Alfred Rahlfs' edition of the Septuagint, sometimes called Rahlfs' Septuagint or Rahlfs' Septuaginta, is a
critical edition
Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts or of printed books. Such texts may range in da ...
of the
Septuagint
The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond th ...
published for the first time in 1935 by the German
philologist
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...
Alfred Rahlfs
Alfred Rahlfs (; ; 29 May 1865 – 8 April 1935) was a German Biblical scholar. He was a member of the history of religions school. He is known for his edition of the Septuagint published in 1935.
Biography
He was born in Linden near Hanover, an ...
.
This edition is the most widely spread edition of the Septuagint.
The full title of this edition is: ''Septuaginta: id est Vetus Testamentum Graece iuxta LXX interpretes''; this edition was first published in 1935, in 2 volumes, by the
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
The Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft ("German Bible Society") is a religious foundation regulated by public law. It is involved in publishing and in spreading the message of the Bible.
The Society publishes the Bible in the original languages and in ...
, in
Stuttgart
Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...
.
Many reprints were made later.
The name of the 2006 revision is known as the Rahlfs-Hanhart, after the revisor .
Main codices used
In his edition, Rahlfs used mainly three
codices
The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...
to establish the text:
Vaticanus,
Sinaiticus
The Codex Sinaiticus (Shelfmark: London, British Library, Add MS 43725), designated by siglum [Aleph] or 01 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 2 (in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts) ...
and
Alexandrinus
The Codex Alexandrinus (London, British Library, Royal MS 1. D. V-VIII), designated by the siglum A or 02 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 4 (in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts), is a manu ...
, with the Vaticanus as the "leading manusript".
Revision
In 2006 edited a revised version of the text, known as the "Editio altera",
or "Rahlfs-Hanhart".
The text of this revised edition contains only changes in the diacritics and two wording changes in Isaiah 5:17 and 53:2 (Is 5:17 ''ἀπειλημμένων'' became ''ἀπηλειμμένων'', and Is 53:2 ''ἀνηγγείλαμεν'' became by conjecture ''ἀνέτειλε μένὰ'').
See also
*
Roman Septuagint
References
Further reading
*
*
External links
1935 edition on WikisourceRevised edition online
{{Bible-stub
Editions of the Septuagint
1935 non-fiction books