Eschatology in the Greek Psalter

Eschatology in the Greek Psalter. By Joachim Schaper. WUNT 2.76. Tibingen: Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1995, 212 pp., DM 78 paper.

This book represents a revised version of the author's 1993 Ph.D. dissertation at Cambridge University. Schaper's aim is to contribute to our understanding of the eschatology of early Judaism as a source for NT backgrounds. One must take care to understand this limited focus. This is not a book about the Greek translation of the Psalms as such. It is a book about the influence of Hellenism on Palestinian Judaism in the 2nd century BC. The Greek Psalter is the means for getting us there.

Schaper begins the book by setting it within the context of recent and classical approaches to the Greek translation of the OT. Here his approach is clearly guided by his larger purpose. For Schaper, the focus on the textual history of the Greek Bible and its translation technique, which occupy much of the current study of the LXX, are granted some importance, but center stage is reserved for the study of the historical and cultural context of the translator(s) of the Greek Psalter. Says Schaper, studies of the Greek Bible that focus on linguistic features of its translation vis-&-vis the Hebrew Bible are generally "ahistorical" because they tend to overlook nonlinguistic factors in translation. A word or a phrase might have been translated in a certain way not because of the translator's understanding of the relationship between Hebrew and Greek but because of the translator's dependence on a proto-rabbinical hermeneutic. Moreover, since we do not have the Hebrew Bible of the Greek translators, it would be anachronistic to suppose the translator used a Hebrew text identical to the present MT. The attempt to reconstruct (through textual criticism) the Hebrew version used by the translator of the Greek Psalter, is "an impossible endeavour." One cannot therefore make absolute statements about the equivalencies of Greek and Hebrew in the Psalms. For that reason, one should focus on the Greek Psalter itself as a religious document in its own right. Schaper's approach, by his own admission, is reminiscent of earlier scholars such as C. H. Dodd (1935) and Z. Frankel (1851).

A major part of Schaper's thesis rests on his dating and locating the translation of the Greek Psalter in 2nd-century BC Palestine. This is also the most tenuous part of his argument. It would be impossible in this brief review to rehearse his justification for this position. In the last analysis, his argument rests on the meaning given to a single Greek word used in the translation and additional corroborating evidence. Schaper himself acknowledges the tenuousness of this argument. Nevertheless the entire subsequent argument of the book is based on this dating and location. Much of the verse-by-verse explication of individual Greek psalms builds on the assumption of a 2nd-century Palestinian origin of the translation. Before relying too heavily on the results of Schapers analysis of the Greek psalms one is advised to read carefully the brief chapter on "The Greek Psalms in Jewish Worship" (pp. 131-133). Here Schaper attempts to come to terms with the notion of the use of a Greek translation of the Psalms in the largely Semitic (albeit Hellenistic) context of 2nd-century Palestine. I leave it to the reader to decide whether he has answered all the questions.

The bulk of Schaper's study is devoted to a careful and insightful analysis (exegesis) of isolated "eschatological" and "messianic" passages in the Greek Psalms. His general tack in each passage is to show first that the Hebrew passage is best understood noneschatologically, e.g. Psalm 1 belongs in a wisdom context (Gunkel). The Greek translator, however, saw an occasion in the text to render his own eschatological hope meaningful to his 2nd-century context. It is in those instances where the translator had a measure of linguistic liberty to choose from among several Greek words that we see the theology of 2nd-century BC Judaism of the translator(s) coming through. Here, in just these types of translational opportunities, we can observe the sea-change from OT piety to Hellenistic eschatology and ultimately to Christianity.

The book concludes with three chapters which center on the Greek translator's understanding of the temple and worship in Judaism, the translator's use of early Jewish exegesis, and "Eschatology and Messianism" in the Greek Psalms. It is here that Schaper develops his central thesis: the LXX (that is, the Greek Psalter) is a valuable, but often overlooked, historical source for reconstructing the development of OT religion, through its transformation in Hellenism, to its ultimate rebirth in NT Christianity.

Schaper's study is a bold, and I believe successful, attempt to refocus scholarly attention on an oft-neglected aspect of NT backgrounds. As such it makes a major contribution to our understanding of messianism and early Jewish eschatology. The implications for NT studies are obvious and Schaper does much to bring these to the attention of the reader.