Syro-Hexaplar version
The Syro-Hexaplar version (also Syro-Hexapla) is the Syriac translation of the Septuagint based on the fifth column of Origen's Hexapla. The translation was made by Bishop Paul of Tella, at the Enaton around 617, from the Hexaplaric text of the Septuagint.[1][2] A Palestinian Syriac version, extant in fragments, is known to go back to at least 700.[3]
Significance
This version is important for the study of the Septuagint, for Swete believed that it often includes the symbols Origen used to mark the differences he observed between the Septuagint text and the Hebrew text.[4] Since many later copies of the Septuagint dropped Origen's symbols, the Syro-Hexapla is one of the primary ways that textual critics can identify Hexaplaric material in the Septuagint.[5]
Being a direct translation from the Greek of the Septuagint into Syriac, it should be distinguished from the Peshitta, which is a Syriac translation directly from the Hebrew.
References
- The Scattered Pearls: A History of Syriac Literature and Sciences, by Ighnāṭyūs Afrām I (Patriarch of Antioch). ISBN 9781931956048. p.313.
- A Short Commentary on the Book of Daniel by A. A. Bevan. ISBN 9781107669949. p.43.
- Encyclopædia Britannica - Paul of Tella
- "The Origenic signs were scrupulously retained", p. 112 Swete, Henry Barclay. 1914. Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek. Cambridge.
- 1953. Charles Fritsch. The treatment of the Hexaplaric signs in the Syro-Hexaplar of Proverbs. Journal of Biblical Literature 72.3: 169-181.