Old Testament Textual Choices: Quality through Consensus and (Worldwide?) Consistency

A study of English translations of the Old Testament shows that, with regard to underlying textual choices, translations tend to differ one from another, sometimes markedly. Clearly, Old Testament translation teams will sometimes encounter textual differences, if not in model translations, then in other references: commentaries, handbooks, HOTTP/CTAT, or critical editions. Philosophically, when teams recognize textual issues, gather information about them, and make their choices, they are exercising independent eclecticism, and independent eclecticism leads to inadvertent variety.

Why not simply follow the Masoretic text? If two translations both follow MT precisely, then instead of perpetuating inadvertent variety, they will transmit a single base text. Multiplied across projects, a thoroughgoing reliance on MT may be a good way of producing cross-translation consistency.

Considering MT, however, we often think of the Leningrad Codex, which dates from about a thousand years after Christ. A lot can happen to a text across many hundreds of years of hand copying, and careful study of ancient evidence seems promising as an approach to reversing scribal error and more. If so, however, is it necessary for each team to make their own text-critical choices? Would it not be possible to do the work proactively and collaboratively? Ideally, the result, built around scholarly consensus and shared widely, would also solve the problem of inadvertent variety.

This paper will thus explore the potential of three models: two (current) possibilities and one (future) ideal. It will also reveal a source for the statement, “The translator has to decide.”