Septuagint and Canon: Hengel, part 4

Continuing the current series.

Chapter 4: The Origin of the Jewish LXX (pp. 75–103)

Hengel first stresses the predominance of the Greek Pentateuch in our Jewish sources about the LXX and our Alexandrian Jewish sources generally (pp. 75–80). Then he argues that the translation of the books comprising the LXX always had a close relationship with Palestine, and some were even accomplished in Palestine (pp. 80–83). But it is difficult to know when and where they were translated.

It is fundamental that the documents in their Greek form comprise no unity whatsoever; rather, each must be investigated individually, although they all naturally draw on the great linguistic reservoir of the Greek Pentateuch and are, to a significant degree, linguistically shaped by it. (p. 84)

This comment from Hengel is interesting in light of Joosten's more recent argument for a coherent literary corpus comprising the LXX.

This series of new translations, which created an entirely new literary corpus, was an intellectual accomplishment of the first order. (p. 85)

The main point of this section seems to be that the Greek translation of the documents now in the Hebrew Bible were often quite different from the Hebrew original.

As for the deuterocanonical writings--thewritings not received in the Hebrew canon--Hengel identifies these common elements.

1. They are all late. Of course, some writings in the Hebrew canon might be late, but they were assumed to be earlier, whereas these deuterocanonical writings were not. "The rejection of the ten or eleven [deuterocanonical] documents, the later 'Christian apocrypha', by the Pharisees and later rabbis, is thus less a question of content than of chronology" (p. 92). 
2. The intention of these documents is "to edify, educate or entertain" (p. 93). 
3. They are largely non-apocalyptic, whereas the abundant apocalyptic literature from the same time period is mostly rejected. Hengel discusses the book of Daniel as an exception. 

Hengel again mentions that "the Christian church of the second century held to them [= the deuterocanonical books] so that they were finally accepted in the Christian canon, although with a certain persistent second-class character" (p. 94). I can't think of what evidence Hengel has provided to suggest that the second-century church held to these documents. He has cited Melito's canon list, which does not contain them, and he has mentioned how Justin and other writers of the second century (aside from Clement of Alexandria) ignored them. In a previous post I complained about a similar statement from ch. 2 of Hengel's book.

Finally, Hengel explores the "Diaspora Jewish canon" by looking at three texts: Sirach's prologue, Philo's On Contemplation 25, and Josephus' Against Apion 1.37–43. About Sirach's prologue, Hengel thinks it witnesses a fairly well determined Scriptural collection in Palestine, but suggests only that Alexandrian Judaism needed instruction about the canon. Philo's report tells us nothing definite. Josephus tells us something definite, but probably about Palestinian Judaism more than Diaspora Judaism. At any rate, he clearly does not consider the "extra" writings to be as high valuable as are the writings from Moses to Artaxerxes. It seems that Hengel's main point in this section on the "Diaspora Jewish canon" is to say that we don't know much about the Diaspora Jewish canon.