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LESSON 82. “NO WORD OF GOD IS VOID OF POWER”
(Concluded.)
663. It is possible to demonstrate that this clause
which is omitted from the Greek Septuagint rendering of 1
Samuel 2:22, existed in the original Hebrew, and was
intentionally omitted from the Greek,¾so
that it is futile for the Higher Critics to shelter their
“modern theory” under the pretext that it is an
interpolation into the Hebrew.
664. Prof. Margoliouth has worked out the demonstration,
but it will require very close attention for the student to
appreciate its full value. Rather than hazard an attempt to
represent him, we will quote his proof: “The whole of the
modern theory of the Pentateuch is liable to be wrecked on a
verse of 1 Samuel (2:22), where it is stated that the sons
of Eli misused the women who assembled (A. V.) at the door
of the Tabernacle of the congregation that clause is omitted
by the Septuagint translator…”
665. “Either the editor of the Hebrew interpolated the
clause (as the Higher Critics claim), or the Septuagint
omitted it. Omission can happen accidentally, whereas
addition in such a case must be intentional;
whence the supposition
that it can have got accidentally into the Hebrew may
be dismissed, whereas the possibility that it may have been
accidentally omitted by
the translator (of the Septuagint) must be allowed.”
666. “Was there then, any motive for omitting it,
supposing the omission to be intentional? One has but to
glance at the rabbinical commentaries to see: the rabbis do
their utmost to clear Eli’s sons from this terrible charge.
The oldest exegesis made the words allegorical; the crime of
Eli’s sons was so bad that the text is supposed to
compare it to the crime with which it really charges
them. The later exegesis gives the words senses which they
certainly do not possess. Hence it is clear that there was a
motive for the omission of the words from the Septuagint.”
(It must be remembered that Jews made this translation).
667. Next the writer questions whether there was an
equally strong motive for adding them to the Hebrew text, an
addition of this sort must be by intention, as he has said,
after the Septuagint was made,¾for
it must have been after that time (nearly 300 years before
Christ), or the translators would have had the words before
them to translate. At this point the subject has special
interest for women. Prof. Margoliouth says that against the
view that the clause was interpolated into the Hebrew after
300 B.C., “It is to be observed that there is a second
difficulty in the clause, which the Jewish exegesis has to
overcome. Who were the women that served at the door
of the Tabernacle? The word translated ‘assembled’, but
really meaning ‘served’, is of great antiquity, and
corresponds with the word ‘served’ in being specialized in
certain contexts. ‘One who has served’ means, if used of a
man, one who has been a soldier; and the word used in Hebrew
for ‘the army’ means literally ‘the service’. But just as
the word ‘service’ in other contexts means religious
service, so this Hebrew word used of something done at the
door of the Tabernacle of the Covenant means some religious
performance done by these women as functionaries. . . .
But the idea of women in attendance at the
Tabernacle is so odious that it has to be got rid of.”
668. He next proceeds to show that just as the
rabbinical commentaries prove that there existed, in the
desire to “whitewash” the character of the sons of Eli, a
motive for omitting the clause, and it was intentionally
omitted, so there appears, in the various versions of
ancient times, proof that the strongest prejudices of Jewish
men would have been violated by interpolating such a clause,
at this time, into the Hebrew text of Samuel, and hence it
could not have been done: “The Peshitta [a Syriac version of
the early part of the 2nd century,¾see
par. 131] renders ‘the women who prayed; there; and
this the Targum [see par. 134] adopts. The rabbis, followed
by our Authorized Version [margin renders it ‘the women who
thronged.” He next turns to the passage in Exodus.
669. “In Exod. 38:8 . . . the same objection is felt [an
objection to admitting that women had a share in the
Tabernacle ritual service]. The Aramaic [Peshitta and
Targum] translators make them women who prayed, the
Septuagint, women who fasted. Thus it is evident that
by the time when the Septuagint translation of the
Pentateuch was made, the idea of women ministering at the
door of the Tabernacle had
become so odious that
it was wilfully mistranslated. What chance is there, then
that anyone
would have wilfully added an allusion to them after that
date?”
670. “This, then, is a case in which an argument, at
first sight powerful, if steadily glanced at, vanishes. The
Septuagint rendering of Exodus is most likely earlier
(certainly not later) than that of 1 Samuel. From that
rendering, coupled with those of other authorities, we learn
that a certain phrase had become odious by the time when the
translation was made. What we infer thence is surely that no
one would have willfully inserted the same phrase [in 1
Samuel] where it did not occur.
671. The omission, he declares, is fully accounted for.
The crime of Eli’s sons was bad enough. They corrupted some
of the women they were in daily association with; and the
context, in that God visited them with judgment, shows the
sons of Eli were the chief offenders, not the women. But
when, to escape admitting that women served at the door of
the Tabernacle the word was mistranslated “prayed”
and “fasted,” such terms acquitted the women
altogether, and left the inference that Eli’s sons committed
violence towards pious women bent only upon worship, and
when they were in the act of worship. But when others
translated “assembled” (or “assembled in troops”) the
inference is that women “thronged” to these two evil men,¾indeed
the rabbis and our A. V. margin so render.
672. Such misinterpretations as these might pass at home
in Palestine¾particularly
after women were “silenced” in the synagogues and churches,
and could not defend themselves from such slander. But when
the Jews sat down at Alexandria to the task of translating
their Bible for the foreign Egyptian king, would they admit
that their priesthood ever sank so low? Would they wish to
admit that their women ever sank so low, to a foreign
nation? Prof. Margoliouth says: “When faced with such
difficulties, many persons think the wisest course is to
flee. And this is what the Septuagint translator has done.”
In a word, they omitted the clause intentionally from 1
Samuel 2:22.
673. Thus, the effort to defend the reliability of the
Mosaic literature involves the defender in the duty to
uphold the ancient right of women to serve at the Temple
of the Lord either as priests or as Levites. “No word of God
is void of power,” not even such a word as certain men,
because of preconceptions as to “woman’s place,” wish to
alter or reject. In due course, the male translator
discovers that he must retrace his steps, and pick up again
the genuine meaning of a word which he has corrupted in the
translation, unless he is willing to weaken the credibility
of the entire Pentateuch, and probably, it will be found in
the end, of the entire Bible.
This honor put upon women of the O. T. is in marked contrast
to the decision of the ecclesiastical Council of Laodicea,
of the 4th century, and by which the Church abides to this
day: “Women may not go to the altar.” This was explained by
Zonaras, and by other “Fathers” as due to the fact that
women are “unwillingly indeed,” at times ceremonially
“unclean.” As though men priests were not sometimes
“ceremonially unclean”¾yes
and even morally unclean!
We may be accused of sex bias if we charge translators of
the Word with lack of candor in dealing with the position of
women in God’s economy. But we ask, Have women ever used
stronger language than Prof. Margoliouth has used in this
connection¾“wilfully
mistranslated”¾to
drive the accusation home? And we must remember that that
same willful mistranslation stands in the text of our
Authorized Version to this day. It has been corrected in
the Revised Version. |