The Septuagint Translation of Jeremiah 31(38):31–34: Stylistic Adjustments or New Theological Insights?

Seminary N235

It is universally recognized among scholars that the Septuagint translation of Jeremiah presents many variations from the MT. Such variations are described in terms of both length and arrangement of the text in such a way that it is suspected that they point to a Hebrew Vorlage different from MT. Several studies have demonstrated that from the first to the second half of Jeremiah certain deviances begin to happen. The literature review on the current status of the debate regarding the Greek text of Jeremiah has demonstrated that, when dealing with the Greek translation of the Masoretic Text of Jeremiah, the researcher is before a multifaceted document, in such a way that every passage has to be isolated and individually treated. Only after this process, a preference for either the MT or the LXX is to be determined. Taking all these items of information into consideration, this paper deals with the variations between the MT and the LXX of Jeremiah 31(38):31–34. Its purpose is to assess whether such deviations are just the outcome of translator’s preferences (i.e., stylistic), or if theological standpoints on the part of the translator may have influenced the differences.