The Challenge of Biblical Textual Criticism: The Case of the Dutch Edition of the Septuagint (1709)

Abstract

An overview of the main European biblical tradition of the Septuagint shows that much work has been carried out in this field of research. Prominent scholars investigated the Old Testament from a thematic diversity point of view, from the history of the text and its contextualization to a variety of translation topics. We investigate, in this article, a lesser-known edition of the Septuagint from the early 18th Century, edited by Lambert Bos and printed in Franeker. Lambert Bos’ biblical philology fits into the patterns of Dutch textual philology, consolidated in the 17th century and built on the solid foundations provided by the grammatical and lexical analysis of ancient texts. A deeper understanding of the issues raised by the texts’ transmission opens a new field of research which admits that a true appreciation of the texts’ content must be preceded by their recovery in as ‘authentic’ a form as possible. The present article aims to restore the image of a Dutch Hellenist of pre-modern philology, and to present important data on his key works, highlighting the defining characteristics of the Franeker edition (1709) of the Septuagint with an analysis from a modern perspective of the principles and methods he followed in the actual practice of biblical textual criticism.

At the beginning of the 18th century, the textual criticism of the Septuagint was not yet a field of research in its own right. The working methods were derived almost entirely from classical textual criticism, and were generally devoid of the complex problems specific to biblical texts. The large number of manuscripts, the versions preserved in different languages, the difficulties of identifying autographs, and the changes that texts underwent in the course of transmission led much later to the establishment of the scientific criteria that biblical textual criticism requires today.1

Nevertheless, not very different from today’s biblical criticism is the obvious passion with which a series of scholars, who had been educated in the best schools of Europe, pursued a common goal: to identify and pass on to future generations as accurate a text of the Greek translation of the Bible as possible. Despite being under-studied, the efforts of the biblical philologists of that time have not benefited from adequate reception because they are not visible enough. In the era of diplomatic editions, textual criticism is reserved to a limited editorial space. It can be discovered in the prefaces and critical notes of the proper editions, and much more frequently in separate technical works which mirror debates and polemics which are specific to that period. However, the need to study the manner in which European intellectuals judged the multitude of the textual variants of the Bible is of vital importance in the study of vernacular translations. On numerous occasions, translators educated in the same academic environments—and therefore connected to international debates—produced target-language-oriented translations, following not only multiple editions but also emendations or clarifications of the text accepted in criticism at the time. An eloquent case is the Romanian translation of the Septuagint Romanian, published in Blaj (1795) by the Greek Catholic Samuil Micu Klein. Romanian biblical research has concluded that one of the source texts followed by the Romanian translator was Lambert Bos’ Dutch edition, published in Franeker in 1709 (Chindriș 2001, pp. 323–24; Pavel 2000–2001, pp. 278–79). Equally significant is the understanding of the fact that the Dutch intellectual’s textual criticism model was adopted and closely followed by the Romanian translator (Pavel 2007, p. 97). The huge impact that the translation published in Blaj had upon Romanian literary language and the Orthodox biblical tradition is not, however, the only reason why Bos’ biblical criticism deserves further research. The high relevance of Lambert Bos’ textual criticism consists also in the fact that it provides a personal response to one of the most vivid debates of the second half of the 17th century, which has raised the interest of researchers up to the present day: What are the causes that determined such significant variations between the Greek translations, and why are there so many differences between the translations and the Hebrew texts preserved in the Masoretic tradition?

International research provides a wide variety of studies dedicated to Lambert Bos’ era and cultural environment. However, as far as we know, no study has been devoted exclusively to the Dutch author and his literary activity. The main objective of our study is to analyse the textual criticism practiced by the Dutch Hellenist. The lack of reference points for a reader who has his/her very first encounter with a lesser-known author has led us, before dealing exclusively with issues pertaining to Bos’ textual criticism, to consider a few secondary objectives, and to briefly present some data on the author’s cultural context and publications, such that the textual criticism practiced by the Hellenist from Franeker can be fully understood and appreciated.

1. A Short Overview of Dutch Biblical Philology

The scarcity of biographical data, which gives Lambert Bos’ life an apparent linearity, marked by a lack of major events, is partly counterbalanced by his active involvement—at the cultural level—in the philological debates that animated the European intellectual life of the so-called ‘Respublica litteraria’ ever since the Renaissance. Lambert Bos’ work, written in Latin and dominated by the interests and technical language of late 17th century European philology, can hardly be appreciated without understanding the context in which it was produced. The Franeker Hellenist was an author formed in the tradition of Dutch philology, oriented towards textual criticism, linguistic analysis and the historical contextualization of ancient texts. In 1730, in one of the prefaces to his edition of the Septuagint, the Swiss philologist Johann Jakob Breitinger (1701–1776) provided a critical review of the edition elaborated a few years earlier by the Hellenist Lambert Bos. Aiming to compare the only uncial manuscripts of the Septuagint known at the time, namely Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Vaticanus, the professor of Greek and Hebrew from Zürich reprinted the Prolegomena, which was written in 1719 by Francis Lee (1661–1719), editor of the second volume of the Grabiana Bible.2 Without interfering in the text, Breitinger reproduced a brief biographical note, from which we learn that Lambert Bos apparently was of French origin, born in Nîmes, and later became professor of Greek at the University of Franeker.3 Regardless of the accuracy of the sources or even the intentions behind Francis Lee’s preface, the little information available from quasi-contemporary sources4 and various modern biographical dictionaries (Visscher and van Langeraad 1907, p. 520; Molhuysen and Blok 1918, pp. 230–31) provides a totally different biographical portrait of Lambert Bos. He was born in 1670 in Workum (Frjesland) and studied at the University of Franeker, the second-oldest academic institution in the Netherlands after Leiden, and an international philological center specialising mainly in the study of Oriental languages.5 His father, Jakob Bos, was the headmaster of the school in Workum, and the man from whom young Lambert received his first lessons in Greek and Latin. In 1697, Lambert Bos was appointed lecturer at the University of Franeker, a position he held until 1704. After his public lecture given on 12 June 1704, entitled De eruditione Graecorum per colonias eorum propagata, he became professor of Greek, succeeding Nicholas Blankaart (1624–1703). Apart from some lists of his works, of which some are accompanied by brief descriptions, modern biographical sources do not provide any further details of Lambert Bos’ academic activity, which ended when he died on 6 January 1717, at only 47 years of age.

Current studies emphasize the decisive role played by Joseph Scaliger (1540–1609), the erudite professor from Leiden University (starting with the year 1593), in the development of the Dutch School of Philology.6 With a vivid interest in some vast but neglected fields, including archaic Latin, ancient medicine or the history of astronomy, Scaliger favored a series of interdisciplinary methods in philology based on historical linguistics, the socio-political contextualization of ancient texts, and respectively thorough textual criticism, aimed at conjectural emendations based on comparisons between manuscripts. The effects of these methods are visible not only in the writings that made his closest students, Daniel Heinsius (1580–1655) and Hugo Grotius (1583–1645), famous all over Europe but also in the specific features he that he impressed on the philology of the United Provinces, focusing primarily on the language and transmission of ancient texts, and less on their moral, theological or philosophical aspects.7 The model proposed by Scaliger stimulated the development of Dutch philology throughout the 17th century, but a similar evolution of the field could be noted in the same period all over Europe.8 Because, by the mid-16th century, most of the Greek–Latin texts had already been discovered and published, a whole series of leading classical philologists (starting with Scaliger) migrated from classical philology to biblical philology, applying to biblical texts the same methods of critical analysis used in the analysis of classical works. These were the methods embraced at the time by John Selden (1584–1654), Claude Saumaise (1588–1653), Daniel Heinsius, Hugo Grotius, Isaac Vossius (1618–1689), Richard Bentley (1662–1742) and many others. From an individual passion, cultivated by a few scholars of encyclopedic erudition, biblical philology became—between 1650 and 1660—a particularly complex academic discipline, requiring a thorough knowledge of the Greek–Roman culture and civilization and a good command of at least one of the ancient Oriental languages.9 The real challenges of the philology of the time lay in the meticulous approach towards the analysis of biblical texts, in the clarity of the grammatical explanations provided, and in the ingenuity with which the proposed emendations are argued on the basis of the manuscripts10. Although it has never been an entirely “secular” discipline, biblical philology at the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century, driven by the innovative ideas promoted by Protestantism, became an extremely exciting field of research, dominated by voluminous multilingual editions and increasingly specialized techniques of emendation (Cf. Sheehan 2007, pp. 47–50).

2. A Hellenist’s Work: From Classical Learning to Biblical Scholarship

In full agreement with the new philology practiced in the Netherlands, and also in England by the famous critic Richard Bentley, the Hellenist Lambert Bos approached ancient texts in the manner of a grammaticus and a lexicographer, attracted in particular by linguistic explanations and semantic clarifications, which had been challenging other humanists for several decades. Except for his edition of the Greek translation of the Old Testament, most of his writings consist in annotations and observations, made over time and then arranged thematically or alphabetically. Like most intellectuals in Europe at the time, the Franeker professor was interested in the texts of both classical and biblical authors, which he treated equally with the tools of textual criticism

Lambert Bos’ career as a Hellenist begins with a series of philological notes on the main work of Thomas Magister, secretary to the Byzantine emperor Andronicus II (1282–1328). The Byzantine monk’s work, known in Latin as Ecloga vocum Atticarum, consisted in a compilation of words and phrases in the Attic dialect, partly arranged alphabetically. Although the Greek original contained numerous errors, the value of the work lay in the fact that it was compiled from the works of ancient grammarians, whose works had been partially lost.11 The Hellenist Blankaart, Lambert Bos’ predecessor in the department of history and Greek language at the University of Franeker, had made many corrections of the Greek text, publishing in 1690 an annotated edition that was much more accurate than the previous ones. Lambert Bos contributed to the critical apparatus of this edition, republished a few years later under the title Θῶμα τοῦ Μαγίστρου Κατ’ A̓λφάβητονὀνομάτων A̓ττικῶν Ἐκλογαί [Thomae Magistri Selectas Atticae Dialecti Elegantias] (Leonardus Strick, Franeker, 1698). The critical apparatus of Thomas Magister’s work was constantly improved in the following years, becoming a collective edition.12 The first actual work, which Lambert Bos published in 1700, when he was a lecturer at the University of Franeker, was a lexicographical study on the New Testament, known under the abbreviated title of Exercitationes philologicae ad loca nonnulla Novi Foederis. His philological comments are limited to the analysis of words, phrases and figures of speech, compared with their occurrences in the writings of non-Christian authors. As stated in the preface, his aim was to clarify the meaning of words and phrases, to identify their origin, and to decide the register in which they are used. In the same preface, Bos confesses that he had identified numerous errors in the explicative notes of the canonized editions of the New Testament (Vulgata and Theodor Beza’s edition). For this reason, at the end of his work he added a brief Dissertatio de etymologia Graeca, in which he aimed to signal words to which a Greek etymology had been attributed but which were actually borrowings from Hebrew. A second purpose was to explain a series of terms which were considered unduly compound, and to propose new lexicographical analyses in cases solved differently by other critics. Despite an obvious polemical impetus, the study published in Franeker (Johannes Gyselaar, 1700) went almost unnoticed at the time, being republished only once a few years later (Wibius Bleck, Franeker, 1713).

In 1702, Lambert Bos published his work on Greek ellipses, one of his most important works and certainly a valuable contribution to the field of textual criticism. Although it was published only three times in his lifetime (twice in Franeker in 1702 and 1713, and once in Leipzig in 1713), the work ensured his professional success and brought him international recognition. The title of the princeps edition, Mysterii Ellipsios Graecae expositi specimen (Leonardus Strick, Franeker, 1702), seems to have been chosen rather for polemical reasons, as there is no trace of mystery whatsoever in the contraction of the sentences by the suppression of one or more words for reasons of redundancy. Moreover, Bos points out in the corrected and supplemented preface to the editions published after 1713 that ellipses are common to any language.13 Lambert Bos’ merit resides in the correct and accurate definition of the ellipses phenomenon,14 and equally in the numerous examples—arranged alphabetically in the form of a lexicon—which indicated the terms omitted from various Greek phrases. By deliberately avoiding the analysis of the ellipses that played a stylistic part, Bos only dealt with the lexico-grammatical ellipses, which represented significant challenges for both editors and translators.15 Bos’ work was re-edited several times for over a century after its first publication.16 Because it became a most useful instrument for ancient text editors, the lexicon was completed with similar studies on ellipses and pleonasms, elaborated by the next generations of philologists17 and represented a source of inspiration for similar works which focused on the Latin language.18

Published in 1707, Observationes miscellaneae comprises 50 philological observations on the Greek language of the New Testament, organized in as many paragraphs. The opuscule, which undoubtedly includes earlier notes, represents Bos’ public opinion on an academic debate—which had started in the Renaissance and resumed in the 17th century—with regard to the “purity” of the Greek language used in the New Testament. As early as the Renaissance, Lorenzo Valla and Erasmus supported the idea that the language was “impure”, i.e., corrupted by Hebraisms. The views of the two humanists were later opposed by Henri Estienne in the preface to his edition of the New Testament (1576), where he tried to argue the contrary. It was not until the 17th century that the debate became a European controversy involving philologists from Germany, Holland, England, Switzerland and France. In the Netherlands, Daniel Heinsius wrote the famous commentary Aristarchus sacer (1627) and other works in which he argued that the Greek language in the New Testament was a Hellenistic dialect. This was the reason for the endless debate with Claude Saumaise. The Leiden controversy was continued by Johannes Vorst (1623–1676), the main supporter of the Hebraist position in his work Philologia Sacra, which was also published in Leiden in 1658. Vorst received the reply of Horatius Vitringa, who was only 16 at the time, and none other than the son of Orientalist Campegius Vitringa (1659–1722) from the University of Franeker.

The debate was ended abruptly by Horatius’ death. Vorst had the last word in it. In 1665, he restated his position by adding a second section to his initial paper (Commentarius de Hebraismis Novi Testamenti). Bos’ late intervention in the debate seems rather to be a favour to his fellow professor, to whom he dedicated the paper. Horatius Vitringa’s philological note, entitled Specimen annotationum ad Philologiam Sacram Vorstii, was reprinted in Observationes, and was at the time supported by the arguments brought forward by a renowned Hellenist. Despite the fact that his observations came to support the position adopted by Horatius Vitringa, Lambert Bos’ attitude towards the “purity” of the Greek language in the New Testament seems rather reluctant. In the preface of the note, Bos admits the influence of Hebraisms on the Greek language (res est certissima), but he believes that the influence on the grammatical structure and the semantics of the terms is limited. He justifies his position with examples drawn from classical authors, where he identifies grammatical structures that were similar to those used in the New Testament, besides many terms contextualized in the same manner. Vorst was confronted with a series of Greek words, which he regarded as being of Hebrew origin.19 Bos’ remarks follow the Hellenizing line of thought of the main actors involved in the controversy. His work was published into two more local editions, being reprinted posthumously in Leeuwarden (Tobias van Dessel, 1731) and Harlingen (Folkert van der Plaats, 1746).

In 1709, Lambert Bos published a diplomatic edition of the Septuagint based on the text established in 1587 by the editors of the Sixtine edition. Accompanied by extensive prefaces and a rich critical apparatus, in which he recorded the different versions identified in the manuscripts, his edition was generally well received at the time. Issues regarding its place among the other editions of the time and the way it was compiled will be discussed in a separate subchapter.

A few years later, Lambert Bos enjoyed great publishing success with a didactic work entitled Antiquitatum Graecarum, praecipue Atticarum, descriptio brevis (Wibius Bleck, Franeker, 1714). This time, Bos targeted a wider readership, mainly students and intellectuals interested in the ancient Greek culture and civilisation. Compiled as a concise textbook, thematically structured in four parts, the book promised to cover a wide range of topics relating to religion, political organisation, the military and the daily life of the ancient Greeks. Unlike many similar works, Lambert Bos’ stands out due to the fact that it did not aim to discuss topics in great detail but rather to indicate the ancient sources for each topic. After successive re-editing,20 the work came to the attention of Johannes Friedrich Leisner, who added a brief preface and consistent bibliographical references to the works of ancient authors, which were not included in the initial study.21 Under the care of the erudite professor, the sources were so meticulously arranged according to each aspect of the topic that Lambert Bos’ textbook became an indispensable thematic index for philologists, theologians and historians alike. Antiquitates Graecae is the only proper study of Lambert Bos translated into vernacular languages.22

A year later, Bos published Animadversiones ad scriptores quosdam Graecos (Franciscus Halma, Franeker, 1715), a two-part study23 that focused on the methodology used in establishing the text of the classical authors’ editions. The work is composed in the typical manner of Bos’ philology, comprising a series of critical observations derived from the comparison between readings from different editions and manuscripts. Although it mainly comprises decent observations, limited to textual problems, and a preface in which academic courtesy clearly prevails, Lambert Bos’ writing is actually a polemical challenge directed towards the editions compiled at the time in England by Richard Bentley and his protégé, Ludolf Küster (1670–1716)24. Bos’ polemics was based on justified reasons. On certain occasions, the philologists of the time tended to exaggerate their emendations with arguments limited to analogy. By comparing phrases and words that were specific to ancient authors, textual critics made intuitive emendations, standardising texts and neglecting the various modes of expression found in the earliest manuscripts. In the preface to his work, Bos compares these editors with unskilled physicians prescribing medicine for healthy people, explaining the various reasons that made ancient authors take distance from other writers and common forms of expression. Addressed to a limited audience of philologists, the study elaborated by Bos was published in a single edition, the local Franeker one.

Among Lambert Bos’ writings, we should also mention a brief guide to the Greek language syntax (Syntaxis et accentuum ratio). His contribution to grammar was included in the Grammatica Graeca Nova (Rudolph & Gerhard Wetstein, Amsterdam, 1715), in a revised edition that re-edited the old grammar of Jacob Weller (1602–1664)25.

3. A New Diplomatic Edition in the European Culture

In the first decade of the 18th century, when he decided to publish a new edition of the Septuagint, Lambert Bos was aware that the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament already had four major editions which proposed different basic texts. The first text was that of the Complutensis Bible (1520), printed on the third column of the polyglot edition produced in Alcalá (lat. Complutum, Spain), under the supervision of Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros (1436–1517). The main editor of the Greek text (which is of inestimable value for present-day criticism) was most likely the Cretan Dimitrios Doukas (cca. 1480–1527), who reconstituted it based on several manuscripts and sources, which have remained a topic of debate to the present day26. A second complete text was that of the Aldina, the Bible edited by Andreas Asolanus and published at the printing house of Aldus Manutius (Venice, 1518)27. A third text, based primarily on Codex Vaticanus, and also on other manuscripts and the texts of the two previously mentioned editions, was that of the Sixtina, or Septuaginta Romana (1587). Planned as the Council of Trent (1545–1563), this edition was produced by a group of scholars under the direction of Cardinal Antonio Carafa (1538–1591), and it received permission for publication from Pope Sixtus V.28 Finally, the fourth important text was that of the Grabiana, an edition based on Codex Alexandrinus, which in 1707 had only its first volume issued, containing the Octateuch. The publication of an edition of this manuscript, believed by some philologists to be the earliest, and to have been used by Origen in his Hexapla, had been perceived for some years as an unfinished initiative of English biblical philology.29 The Oxford edition, eventually produced by Johannes Ernst Grabe, had to wait many years (1707–1720) before it was published in full.30 For the most erudite biblical philologists in the Respublica litteraria, none of the four major editions of the Septuagint provided the original text of the ancient translation.31 Convinced that an accurate text could be obtained only through critical analysis and a comparison of manuscript readings, critics started to elaborate numerous secondary editions, accompanied by an apparatus criticus that was as complete as possible, leaving it to the reader to choose the most appropriate meaning. Because the Sixtina was produced by Catholic intellectuals, some of the Protestant philologists of the 17th century put all their religiously motivated hopes on Codex Alexandrinus, which they critically instrumentalized and overrated to the detriment of the famous Codex Vaticanus. This attitude was frowned upon by both Catholic and Protestant intellectuals. The latter did not deny the problems of the text established in the Sixtina but remained skeptical with regard to the “purity” of a single manuscript, and preferred instead to complete their secondary editions with as many versions of the text as possible. It was in this polemical atmosphere, fueled by the mystery that Codex Alexandrinus still represented in terms of dates and the value of the text it contained, that the Franeker edition was produced.

In 1704, when he began working on the edition of the Septuagint, which he wanted to be “more accurate” (accuratiorem) and “more complete” (commodiorem)32, Lambert Bos decided to follow the basic text of the Sixtina (1587),33 and to collate in the critical apparatus of his version both variants discovered in the annotations and critical observations made by the Sixtine editors, along with readings found in other manuscripts and editions.34 If we follow closely the information provided in the second chapter of the preface to his edition (De Praecipuis LXX Interpretum Editionibus), we can note that his option for a text established by Catholic intellectuals is primarily justified on linguistic grounds. For Bos, as for other textual critics whom he looked up to, Codex Vaticanus contained the text closest to the original Septuagint because it coincided with the hexaplaric fragments preserved to the present date only in an edition of Joshua, published by Andreas Maes (Josuae imperatoris historia illustrata et explicata ab Andrea Masio, Plantin, Antwerp, 1574).35 Moreover, Bos was also convinced that the Roman edition was based on the earliest manuscripts of the Septuagint preserved in Italian libraries, and that in compiling it the aim was, if not to obtain an original text, then at least to produce one that took into account the critical signs used by Origen in the Hexapla (as they were interpreted at the time) and the patristic writings. These advantages of the Sixtina were the very reasons behind the scepticism with regard to the text of the Complutensian Bible, which he considered altered so that it corresponded the Hebrew text (multa enim in hac editione mutarunt, ut Hebraeo melius illa responderent), and also with regard to the text of Aldina, which he perceived as eclectic and discordant with the New Testament quotes from Old Testament Books (etiam in locis quae citarunt Apostoli, a vulgata LXX lectione discrepantia). However, readings from these editions and from other works based on them were collated in the critical apparatus of Franeker’s Septuagint.36

An important part in the elaboration of Lambert Bos’ edition was played by two earlier editions, which in turn followed the Roman edition. We refer to the edition issued by Jean Morin (1591–1659), published in three volumes in Paris (1628), and the famous polyglot edition elaborated by Brian Walton (1600–1661), published in London (1653–1657).37 Without sufficiently emphasizing the importance attributed to Morin’s edition, Lambert Bos most likely used it as a guide in compiling his own edition.38 By 1628, the Paris edition was already regarded as an updated and corrected version of the Sixtina. The same role was played by the Greek text included in the third column of Brian Walton’s edition, despite the fact that Bos referred to it in more critical terms, considering it full of “omissions and errors” (sphalma et menda). The London Polyglot provided Lambert Bos with a good deal of readings for the critical apparatus. He himself admitted that this is where all of the text variants of Codex Alexandrinus were taken from, which were dealt with by Patrick Young (between Genesis and Numbers 14) and Brian Walton (for the remaining biblical books).39 The variants from Codex Cottonianus Geneseos, those from Codex Colberto-Sarravianus, and those from many other manuscripts—to which Bos did not have direct access—have also been collated from the same edition.40 For the Hexaplaric fragments, the patristic quotations, and also for other variants, Lambert Bos consulted various sources: marginal notes from Codex Barberini, fragments and notes from the works of Johannes van den Driesche (1550–1616),41 various scholia studied by Humphrey Hody (1659–1707), biblical quotations from Latin patristic authors, and other ancient commentaries written by Procopius, Origen and Pamphilus42.

Regarded from the perspective of the time in which it was produced, the Franeker edition has definitely achieved its purpose. It contained a more accurate text of the Sixtina, and succeeded in providing a concise critical apparatus which was rich enough to become a valuable critical tool. In other respects, it remains tributary to the ideas and practices of the time. Ironically, Lee and Breitinger—the most important critics of Bos’ edition—were the very ones who also publicly confirmed the value of the Dutch edition. In 1719, Lee acknowledged that it was the most complete (commodissima) edition based on the Sixtina, while Breitinger took up and published Lambert Bos’ critical observations, originally printed in the Frenequerana, among the prefaces of his edition.

4. How to Recover the Lost Form of Translations: From Certainty to Plausibility

At the beginning of the 18th century, textual criticism of the Septuagint was not a field of research in its own right. As indicated by most of Lambert Bos’ writings, the working methods were derived almost entirely from classical textual criticism, and were generally devoid of the complex problems specific to biblical texts. The large number of manuscripts, the versions preserved in different languages, the difficulties of identifying autographs, and the changes that texts underwent in the course of transmission led much later to the establishment of the scientific criteria that biblical textual criticism requires today.43

The preface to the Franeker edition sheds light on a preliminary stage of the formation of textual criticism of the Septuagint, which is largely dependent on the still-limited state of knowledge of the history and specifics of Greek translations. From the first chapter (De versione Graeca LXX Interpretum, eiusdemque utilitate), dedicated to the history and importance of Greek translation in biblical criticism, one can gain a better understanding of the theoretical framework guiding Lambert Bos’ criticism. Broadly speaking, we are talking about two major events that took place in 17th century biblical research and have marked the consolidation and evolution of textual criticism up to the present day. The first is the collapse of the ancient narrative concerning “inspired” translations of the Septuagint books into the form presented by the Epistle of Aristeas, to which Humphrey Hody’s famous Contra historiam Aristeae of the LXX (Oxford, 1685) contributed decisively. The recognition of the pseudepigraphical character of the letter, an opinion that Lambert Bos also shared,44 not only led to the acceptance of the idea that the translations gathered under the name of Septuagint were produced by different translators, in different periods and geographical areas, but also created the cultural context for the awareness of the importance of studying the biblical translations as separate initiatives. A second major event in biblical research, represented primarily by Louis Cappel’s Critica sacra (1650) and Isaac Voss’ De septuaginta interpretibus (1661), was the challenge to the status of textus receptus, perfectly equivalent to the “original”, which the Masoretic Text held until the mid-17th century (see Tov 2015, pp. 5, 37–38). Bos admitted the views according to which the vocalization and punctuation established by the Masoretes brought prejudice to the original Hebrew text.45 These two trends in biblical scholarship created the premises for the development of textual criticism, based on the belief that no textual form preserved in biblical manuscripts can truly be called the “original text” of the Bible, but also that the partial reconstruction of this virtual text is possible through a comparative analysis of existing versions. Lambert Bos, who had a good command of the Greek language, refused to be trapped by the chronological precedence of the Septuagint over the Masoretic Text, as occasionally was the case with Cappel or Voss. To him, the Septuagint was neither equal nor superior to the Hebrew text established by the Masoretes (ne aequiparemus eam Veritati Hebraicae, nedum praeponamus) but rather a complementary version, which was very useful for the elucidation of the obscure meanings of the Hebrew text, and for understanding early Christian writings. This was actually the very aim of biblical textual criticism for the philologists of the time; the reconstruction of an accurate text (not necessarily the oldest) did not serve the purpose of producing eclectic critical editions, as is the case today, but was kept away—at least in theory—from the text of the editions. The reasons why the Septuagint cannot be more than a complementary version of the Masoretic Text, and why it requires careful critical analysis, lie in the possible errors made by the translators of the texts,46 in the differences regarding the reading of the vowels and punctuation of the Hebrew text (etiam voces cum aliis punctis vocalibus legerunt), and above all in the large number of variants produced by the negligence of later scribes and copyists.47 In practice, the proportion of examples in which copyists are to blame for corrupting texts is so great that it can be argued that Lambert Bos deliberately sought to suggest that originally the Greek translations of the Septuagint were correct and equivalent to the Hebrew text of his time, and that the responsibility for deviations from the source text lay solely with those who transmitted them.

The stages followed by Bos in the textual criticism of the Septuagint are not different from those defined by current research, but they come with a number of features specific to that time period. In the process of collecting Greek readings from manuscripts, Bos started from the premise that no manuscript preserves the “pure” form of the ancient translations, but Codex Vaticanus preserves one of the closest texts to the original.48 He therefore believed that this must be the textus receptus with which the other versions can be compared. This decision was facilitated not only by the closeness of the text to the Hebrew one but also by the obvious errors he discovered in the other collated manuscripts. It should be noted that Lambert Bos did not have access to the numerous variants available today, and that his choice was justifiable based on the fact that no other complete uncial manuscript was known at the time apart from Codex Alexandrinus. The value of the versions was judged according to their degree of “deviation” from the Masoretic Text, and the proposed emendations related in particular to the text preserved in Codex Vaticanus. The belief that the Greek text once represented a correct equivalence of the Hebrew text of its time made him attempt to identify the type of error that caused the difference and to ignore other possible causes. The criticisms advanced in biblical philology by other scholars, who assumed that the translation was based on a different Hebrew source, or that the Greek text of the Septuagint was more accurate than that of the Masoretic Text,49 was repeatedly argued against by Lambert Bos.

Actual reconstructions of the text of the Septuagint and brief argumentations of Lambert Bos’ proposed emendations can be found only in the third chapter of the preface to the Dutch edition. They were neither included in the text of the edition, nor in the critical apparatus. His textual criticism generally started by approaching the differences between the Hebrew and Greek texts, but his evaluations were based on an internal analysis of the Greek readings and the history of their reception in the New Testament and patristic literature. The opinions advanced in biblical criticism by other scholars were usually completed with different explanations, mostly concerning errors of textual transmission. Translators’ interpretations were entirely disregarded, although exegesis is today recognized as an important component of the Septuagint.50 Explanations based on possible translation errors are scarce, despite the fact that there are currently sufficient indications that translators more than often misunderstood the source text (Tov 2015, p. 54). Most of the observations formulated by Bos focus on unintentional errors occurring at various stages of manuscript copying. Lambert Bos’ list follows the order of the Old Testament books, with the exception of the pseudepigraphs, and contains too many examples to be presented in full. We find it more useful to classify them according to the type of error they identify, and illustrate them with at most one or two examples.

4.1. Confusion of Graphically Similar Letters

Confusions between letters, caused by the graphic similarity in the Septuagint uncial manuscripts, are quite numerous. Most of the cases discovered by Lambert Bos have been amended in current modern editions.51 In most cases, they were detected by comparison with the Hebrew text. For example, in the text of Jd 21:22c (ὡς κλῆρος πλημμελήσατε) the term κλῆρος is corrupted by the scribes, who read in the uncial manuscripts KΛHPOC, instead of KAIPOC. Even though the Masoretic Text preserves the term eth (עת; “time”), and Codex Alexandrinus confirms the correct form (καιρὸν), Bos believed that further evidence was needed. A similar confusion occurs in Amos 9:6a, where Bos considered τὴν ἐπαγγελίαν (“the promise”) to be a copyist’s error, and that the term originally translated was στραγγαλιάν, a derived form of the verb στραγγαλιάω (“to tie knots”). An unskilled scribe (imperitus librarius) apparently confused in manuscripts the term ΣΤΡAΓΓAΛΙAΝ with the lemma ΕΠAΓΓΕΛΙAΝ. Bos’ argument was based on the comparison with the terms aguddah (אֲגֻדָּה; “band”, “bunch”) in the Masoretic Text, δέσμη (“package”, “bundle”) in Codex Barberini, and fasciculum (“small bundle”, “packet”) in the Vulgate. Despite the occurrence in Is 58:6c (διάλυε στραγγαλιὰς βιαίων συναλλαγμάτων; “undo the knots of contracts made by force”), inserted as additional evidence, the text established in current modern editions retains the ἐπαγγελίαν reading, probably because of the eschatological resonances and prophetic tone that are more appropriate in context. Similar instances of spelling confusion are discussed and argued by Lambert Bos in quotations from Ex 32:18c; 1Sam 4:19c; Ps 91:10b (91:11b); Is 60:18b; Jer 38:21a (MT 31:21a); Jer 45:22c and Am 6:5a.

4.2. Haplographies and Dittographies

In the modern sense, haplographies and dittographies refer to omissions, respectively additions of letters or groups of letters, where their repetition is (or is not) necessary. In Greek manuscripts, such negligences are often caused by scriptio continua. Lambert Bos pointed out several cases. The text preserved at the time in Ps 39:6 had the form θυσίαν καὶ προσφορὰν οὐκ ἠθέλησας,/σῶμα δὲ κατηρτίσω μοι· (“Sacrifice and offering you did not want,/but body you fashioned for me”). In Hebrew (Ps 40:6), however, one could read a totally different text, especially in the second part of the verse: “Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but ears you have dug for me”. Bos mentioned that this difference was dealt with by Isaac Voss, who indicated two possibilities: either the Hebrew word ozen (“ear”) was considered by the translators to be a synecdoche for the whole body, and consequently it should have been translated σῶμα, or “the Jews have altered the passage” (vel corrupisse Judaeos locum). More patiently, Bos first rejected Voss’ proposals: there are no other biblical occurrences where the term ozen is used as a synecdoche, and the corruption of the passage by the Jews is quite unlikely (minus probabile est). Then, Lambert Bos came up with a different solution, believing that the text was originally translated accurately by the plural ὠτία (“auricles”), but was subsequently corrupted by the copyists. In the continuous writing of the uncial manuscripts, the term was connected to the preceding verb (ἠθέλησας), being rendered in the correct form HΘΕΛHCACΩΤΙA. However, at a later stage, the copyists misunderstood the text; they added a sigma to the beginning of the next word and confused the letter group TI with an M, thus producing the form HΘΕΛHCACCΩMA (ἠθέλησας σῶμα).52 In order to justify his emendation, Lambert Bos mentioned other cases where similar dittographies have occurred in manuscripts. For the text in Eccles 10:15, Codex Alexandrinus preserved the wrong variant, τοῦ ἀφρόνος σκοτώσει αὐτόν, instead of the correct one, ἀφρόνων κοπώσει αὐτούς, which could be explained in exactly the same way. From κοπώσει it became σκοτώσει, because a scribe added a sigma (C) to the end of ἀφρόνος and confused gamma (Γ) with the letter tau (Τ), transforming the correct form (AΦΡOΝOCΚOΓΩCEΙ) into a corrupted one (AΦΡOΝOCCΚOΤΩCEΙ). Interesting cases of possible dittographies are also reported by Bos for the text in Is 40:3, quoted in the New Testament, and also for other biblical texts amended in current modern editions (Ps 43:12 (MT 44:12); Job 37:9).

4.3. Wrong Word Division

The same category of errors caused by scriptio continua also includes the wrong division of words. This phenomenon consists in considering letters or groups of letters as part of either the end of the preceding word or the beginning of the following one. An interesting case discussed by Lambert Bos occurs in Gen 43:11b, in a context related to the second journey of Jacob’s brothers to Egypt. Part of the narrative text, mentioning the gifts destined to Joseph, had the form θυμίαμα τε καὶ στακτὴν (“incense and oil of myrrh”) in the manuscript. Bos claimed he had no doubt (nullus dubito) that in the original Alexandrian translation the term θυμίαμα was actually translated in the plural (θυμιάματα), and that the Greek particle τε represents a corrupted form of the plural neuter (-τα), caused by scriptio continua. The main argument is provided by the Hebrew text, where the translated term is plural (נְכֹ֣את; sg. nekoth), and equally by other ancient versions, which record the plural aromata (“spices”). Another argument made by Lambert Bos is derived from the belief that the text has an interpretative value, being associated with a parallel passage in Gen 37:25. The plural term (θυμιαμάτων) is here mentioned among the goods of the merchants who bought Joseph from his brothers. Bos’ suggestion is that a meaningful analogy was lost due to the ignorance and carelessness of the copyists.

4.4. Transpositions

Permutations of letters, groups of letters, or words from their usual place also occur in the Septuagint manuscripts. A possible case of transposition was mentioned by Bos for the verb διακρινοῦσιν in Deut 33:7b (“his hands will decide for him”). Although Louis Cappel assumed that this was a different vocalization of the Hebrew verb rab (רָ֣ב), Lambert Bos proposed a different interpretation. According to him, a copyist misread διακρινοῦσιν (“will decide”) instead of διαρκοῦσιν (“will suffice”), a derivative of the verb διαρκεῖν (“to suffice”, “to endure”, “to sustain”). His main argument was supported by the use of this verb by Lucian of Samosata in a phrase from Demonax (ἐπεὶ καὶ ἔμαθεν οὐκέτι ἑαυτῷ διαρκῶν), with a meaning similar to that in the biblical text: “when he found out that he was no longer sufficient unto himself”. Bos stated that the phrase διαρκεῖν ἑαυτῷ applies to people who are strong enough not to need the support or help of others. He concluded that the biblical text should be understood in the same way, namely that the tribe of Judah is strong enough to shape its future based on its own strength. Another argument was created by analogy. Bos argued that other cases of transposition occur in Greek manuscripts, exemplifying with the verb ἀρέσκει (“to please”, “to satisfy”) in Josh17:16, which he regarded as a corrupted form of ἀρκέσει (<ἀρκεῖν; “to suffice”, “to be strong enough”).

4.5. Incorrect Vocalizations

Because different vocalizations of the Hebrew consonantal text are not mistakes that can be imputed to scribes (and often cannot even be considered errors), such cases are not often mentioned in Lambert Bos’ textual criticism. However, at least two analyzed cases can be mentioned. The first concerns the text preserved in the Septuagint manuscripts for Jd 1:15b, where the form καὶ δώσεις μοι λύτρωσιν ὕδατος (“you shall give me redemption of water”) is different from that preserved in the Masoretic Text. Bos considered that the term gullah (גֻּלָּה; “pool”, “well”), which should have been rendered by πηγή in Greek, was translated three times in the same quotation as λύτρωσις (“redemption”) because of a different vocalization. The translators would have read galloth (lat. redemptiones) in Hebrew instead of gulloth (lat. scaturigenes). A slightly different case concerns a transliteration from the Hebrew found in Job 36:30a (ἰδοὺ ἐκτείνει ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸν ηδω; “look, he stretches out edo against him”). Bos explained that the transliteration of ηδω (“his mist”) occurring in Codex Vaticanus indicates a different vocalization of the Hebrew text than the one found in the Masoretic Text (אוֹר֑וֹ; “his lightning”).

4.6. Logical and Conjectural Emendations of the Septuagint

A wide variety of occurrences analyzed by Lambert Bos fall into another category of emendations. They do not concern errors encountered in manuscripts, but rather reconstructions of the text based on means that differ from strictly material ones. All of the conjectures proposed by Lambert Bos, which are the result of intuition, textual probability, linguistic plausibility, and internal and external parallel quotations of the Bible, can be included here. Modern criticism generally rejects any kind of reconstruction that is not solidly based on manuscript texts, and even eliminates conjectural emendations from the field of textual criticism proper (Tov 2015, p. 4). Bos’ textual criticism presents enough such cases, which should, however, be treated with caution. An eloquent example is the solution Boss suggests for Ezek 20:37b. The philological problem starts from the different phrase preserved in the Masoretic Text and in the Septuagint manuscripts for the last part of the quotation. Where in the Hebrew we read “into the bound of the convenant” (בְּמָסֹ֥רֶת הַבְּרִֽית), the Septuagint translation provides the difficult phrase “by number” (ἐν ἀριθμῷ). According to Cappel, the difference was caused by a different vocalization of the Hebrew consonantal text. Lambert Bos provided a different explanation, which concerns a case of the internal corruption of the Greek text. He believed that the text was originally translated ἐν ἀρθμῷ (“into friendship”), and that this particular case emphasizes a dittography produced by copyists. His arguments were based on external texts, provided by Hesychius’ Lexicon or even by Aeschylus’ tragedy Prometheus Bound. The mere association of ἀρθμός with φιλία and φιλότητα in the two external sources became textual evidence. However, a careful analysis of the solution proposed by Bos will certainly indicate that it is derived from the exegesis and theology of the time. The covenant defined as a “friendship with God” is one of the core ideas of the federal theology conceived by Johannes Cocceius (1603–1669), professor at the University of Franeker between 1636 and 1650, and later at the University of Leiden.53 The reinterpretation of the notion of foedus in the sense of a relationship of mutual friendship with the divinity and the establishment of a conventual theology in which amicitia cum Deo becomes the goal of human life (van Asselt 2010, pp. 1–15) had a considerable impact at the time, and obviously underlies Lambert Bos’ conjecture.

5. Conclusions

Despite some isolated cases in which influences deriving from the mentality of the time can be detected, Lambert Bos’ textual criticism has the characteristics of a thorough analysis, and is still relevant today. However, this relevance could be easily misunderstood, especially when proper practice is taken out of the cultural context that produced it. For this very reason, we preferred to formulate our conclusive remarks in a manner that would ensure the balance between the specificity of biblical criticism practiced during Lambert Bos’ time, and its potential to continue to provide valuable suggestions for further research.

Most of Lambert Bos’ published works reflect the constant effort to recover texts that are lexically, grammatically and stylistically accurate. In his efforts, Lambert Bos views the history of Greek and Latin texts as a continuum, unaffected by linguistic periodization. Like most intellectuals of the time, Bos disregards the semantic development of ancient languages, and does not create artificial incompatibilities between religious and secular writings. His contribution to the development of Greek linguistics is definitely worth emphasizing. Even though this research field currently has far more numerous and complex resources than Bos had access to, the confrontation with the ellipses of the Greek language and the questionable semantics of ancient terminology remains the same. One of the most debated issues in the current research on the lexicography of the Septuagint is actually the semantic relation between the Greek terms and their Hebrew source. Textual criticism in the late 17th century dealt with the same type of question: How significant is the influence of the Hebrew language on the meaning attributed to Greek terms in the translation of the Septuagint? Lambert Bos’ ambiguous and hesitating responses with regard to this specific issue definitely require further research, as they are not found only in the preface of the Franeker edition.

A second issue raised by the textual criticism practiced in Bos’ time is the possible influence exerted on translation choices from vernacular languages. As far as the Franeker edition is concerned, things are somewhat clearer, given the conservative nature of the established text. Lambert Bos did not aim to make major innovations and personal contributions to the text established by the Sixtine editors. Even in the critically analyzed and intensely argued cases of transmission errors, his edition preserves the text edited in 1587. The critical apparatus, though superior to other editions, is nevertheless based only on the two uncial manuscripts known at the time, on the readings of a few editions, and on a limited number of variants. Objectively viewed, the Frenequerana represents an updated edition of the Sixtina and one of many versions based on Codex Vaticanus. Its status as a ‘complete’ version remained unchanged until 1798, when the first volume of the monumental Oxford edition by Robert Holmes was issued.

Whereas an editor like Lambert Bos could hardly afford any liberties at all, a translator like Samuil Micu, who adjusted his critical tools to comply with those of the Dutch edition, was free to choose from a variety of options. The difficulty of producing a translation that is, at the same time, stylistically elegant, grammatically correct, and semantically precise, in a literary language that was—at the time—in a process of formation finds clear parallels in Bos’ biblical criticism principles, as he carefully considered Greek stylistics, the grammatical accuracy of the texts, and thoroughly argued semantics. Given the influence of Bos’ principles and methods on the Romanian translation, as well as the eclectic nature of the sources used by Samuil Micu, future research should attempt to examine the extent to which Lambert Bos’ textual criticism influenced the translator’s decisions.

The last aspect we would like to point out concerns the viability and importance of the textual criticism proposed by the Dutch Hellenist. The textual criticism practiced by Lambert Bos is a preliminary stage in the evolution of the field as we know it today. The criteria and methods of analysis used for the Septuagint are still dependent on those applied in classical text criticism, inherited from Renaissance humanism, but they are supplemented by up-to-date information relating to paleography and the history of Septuagint transmission. At the beginning of the 18th century, some aspects which underpin biblical textual criticism today were still unknown. The fundamental principles guiding Lambert Bos seem to be his personal opinions on the issue of the differences between the Biblical texts. Both the differences revealed by the comparison with the Masoretic Text and the variations between the manuscript readings are attributed by Bos to the erroneous transmission of the Greek text. This aspect determines, on the one hand, the series of forced emendations, based on his belief that the Greek texts were once faithful copies of the Hebrew ones, and on the other hand, the series of correct observations, aimed at providing a grammatical explanation of the cause of deviations or copying errors.

The lack of scientific principles and criteria used in modern biblical criticism did not prevent Lambert Bos from providing accurate solutions for the emendation of Greek texts. Many of Lambert Bos’ proposals are to be found today in modern critical editions, in most cases benefiting from independent evaluations, which have reached similar results. For instance, the critically established texts of the well-known editions issued by Alfred Rahlfs and Robert Hanhart record no less than a quarter of the critical observations proposed by Bos in his preface to the Franeker edition. The fact that they were achieved independently, with infinitely superior means and tools, confirms both the quality of Lambert Bos’ textual criticism and the importance of further research in this direction.