Re: 2 Kings 17:6 (was: Proto-Romance)

On Saturday, March 27, 2004, at 11:49 PM, John Cowan wrote:

> Steg Belsky scripsit:
>
>> I've always
>> heard that it was Christians at some point who decided to split up all
>> of these books into volumes (as well as inventing the chapter system).
>
> I doubt it, at least as to the first point.  The Septuagint, the Jewish
> translation into Greek, already has the divisions, and we have much
> older manuscripts of it than any Hebrew ones (not suprisingly, as they
> did not need to be ritually destroyed when they got too old).
Yep - the division is pre-Christian by about 300 years. The Alexandrians
like their scrolls of 'reasonable' length. It maybe the tradition division
of the two Homeric books into 24 scrolls each (one for each letter of the
Greek alphabet) set the pattern - I don't know.  At any rate, Samuel &
Kings were already in 4 'books' well before Christian appeared in the
Greek version of the hebrew scriptures. What's more, of course, the
Alexandrian  Jews designated the 4 scrolls of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th 'of
the kingships' (basileio:n).

But it's nice to have confirmed that the Samuel-Kings division pertained
among the Aramaic speaking Jews.

=====================================================================
On Saturday, March 27, 2004, at 10:43 PM, Steg Belsky wrote:

[snip]
> Technically it was just "Samuel" (Shemu'eil) and "Kings" (Melakhim),
> just like Chronicles 1 and 2 were originally just one book, Chronicles
> (Divrey-Hayamim).  Ezra and Nehemia are one book also.  I've always
> heard that it was Christians at some point who decided to split up all
> of these books into volumes (as well as inventing the chapter system).
Chronicles are "to:n Paraleipemono:n" (of the things omitted) 1 & 2 in the
Septuagint, and Paralipemon 1 & 2 in the Vulgate. Ezra & Nehemia AFAIK are
also in two scroll/books in the Septuagint. The vulgate names them:
Liber Primus Esdrae
Liber Nehemiae qui et "Esdrae Secundus" dicitur

Ray
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