When most people read the Bible, they read it in the vernacular—in their own language. This means they are reading a translation of the Bible into their language. The Bible was originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Translating the Bible into another language is not as straightforward as it might seem. When it comes to reading the Bible, we must keep in mind that 'every translation is an interpretation.' This is true for several reasons. For example, there are phrases in the Bible whose literal meanings seem obscure or unintelligible to us today. Additionally, there are some words in the original languages of the Bible whose meanings we still do not know. Finally, there are many words which could conceivably be translated in many different ways. In all these cases, translators must strike a balance somewhere on the continuum of rendering the text as intelligible as possible to the modern reader and translating the text as correctly and literally as possible. Thus, philology, or the study of languages, is critically important to both translators and biblical scholars because it plays an important role in how we understand the Bible.
From a historical perspective, probably the first persons who could be classified as biblical philologists would be the producers of the Septuagint (LXX), who translated the Jewish Tanakh into Greek several centuries before the birth of Jesus. The next major figure would be St. Jerome, who in the fourth century translated the Old and New Testaments from their original languages into Latin, thereby producing the Latin Vulgate translation that would dominate Christian usage for many years. In the 16th century, Desiderius Erasmus "published the first critical edition of the Greek New Testament," which served as the basis for many subsequent vernacular translations.[1] The next century saw Louis Cappel using philological principles in his work Critica Sacra to critically examine the Masoretic Text, which served as the foundation for the Jewish Scriptures.[2] Similarly, Julius Wellhausen, a 19th century philologist and biblical scholar, called for a new critical and "eclectic edition" of the Hebrew Bible.[3]
Generally, recognition of the need for philology in biblical studies gradually increased among scholars after the work of Cappel. Overall, biblical philology involves the study of the biblical languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek) especially as they appear in the biblical texts themselves. Furthermore, it involves the comparison of words in the biblical texts to possible cognates of these words in other languages from the ancient Near East. Cognate languages are languages that, although different, belong to the same family. For example, Hebrew is related to other ancient Near East languages such as Akkadian and Ugaritic. If biblical scholars have difficulty determining the meaning of a word in the Hebrew Bible, philologists can search other ancient texts written in cognate languages of Hebrew for a word that might reveal a connection to the undetermined Hebrew word. Thus, the study of cognate languages to the biblical languages is a very important part of philology.
One of the foremost aspects of biblical studies that involves philology is 'the problem of missing vowels.' Many languages from the ancient Near East feature Semitic alphabets. However, "Semitic alphabets (including Hebrew) represent only consonants" when written.[4] Thus, there are many words in the Hebrew Bible which could be translated in various ways depending on the vowel-sounds included with these consonants. The verse in Hosea 11:4 represents a case study in 'the problem of missing vowels.' Older English translations of this verse translate it as "I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws" (KJV) whereas more recent translations render it as "I fostered them like those who raise an infant to their cheeks" (NABRE). The difficulty here is that the Hebrew word עֹ֖ל could be read as the word for 'yoke' ('ol) or the word for 'suckling' (ʿûl) depending on the vowels inferred.[5] This verse also illustrates the challenge for translators that some words have multiple possible meanings. Thus, the "verb here means simply 'to lift' . . . [which] can be understood as 'to lift up onto' or 'to lift up off'."[6] Both the translation in the KJV and the NABRE represent 'correct' translations of the text as written. The task of philology is to determine which one is 'more correct' based on study of the words and their context.
Another biblical translation challenge that requires the application of philology is the presence of hapax legomena in the biblical text. A hapax legomenon "usually refers to a word that appears but once in either the OT or NT as a whole," thus often posing serious difficulties in determining its meaning.[7] If a word only occurs once in the text and the word is no longer part of the vocabulary of modern Hebrew, then scholars have to use contextual and philological evidence to try to determine its meaning. There are about 1,500 hapax legomena in the entire Bible. Thankfully, philologists have been able to identify the meaning of a large number of these words through the study of cognate languages of Hebrew. There are about 400 hapax legomena whose meanings are still undetermined today. Interestingly, the book of Job contains "more hapax legomena . . . than any other biblical writing."[8] The presence of hapax legomena in the Bible "underscores the nature of [biblical] translation as an art and not a science."[9]
One case where cognate languages have helped find a meaning is in the passage of Psalm 68:5. It reads, "Sing to God, praise his name;/ exalt the rider of the clouds./ Rejoice before him/ whose name is the Lord" (NABRE). "Rider of the clouds" is a translation of the original Hebrew "rkb bʿrbwt," and after vowels were added, it read, "rōkēb baʿărābôt."[10] Philologists focused on the word "araboth" and translated it as 'desert.' For this reason, older translations read, "rideth upon the heavens" (KJV), or "rides through the wastelands" (Luther);[11] Ignatius Press' RSVCE alternative for this part of the verse is "rides through the deserts."[12] The solution to this tricky passage lies in cognate languages. The Hebrew word "rōkēb" has an identical counterpart in Ugaritic. Scholars also know that the god Baal was referred to as the "rkbʿrpt" or "rider of the clouds" in Ugaritic literature, so "ʿărābôt" must actually mean 'cloud.'[13] Many newer translations have reflected this change. Thus, this part of the psalm draws from Canaanite mythology.[14]
Even with our knowledge of cognate languages, it can nevertheless be difficult to determine the meanings of individual phrases or expressions in the Bible. For example, the literal translation of Leviticus 19:16b from Hebrew reads, "You [sg.] shall not stand on the blood of your [sg.] neighbor. I [am] Yhwh."[15] The problem of the passage is solving what 'standing on the blood of one's neighbor' means. English translations from the Hebrew vary from one another: "nor shall you stand by idly when your neighbor's life is at stake" (NABRE); "you shall not stand forth against the life of your neighbor" (RSVCE); "neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbour" (KJV); "you shall not conspire against the blood of your neighbor" (NETS). When it comes to interesting phrases such as this, the philologist must guess what the author meant.
The application of philology to biblical studies is very important in order for us to deepen our understanding of the biblical text. In popular reading, the Bible is often viewed as a single work and people read the Bible as if it were written in their own language. When someone first learns about the magnitude of philology's influence on our understanding of the bible, philology becomes a subject of significant interest and even mystery. Will we ever discover the meaning of the remaining hapax legomena? What other translation improvements and corrections will be made on the basis of future discoveries? Perhaps there are numerous unsolved biblical mysteries which will be unlocked by philological breakthroughs in the near future.
Bibliography
Hendel, Ronald. "The Untimeliness of Biblical Philology." In Vol 1 (2015) of Philology: An International Journal on the Evolution of Languages, Cultures and Texts. Edited by Francesco Benozzo. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang AG, 2016, 9-28.
Soulen, Richard N. and Soulen, R. Kendall. Handbook of Biblical Criticism: Fourth Edition. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011.
Bergan, Dianne. "The Wisdom Books." In The Catholic Study Bible: Second Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
[1] Ronald Hendel, "The Untimeliness of Biblical Philology," in Vol 1 (2015) of Philology: An International Journal on the Evolution of Languages, Cultures and Texts, edited by Francesco Benozzo, (Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang AG, 2016), 11 (9-28).
[2] Ibid., 15.
[3] Ibid., 18.
[5] 'Philology' on Moodle.
[6] 'Philology' on Moodle.
[7] Richard N. Soulen and R. Kendall Soulen, Handbook of Biblical Criticism: Fourth Edition, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 81.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] 'Philology' on Moodle.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Footnote for Psalm 68:5, RSVCE
[13] 'Philology' on Moodle.
[14] Footnote in The Catholic Study Bible (NABRE).
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