Regarding the publication of the sacred books of the Old Testament in Russian translation

Which text of the Old Testament Scriptures should we adhere to? prof. I.S. Yakimov Regarding the opinion of one bishop about the significance of the Russian translation of the Old Testament biblical books, published with the blessing of the Holy Synod, prof. I.S. Yakimov On the use of the new translation of the Old Testament writings by St. Feofan the Recluse The solution to the question of the extent of Orthodox use of the current Jewish text, according to the instructions of the church practice of St. Feofan the Recluse About our duty to adhere to the translation of 70 interpreters of St. Feofan the Recluse About the perplexities caused by the Russian translation of St. books of the Old Testament by prof. P.I. Gorsky-Platonov A few words about the article by the Right Reverend Bishop Theophan: “Concerning the publication of the sacred books of the Old Testament in Russian translation” by prof. P.I. Gorsky-Platonov They ask: in what meaning should the translation of the Old Testament Scriptures from Hebrew be taken? We answer: as a guide to understanding the inspired Scriptures of the Old Testament, the contents of St. Church. The word of God devoted to the Church of God has always been and will always be contained by it - until the end of time. There can be many translations, there can be many interpretations, as transitory and changing understandings of the word of God; the very word of God, which St. The Church contains, is and will remain inviolable and unchangeable. The translation of the Old Testament scriptures from Hebrew is one of the transitory and changing understandings of the word of God. Some people have a belief, when they encounter something obscure in the prophetic writings, they think: the translation is not accurate; one must look in the Hebrew, believing that the current Hebrew text is the same one that came out of the hands of the prophets and therefore contains the most authentic word of God. This is the prejudice of the school, and not our school, but a foreign and heterodox one. The most authentic word of God is that which is contained in the Church, although it is not in Hebrew, but in the East, in Greek, and here in Slavic. Let's take the matter from the beginning. Did the Old Testament writings come out of the hands of the prophets completely clear and understandable to everyone? No; They even came out darkish from their hands. The reason for this is that the divine contemplations that the Holy Spirit implanted in the minds of the prophets were not fully embedded in the forms of the human word that they possessed. To bring this thought closer to conviction, it is worth comparing the apostolic writings. Are they clear and understandable in everything? No, there is also darkness in them, as everyone knows from experience. The reason for this is the same: the divine is completely incompatible with the human word. St. ap. Paul says: “I am ignorant in word, but not in understanding,” meaning that he sees many things with a God-enlightened mind, but that he lacks words to express it. Meanwhile, the apostles wrote in Greek, which is more verbose than Hebrew. If, however, it was impossible to avoid obscurities in the apostolic writings; how much more should there be in the prophetic writings, written in such antiquity and in such a language? The main thing in those writings was clear, and those who accepted them were content with what was understandable, understanding the incomprehensible in words or from the oral interpretation of the prophets during their lives, or from the tradition of subsequent godly wise men, or from their own insight, as we now do in relation to the obscurities in the New Testament writings. Everyone fed their souls with what was clearly expressed in the word, understanding the unclear in accordance with that, but no one dared to introduce into the text their understanding of the unclear, in the form of clarifying it for the readers. This is how it went until the translation of the revealed word into Greek. When God's chosen translators began this work, arranged by God's special providence, they of course understood all divine Scripture, clear according to its clarity, dark according to tradition, or according to the relationship of the obscure with the clear. But understanding the word of God is another matter, and translating it is another matter. Translation requires literal accuracy so as not to turn into a paraphrase, allowing explanatory deviations from the letter. In this regard, clear words presented no difficulty; translation word for word gave clear thoughts. But in relation to the obscurities in the scripture, one had to strictly restrain oneself, so as not to be tempted by the desire to bring clarity to the word by introducing one’s own understanding of the obscurities into the translation. And we see that this temptation did not captivate the godly interpreters. They made it a rule, which they followed, to translate word for word and everything that was obscure in the original, providing an understanding of it to those who read it, according to the general law then in use for understanding such passages, just as it was then provided to those who read the original. They did not allow themselves to introduce anything into the text in the form of clarifying something obscure, strictly adhering to the law that lies with translators - to convey what is being translated with literal accuracy. This is the origin of the obscurities in the Old Testament writings according to the translation of 70 interpreters, the contents of St. Church. These obscurities occur because they were in the original. Why is this translation, despite its darkness, the most accurate, the truest representation of the original prophetic writings: what was there is also here, they replace themselves mutually. He who accepts these writings in the translation of the 70 does not lose anything compared to the one who accepted them in the text from which the translation was made. So this translation was then accepted by all Jews, both in Alexandria, and in Palestine, and everywhere. Those who understood both the Hebrew text and the Greek translation saw their perfect similarity, and were completely satisfied with the translation. His obscurities did not tempt them, because they were the same as in the original. Those who did not understand Hebrew were also completely satisfied with the translation, believing their elders that it was the most accurate representation of the original. How these latter were predominantly outside Palestine; then outside it the word of God in the translation of the 70 completely replaced it in the Hebrew text. But no one grieved or regretted that they were suffering a loss by not reading the word of God in Hebrew, but everyone believed, as they should, that they had the true word of God in Greek. This is how it went until the appearance of the Lord on earth and the spread of Christianity. Philo and Josephus, the most learned Jews, revered this translation as representing the true inspired word of God. Believing Christians, in the Church of God, every single one, did not know any other word of God except that which existed in the translation of 70 interpreters. It was handed over to the Church of God of St. the apostles, and it was then contained by it and is even to this day, as the one true word of God. The Jews first began to take an unfavorable attitude towards this translation after they experienced strong reproof from Christians of their unbelief and stubbornness, borrowed from the prophetic writings in this translation. The Jews, through deception, believed that they stood in the truth. When they saw that they were being denounced by the prophets they revered, they came up with a twist to console themselves: it couldn’t be that the prophets spoke like that; The Greek translation does not express the prophetic thoughts; in the original it is correctly read differently - in the original, which they did not know how to read. The leaders of the people seized on this idea, all the more willingly because it was convenient for them to cover their shame with this veil, for the people did not know the Hebrew language. And a conversation began among the Jews: the translation of the 70 is incorrect, the translation is incorrect. Hence the assassination attempt - to translate more accurately. And then Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion appear and give new translations. All this happens between Jews and to please the Jews. The translators are all renegades who fell away from the Church into Judaism. There was nothing like this among Christians. Everyone remained faithful to the word given to St. the apostles and their first successors in the translation of the 70. Meanwhile, by this time, the Hebrew text of the word of God, completely abandoned by Christians and almost completely by Jews, with the exception of some scientists, had significantly deteriorated, and its reading had lost its constant certainty. Tangible proof of this is provided by the aforementioned translations. They disagree with each other and with the translation of the 70, although all were done from Hebrew. This means that each of the translators read and understood the Hebrew Bible differently than the others, and they all read and understood it differently than how it was read and understood at the time it was translated by 70 interpreters. Who does not see that the Jews have already begun to wander back and forth through the books of Scripture and get confused in reading them? Damage to the Hebrew text occurred either from copyists who replaced some letters from similar ones with others, or from different readings of words: the reason was the absence of vowels, the insertion of which, by cleverness, changed the meaning of sayings and sentences. There is no need to suspect any malicious intent in this: everything went according to the usual course of human affairs. Jews valued the word of their ancestors and could not distort it intentionally. But one cannot help but admit that in those places that were a bit dark, and especially in those; who spoke in condemnation of the Jews for not believing the Gospel, their eyes sought every opportunity to read other words, either so that they would seem more understandable, or so that they would remove the reproach from them and deprive Christians of support for their denunciation. We say: “eye”, because they have many similar letters, but put one instead of the other, a different meaning will come out; Also, their vowels are not written, but if you put one instead of the other, it will also have a different meaning. In these ways, the Jews, following one eye, driven either by the search for clarity, or by a secret desire to get rid of reproach (and this desire was supported by the superstition that the prophets could not reproach the sons of Abraham for their beliefs, which at that time were, however, already direct deviations from the faith), began to read and write a lot differently from how they were read and written in the times of the 70s. Time passed; The deviations of the current Jewish text from the original original also multiplied. Meanwhile, the ability to read Hebrew became weaker and weaker and not only weakened, but also diversified: in one place they read it this way, in another differently. In these circumstances, the learned Jews came up with a good idea - to establish a uniform reading, coming up with different icons to indicate which vowel should be read where. The masorettes did this. The fruit of their labors was the real Hebrew Bible. Determine the dignity of the work of the masorets, and you will determine the dignity of the current Jewish Bible. Of course, no one would expect that the Masorets would have a special revelation to restore the original reading of the Hebrew text. The sons of their people, they walked the same road that their predecessors had walked. If in the second century, three or four centuries after the 70, the children of Israel read the Hebrew text and among themselves differently and disagreed with the ancient reading represented by the translation of the 70; then can we expect that this reading would be more correct after another three centuries (by the end of the 5th century)? – If the reasons indicated above for evasion from the true reading of the Scriptures remained in effect among the Jews, then they certainly bore fruit according to their kind: the deviations multiplied and established an ever greater distance between how the text should have been read, and how the Jews now began to read. Thus, if we assume that the Masorets did not add anything of this kind from themselves, but only consolidated what had been formed before them by the course of affairs, then the reading established by them cannot be considered close to the original; and if we assume that they also brought their own measure of insight into the overall result, although not for any other purpose than to clarify the obscure, then the indicated distance should be considered to have increased significantly under their work. Having thus taken into account everything that has been said, we cannot in any way expect that the Old Testament Scriptures will emerge from the hands of the Masorets in the form in which they originally existed, and in which they were in the hands of their 70 interpreters. In many ways, deviations and changes were made here, either in the form of clarifying something unclear, or in order to cover up the unpleasant denunciation of the Jews, with the help of the Prophetic Scriptures, on behalf of Christians - perhaps in order to present divine revelation in a different form than how it was in the hands of Christians. For the Christians rightly said that they were the heirs of the promises to ancient Israel and that the revealed word of God, which constituted the first advantage of Israel, also passed to them. Against this, the Jews strained to present Scripture, under the name of revealed Scripture, one that would be as different as possible from what was in the hands of Christians, covering up their evil with the Jewish language in which the true revelation was given (as if since their Scripture was in Hebrew, it was completely authentic) - and not even understanding that the Lord God Himself, at the same time as He rejected the Jewish people, was pleased for His new people, chosen from all languages, to prepare His very revelation, in addition to Hebrew, in the new publicly accessible language Greek, in which it was kept by Christians in exact correspondence and agreement with the word that originally came from the lips and hands of the prophets in Hebrew. The sources of deviations of the new Hebrew text from the original for the masorets were different readings, which came from replacing similar letters of one with another, and indication by means of signs where to read which vowel, which depended largely on their arbitrariness and gave him scope. These two sources made it possible, and the motivations spoken before fueled the zeal of the Masorets - to present the Old Testament writings in a form that was as beneficial as possible for Jews in the face of Christians, and although in other places in a clearer form, it cannot be said that it was the most accurate. This is where the differences and differences between the current Hebrew text of the Bible and the text in the 70’s translation come from. And it is obvious to everyone that the undoubted authenticity belongs in all truth to the latter, and not to the former 1 . Thus, there is no doubt that a lot of human things have been introduced into the current Jewish text, sometimes accidentally squeezed into it, sometimes resulting from the considerations of the persons who established its reading. He was doomed to such a fate by God's permission, as if to punish the Jews for despising the will of God, revealed to them in the scriptures given to them in their language. Despite the fact that the Hebrew Bible is very popular with Protestants; Is it not because it contains an element akin to them, namely arbitrary considerations and conjectures of the mind that dominate everything with them? – At least this thought is suggested by the fact that as soon as Protestantism was born, it took the Old Testament Scriptures in its hands in the current Jewish text and stubbornly clings to it, to denounce, as it seems to it, Orthodoxy, which does not highly honor that Bible. With all this, however, the deviations and changes made in the current Hebrew text of the Bible do not destroy the general meaning of the Old Testament Scriptures and do not take away from them the meaning that they have for the New Testament. There have been quite a few deviations and changes; but they, while giving solid reason to believe that the Old Testament Scriptures in the Hebrew text were not preserved in their original purity, as they came from the hands of the prophets and as they are preserved in the Church in the translation of the 70, do not however give reason to believe that the Old Testament truth is obscured and upset in them. No: this latter has been preserved intact, so that when the time comes for the now erring Israel to come to its senses and turn to Christ the Lord, he could see the motivation and guidance for this in his own writings, despite their deviation in many respects from the original purity of the word of God. Why, generally speaking, have these writings, even in this text, not lost their meaning that helps us understand the word of God? They present the closest aid to that. The pure revealed word of God is contained in the Old Testament scriptures of the 70 translations. The Hebrew Bible, in what it agrees with that translation, confirms it and gains weight for itself; and where she disagrees (especially in dark places), in that she represents the closest guess to the understanding of the dark. It was in this sense that some of the holy fathers of the Church addressed him. St. Chrysostom sometimes says: “but in Hebrew it reads like this,” which conveys such and such a thought, not devoid of edification. He does not place this text alongside the word of God contained by the Church in the translation of the 70; but sometimes he turns to it (very rarely, however), as representing something for considerations in understanding the true word of God. In this sense, and not in any other sense, we must accept the new translation of the Old Testament Scriptures from Hebrew, precisely as an aid to understanding the true word of God, the contents of St. Church. In any other sense it could not have been proposed. Another would say unorthodox and unfairly if he said: “finally we have the most authentic Old Testament Scripture in the Russian translation.” A true son of the Church would not dare to say so, because in such speech lies the reproach of St. The Church, our mother, who is the pillar and affirmation of the truth. For if the Scriptures in the new translation are authentic, then the same Scriptures contained by the Church in the translation of the 70 are not authentic. What comes out of this? It turns out that the Church of God has fed us hitherto and is feeding us not with the pure bread of the Word of God, but with bread mixed with rubbish and chaff, and that therefore she is not a mother, but worse than a stepmother. Who would dare say it or think it? Meanwhile, this conclusion cannot be avoided by anyone who says: “The Scriptures translated from the Hebrew are the most authentic.” Anyone who looks unfavorably at the Scriptures in the translation of the 70, and transfers the honor that belongs to him to the current Hebrew Bible, cannot be a stranger to the attempt to reproach the Church for the incorrectness of her choice of the text of Scripture. And St. The Synod, which is the faithful guardian of all the contents of the Church, could not give us a translation of the Old Testament Scriptures in the sense that this is the authentic word of God. We shouldn’t attach such importance to it either. We are sons of the Orthodox Church. We honor what she honored, and we shun what she shunned and is shunned. But she did not know and does not know the Hebrew Bible. From the very beginning, from the Apostles, through all the councils, and until now it has adhered and continues to adhere to the Bible in the translation of the 70. And we must honor this and hold on to this with all our might. If we bow to the side of those who give great value to the Hebrew Bible, as the Protestants did, then we will give room to the thought that St. The Church did not know how to show us the most authentic revelation of the Old Testament. If St. In this most essential subject, the Church did not know how to show us where the pure word of God is, then what is the pillar and affirmation of the truth? If she did not recognize the true revealed word of God, then how can we believe that she correctly knows, defines and shows us every other truth? From here a suspicion cannot but arise whether all the dogmas of the Church are true, and whether they should not be revised in order to determine the most authentic confession of faith. And whoever takes this road has already become a Protestant in his soul. This is what one word inevitably leads to: “finally we have the true word of God in the Russian translation from the Hebrew.” And of course, every son of the Orthodox Church will reject this thought and phrase, as hostile and hostile to the Church, and as dangerous to true Orthodoxy, which is strong in that it shuns any sophisticated innovation and with complete submission accepts only what has always been and is still contained by the Orthodox Church. In all that has been stated, there is enough encouragement to ensure that, when encountering a new translation of the Bible, one should meet it in due measure of its value, without diminishing the divine authority of the word of God and the contents of the Holy Spirit. The Church, without deviating to the side of those who, with the Hebrew Bible, have deviated from the truth of God and are alien to the Church that contains it. The thoughts expressed above are largely the work of Economos, who wrote four large volumes in defense of the translation of the 70 and its superiority to the current Hebrew text.