Chapter 4: the Septuagint and 1 Timothy
4.2 The Effectiveness of the Method
As mentioned above, the method follows a similar process to the DH projects by attempting to detect a set of known, or baseline, parallels. Since this study identifies parallels in both the Septuagint and the Jewish Pseudepigrapha, the baselines that were chosen are the parallels that are listed in the two standard editions of the Greek Bible, the UBS5 and NA28, and those that are listed within ‘Appendix Two –
Quotations, Allusions and Parallels to the New Testament’ in Evans’ Ancient Texts
for New Testament Studies.340 Other lists of parallels, such as Dittmar’s and Hübner’s, list many parallels for the Septuagint/MT but they appear to be less comprehensive for the Pseudepigrapha.341 Thus, the three baselines were chosen to provide
consistency across both sets of source texts. The combined set of parallels in these
339 P. H. Towner, ‘1-2 Timothy and Titus’, in Commentary on the New Testament Use
of the Old Testament (ed. D. A. Carson and G. K. Beale; Grand Rapids, Mich. :
Nottingham, England: Baker Academic, 2007); B. Paul Wolfe, ‘The Sagacious Use of Scripture’, in Entrusted With The Gospel: Paul’s Theology in the Pastoral Epistles, 199–218.
340 Aland et al., Greek New Testament; Aland et al., Greek New Testament; Evans,
Ancient Texts.
341 Dittmar, Vetus Testamentum in Novo; Hübner, Vetus Testamentum in Novo: Band
lists was also deemed to be sufficiently large enough to be able to train the method to be relatively effective (see below and Section 4.3).
The commentaries of Towner and Knight, which are regarded by this study as the most comprehensive, were consulted during the detailed analysis of each potential reference, as were the lists of parallels/references in Dittmar, Gough, Hübner,
McLean, Wilson and Wolfe (see Section 4.6 below).342 However, the method does not attempt to train its parameters (e.g. the search features) to detect every parallel listed in these commentaries, other lists or other commentaries. This is because the method attempts to find a manageable balance between effectiveness (or coverage of known parallels) and efficiency, and attempting to detect every parallel ever detected would increase the manual workload of the method (see Section 4.3 below). Furthermore, the method does not attempt to simply identify what has already been identified; rather, the purpose of choosing baselines is to train the method to be relatively effective on familiar source texts so that the method can then be applied to any set of source texts, even less familiar ones.
The method is relatively effective because it can detect the majority of
‘interpretable’343 parallels in the three baseline lists. Since the search features are applied consistently/systematically across the whole set of source texts, the method also detects parallels that are not in these baseline lists, or ‘new’ parallels. All of the parallels, both existing and new, that are produced by the first-phase of the method involve rare combinations of words (i.e. they have singular potential) and the verses in the source and target texts are thematically coherent. These two requirements are the equivalent of the ‘meaningful’ parallels in the classification/scoring system used with Tesserae by Coffee et. al. (see Chapter 2, Section 2.4, Table 2.2.1).344
The second phase of the method, the detailed manual analysis, further limits these parallels to those that Coffee et. al. label as ‘interpretable’ (or ‘Type 4 and 5’) parallels. These researchers define ‘interpretable’ parallels as those that involve
342 Gough, The New Testament Quotations; McLean, Citations and Allusions; Wilson,
Pauline Parallels; Wolfe, ‘The Sagacious Use of Scripture’.
343 This term is explained below. It is derived from Coffee et al. 344 Coffee et al., 394.
source text ‘passages that generate new significance through their association.’345 This definition appears to be similar to the first part of Beetham’s definition of an allusion, which was noted in Chapter 1, Section 1.5.3, and is repeated below:
Allusion: A literary device intentionally employed by an author to point a reader back to a single identifiable source, of which one or more components must be remembered and brought forward into the new context in order for the alluding text to be understood fully.346
The identification of what might seem to add ‘new significance’ or to allow a text to be ‘understood fully’ is, by nature, a subjective assessment. As such, the list of parallels that this study classifies as ‘interpretable’ is likely to be different to other studies. However, this observation does not undermine the contribution of the new method, which is the ability to identify ‘high-
interest’ parallels (i.e. those with rare combinations of words) for more detailed analysis.
The table below lists all the parallels between 1 Timothy and the Septuagint that the search features detected and the manual analysis evaluated as
‘interpretable.’ These parallels are further classified using the criteria defined in Chapter 1, Sections 1.6 and 1.7. The table also shows whether each
parallel is contained in the three baseline lists. The parallels that are shaded grey are those that are in the three baseline lists but they were either not detected by the search features or they were determined to be non-
interpretable. These omitted parallels are discussed below in Section 4.3. Appendix C contains a brief explanation as to why each of the method’s parallels (i.e. those that are unshaded in the following table) was determined to be ‘interpretable.’ Section 4.6 below selects two of these parallels for detailed analysis. A similar process is followed for 2 Timothy and Titus (see Chapters 5 and 6).
345 Coffee et al., 395.
For every parallel, words that have the same root are highlighted in red and underlined and all such matches are counted to give the number of matching ‘root words.’ The articles, pronouns, prepositions and conjunctions in the target text are not used in the searches (i.e. they are not ‘search words’), but if they match with an equivalent word in the source text then they are also highlighted in red and
underlined. Matching synonyms are also underlined but they remain in black font. All the matching words (root words, synonyms and non-search words, i.e. all the
underlined words) are counted to give the ‘total words’ for the parallel. This system is used below and throughout the whole study.
The five search features that were defined in Chapter 3, Section 3.2.4, were the basis of the searches that were used for 1 Timothy and the Septuagint. However, during the manual analysis of the results, it was noticed that the ‘Non-verbatim’ search feature, combined with use of the Singular Potential parameter, was able to detect all the parallels in 1 Timothy that were in the form of ‘multiple keywords.’ Subsequently, the ‘Multiple Keywords’ search feature was not used for the remainder of the study and the searches that looked for ‘Multiple Keywords’ are not counted in the following analysis.
All the searches in this study were conducted using the Accordance Bible software. The version of the LXX used was ‘Rahlf’s Tagged Text.’
Table 4.2.1 – Parallels between 1 Timothy and the Septuagint
Verse Source Text
In te rp re ta bl e UB S 5 NA 28 Ev an s Search
Feature Words Root Words Total Class Type
1:5 Ps 23:4 ü Verbatim 2 2 (possible) E3 Echo 1:5 Ps 50:12 ü Verbatim 2 2 (possible) E3 Echo 1:11 Ps 95:2-3 ü verbatim Non- 2 4 (possible) E3 Echo 1:15 Zech 9:9 ü verbatim Non- 2 3 (possible) A3 Allusion 1:17 Tob 13:7,11 ü ü ü Verbatim 2 3 (possible) E4 Echo
Verse Source Text In te rp re ta bl e UB S 5 NA 28 Ev an s Search
Feature Words Root Words Total Class Type
2:2 Bar 1:11-12 ü - 2 2 - -
2:2 (MT Jer 29:7) Jer 36:7 ü - 0 2 - -
2:4 Ezek 18:23 ü ü ü ü - 1 1 - -
2:4-5a 2 Kgs 19:19 ü Segments Multiple 4 5 (possible) E3 Echo 2:4-5a Isa 45:19-23 ü Multiple
Segments 4 5
E3
(possible) Echo 2:5b Job 9:33 ü Keyword 2 2 (possible) A4 Allusion
2:6 (MT Ps 49:8) Ps 48:9 ü - 1 1 - -
2:8 Mal 1:11 ü Verbatim 2 2 - -
2:8 (MT Ps 141:2) Ps 140:2 ü ü verbatim Non- 3 3 (possible) E4 Echo
2:12 Gen 3:16 ü - 1 2 - -
2:13 Gen 2:7,8,15 ü ü ü verbatim Non- 1 2 (likely) A1 Allusion 2:14 Gen 3:13-17 ü ü ü ü Segments Multiple 2 2 (likely) A1 Allusion 2:15 Gen 3:16 ü ü Segments Multiple 1 2 (likely) A1 Allusion 3:2,12 Gen 2:24 ü verbatim Non- 4 4 (possible) E3 Echo 3:4-5,12 1 Sam 2:12-24 ü Segments Multiple 2 4 E2 (likely) Echo
3:6 Ps 108:7-8 ü Multiple
Segments 3 3
A3
(possible) Allusion 3:15-16 Dan 2:47 ü Segments Multiple 3 3 (possible) E3 Echo
4:1 Isa 19:14 ü ü Verbatim 2 2 (possible) A4 Allusion 4:1 Hos 4:12 ü verbatim Non- 2 2 (possible) A4 Allusion
4:3 Gen 9:3 ü ü ü - 1 1 - - 4:4 Gen 1:31 ü ü ü ü Non- verbatim 3 4 A3 (possible) Allusion 4:10 Ps 21:9,28 ü Multiple Segments 4 6 A3 (possible) Allusion 4:10 Isa 25:6-9 ü Segments Multiple 4 7 (possible) A3 Allusion 4:16 Ezek 3:11-21 ü Non-
verbatim 2 5
A2
(likely) Allusion 5:1-3 Lev 19:32 ü ü ü ü Segments Multiple 2 2 (possible) E4 Echo
5:4 Isa 1:17 ü Segments Multiple 2 4 (possible) E3 Echo 5:5 (MT Jer 49:11) Jer 30:5 ü ü ü Segments Multiple 1 4 (possible) E4 Echo
Verse Source Text In te rp re ta bl e UB S 5 NA 28 Ev an s Search
Feature Words Root Words Total Class Type
5:10 Prov 31:12-31 ü Multiple
Segments 4 4
E4
(possible) Echo 5:10 1 Sam 25:41 ü ü Verbatim 2 2 (possible) E4 Echo 5:14 Exod 17:17 ü Keyword 1 1 (possible) A3 Allusion 5:18a Deut 25:4 ü ü ü ü Verbatim 4 4 (likely) D1 Reference Direct
5:18b Jer 22:3 ü Non-
verbatim 2 3
A4
(possible) Allusion 5:19 Deut 17:7 ü ü ü Verbatim 3 5 (possible) A3 Allusion 5:19 Deut 19:15 ü ü ü ü verbatim Non- 3 4 (possible) A3 Allusion 6:1 Isa 52:5 ü verbatim Non- 2 3 (possible) E3 Echo 6:7 (MT Eccl 5:15) Eccl 5:14 ü ü ü - 1 4 - -
6:7 Job 1:21 ü ü ü - 0 4 - -
6:7 Wis 7:6 ü - 0 2 - -
6:8-9 Prov 30:8 ü ü ü Segments Multiple 2 2 (possible) E4 Echo 6:9 Prov 11:28 ü verbatim Non- 2 2 (possible) E3 Echo
6:9 Prov 23:4 ü ü - 1 2 - - 6:9 Prov 28:22 ü ü ü - 1 2 - - 6.11 1 Sam 2:27 ü - 2 2 - - 6.11 1 Kgs 13:1 etc ü - 2 2 - - 6:14b- 15 Dan 2:47 ü Non- verbatim 5 8 E3 (possible) Echo 6.15 Sir 46:5 ü ü - 1 1 - - 6.15 2 Macc 12:15 ü ü - 1 1 - - 6:15 Deut 10:17 ü ü - 1 2 - - 6:15 2 Macc 13:4 ü ü - 1 2 - - 6:16 (MT Ps 104:2) Ps 103:2 ü ü - 1 1 - - 6.16 Exod 33:20 ü ü ü ü Multiple Segments 5 5 E3 (possible) Echo 6:17 (MT Ps 37:3-4) Ps 36:3-4 ü Segments Multiple 2 6 (possible) E4 Echo 6:17 (MT Ps 62:10) Ps 61:11 ü ü - 1 2 - - 6:17 (MT Ps 145:15) Ps 144:15 ü - 0 3 - -
Verse Source Text In te rp re ta bl e UB S 5 NA 28 Ev an s Search
Feature Words Root Words Total Class Type
6:17-18 Prov 11:28 ü Multiple
Segments 4 6
E3
(possible) Echo
6:18-19 Tob 12:8 ü - 0 2 - -
The three baseline lists contain thirty-eight parallels, of which only sixteen were deemed to be ‘interpretable,’ or ‘Type 4 and 5’ parallels, according to the classification system of Coffee et al.347 The method detected all but one of these interpretable parallels, giving it an effectiveness of 93.8%. Section 4.3 suggests adding a new search feature that would give the method 100% coverage of the interpretable baseline parallels. The method also detected twenty-four interpretable parallels that are not listed in the baseline lists. These values are depicted visually in Figure 4.2, below. A similar diagram was also used by Coffee et. al. (see Chapter 2, Section 2.4).348 The results of the new method compare well with this earlier study.
Figure 4.2 – Interpretable Parallels for the Method and Baselines
The effectiveness of the method is due to its ability to search for a variety of reference forms, or search features. As such, over half of the additional twenty-four
interpretable parallels were detected using the ‘Multiple Segments’ search feature (the DH projects surveyed only look for matching words in a single segment). This
347 Coffee et al., 394.
348 Coffee et al., 401.
24
particular search feature was also the most effective overall for 1 Timothy and the Septuagint, as shown below in Table 4.2.2
Search Feature Interpretable Parallels Baseline Lists Those Not In
Verbatim 7 2
Non-verbatim 13 7
Keyword 2 2
Multiple Segments 17 13
TOTAL 39 24
Table 4.2.2 – The Effectiveness of Each Search Feature
Having examined the overall effectiveness of the method, the following section now discusses the baseline parallels that the method did not detect.