old Testament. It was presented to me that the writers, more often than not, quote from a Greek translation instead of quoting directly from the original Hebrew (and/or Aramaic). I was blown away at first, because it seemed wrong.
Why in the world they quote from a translation when the original Hebrew was right there? Isn’t it wrong to be quoting authoritatively from a translation?
However, the more I was taught (and the more I thought about it) the more it made sense.
The writers of the New Testament were largely writing to a Greek speaking and reading world. Note: they weren’t necessarily writing to Greeks; they were writing to Greek speakers—that’s an important distinction to make. So, as you are already thinking to yourself, they wrote to those Greek speakers and readers in the language they knew—Greek. Therefore, it would make sense for the New Testament writers to quote the Old Testament from a language their readers knew as well—Greek.
Fair enough—that makes sense.
If you were writing to someone who knows German and you want to quote to them from something that was originally written in a different language, but then was translated into German, you would more than likely quote from the German translation rather than the original language.
What gets even more interesting, however, is when you begin to come across those places in the Bible where the New Testament writers quote a Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, but that Greek translation of the Old Testament quotation differs from the original Hebrew Old Testament.
A great example of just this situation comes from the Isaiah 40:3-5 quotation in Luke 3:4b-6.
As you can see below, the quotation in Luke is quite similar to both the Hebrew and the Greek texts of Isaiah 40:3-5. However, there is a difference with one meaningful phrase near the end.
Isaiah 40:3-5 (Hebrew OT)
A voice is calling in the wilderness, “Clear the way of Yahweh! Make a highway smooth in the desert for our God! 4 Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill shall become low, And the rough ground shall be like a plain, and the rugged ground like a valley-plain. 5 And the glory of Yahweh shall be revealed, and all humankind together shall see it, for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken.”Isaiah 40:3-5 (Greek OT)
The voice of one calling in the desert, “Prepare the way of the Lord! Make the paths of our God straight!” 4 Every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be leveled, and all the crooked ways will be made straight, and every rough spot a plain; 5 and the glory of the Lord will be seen, and all flesh will see the salvation of God, for the Lord has spoken.Luke 3:4b-6
as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight! 5 Every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be leveled, and the crooked will become straight, and the rough road will become smooth, 6 and all flesh will see the salvation of God.’ ”
Do you see it?
In the original Hebrew section of Isaiah, we see the words: “And the glory of Yahweh shall be revealed, and all humankind together shall see it.” In the Greek translation of that same section we see the words: “and the glory of the Lord (Yahweh) will be seen, and all flesh will see the salvation of God.” Note, there difference there. Instead of the glory of Yahweh (the Lord) being revealed—as it says in Hebrew (…all humankind together shall see it (the glory of Yahweh)—it’s the salvation of God being revealed in Greek. And, lastly, as Luke quotes this section of Isaiah, he does so in Greek, so naturally we find the words: “and all flesh will see the salvation of God.”
Two main questions for us remain:
How should we deal with general situations like this?
How should we deal with this situation in particular?
First, I think we should admit that this sort of thing is a reality with the biblical text. Christianity and the Bible are historically verifiable things. We are not dealing with some teaching or some artifact that’s originality cannot be found. This is not some esoteric or existential belief system that we just have to take for granted or leave behind. Christianity and the Bible are firmly rooted in history. Therefore, when we look back in history and discover odd things like this that we didn’t imagined existed before, our first response should not be to run away from them. We have nothing to fear from applying the historical method of discovery to Christianity or the Bible. Christians welcome this because our faith is in a historical event—the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If Jesus did not physically rise from the dead, then our faith is nothing.
The fact is, this sort of thing—differences in the textual translations (from Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek)—has taken place, so we must receive it. The great thing about not running from something like this is that we discover that it’s not a distraction or obstacle to our faith—it’s actually one of the wonderful features of what we believe. We can literally watch our brothers and sisters of old in action as we examine texts. We see how the texts have differed from one another and we can interact with them.
Lets then settle it once and for all—the textual change from Hebrew to Greek does not have to be a stumbling block to our faith. In fact, it can actually help us root our faith in the historical accuracy of those who’ve gone before us.
Second, our goal is not to come up with a way to smooth out this difference in the text, so it disappears, so we don’t have to deal with it. Remember, we are not afraid of the historicity of Christianity or the Bible. Our goal is to reckon with it, and see if it changes the way we should look at the text.
Quick recap: We saw in the original Hebrew of Isaiah 40 that the writer wrote about the glory of Yahweh (the Lord) being seen be all people. Then, in the Greek translation of Isaiah 40, we saw that the writer wrote that the salvation of the Lord (Yahweh) is actually the glory that will be seen by all people; but “the salvation” wasn’t in the Hebrew text. Lastly, in Luke 3, we see Luke quoting Isaiah 40 but using the Greek text, so he writes about the salvation of the Lord being seen by all people.
Are any of the texts saying something contradictory to the others? We may be tempted to say, yes, but really they aren’t. All three texts talk about the glory of Yahweh. The only difference is that Isaiah 40 (Greek) identifies the glory of Yahweh as his salvation. So, is there a difference in the texts? Yes. However, the difference is not one of contradiction, but of expansion (or explanation).
It’s not as if we’re missing something once we get to Greek from Hebrew. What we have is an expansion (or explanation) of what’s being talked about in the Hebrew. Isaiah surely spoke of the glory of Yahweh. And he said that all people will see it. However, when it came time to translate that text into Greek, the translator(s) (who most certainly knew biblical Hebrew better than anyone alive today) identified the glory of the Yahweh that everyone will see as the salvation of God.
What, then, should we do with this?
I think we should take our que from the New Testament writers, themselves. Did Luke have a problem with quoting the Greek of Isaiah 40? Absolutely not. After all, he did it. Therefore, should we have a problem with it? Absolutely not. The discomfort may come in when we recognize that Luke was authoritatively quoting from a translation that we wouldn’t know about if we didn’t consult the Greek translation of the Old Testament. If you are made uncomfortable by this, then let it be—it’s okay to be uncomfortable. That being said, don’t let the discomfort push you from the reliability of the text. Instead, allow it to draw you in. The Bible is way more interesting and exciting than we often admit or even realize.