''Hexapla'' (), also called ''Origenis Hexaplorum'', is a critical edition of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Greek, preserved only in fragments. It was an immense and complex word-for-word comparison of the original Hebrew Scriptures with the Greek Septuagint translation and with other Greek translations. The term especially and generally applies to the edition of the

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

compiled by the theologian and scholar

Origen Origen of Alexandria (), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an Early Christianity, early Christian scholar, Asceticism#Christianity, ascetic, and Christian theology, theologian who was born and spent the first half of his career in Early cent ...

sometime before 240. Tetragrammaton Lat JOVA Hexapla Prov 3 19

The subsisting fragments of partial copies have been collected in several editions, that of Frederick Field (1875) being the most fundamental on the basis of Greek and Syrian testimonies. The surviving fragments are now being re-published (with additional materials discovered since Field's edition) by an international group of Septuagint scholars. This work is being carried out as The Hexapla Project under the auspices of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, and directed by Dr Neil McLynn. The members of the editorial board are: Peter J. Gentry ( Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and the Göttinger Septuaginta-Unternehmen), Dr Alison G. Salvesen ( Oxford University), and Bas ter Haar Romeny (

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; ) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. Established in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince of Orange as a Protestantism, Protestant institution, it holds the d ...

History

Origen began to study

Biblical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew ( or ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite languages, Canaanitic branch of the Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Isra ...

in his youth; forced to relocate to Palestine during the persecution of Christianity in

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

, he went into biblical textology. By the 240s, he commented on virtually all the Old and New Testament books. His method of working with the biblical text was described in a message to Sextus Julius Africanus (c. 240) and a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew: Origen, in his ''Commentary of the Gospel of Matthew'', explained the purpose for creating the ''Hexapla'':

Structure

The text of the Hexapla was organized in the form of six columns representing synchronized versions of the same Old Testament text, which placed side by side were the following: #the

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

consonantal text #the Secunda – the Hebrew text

transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one writing system, script to another that involves swapping Letter (alphabet), letters (thus ''wikt:trans-#Prefix, trans-'' + ''wikt:littera#Latin, liter-'') in predictable ways, such as ...

into Greek characters including vowels #the translation by Aquila of Sinope into Greek (2nd century) #the translation by Symmachus the Ebionite into Greek (late 2nd century) #a recension of the

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

, with (1) interpolations to indicate where the Hebrew is not represented in the Septuagint (taken mainly from Theodotion's text and marked with asterisks), and (2) indications, using signs called obeloi (singular: ''obelos''), of where words, phrases, or occasionally larger sections in the Septuagint do not reflect any underlying Hebrew #the translation by Theodotion into Greek (mid 2nd century) At the end of his life, Origen prepared a separate work called the ''Tetrapla'' (a synoptic set of four Greek translations), placing the

alongside the translations of Symmachus, Aquila, and Theodotion. Both Hexapla and Tetrapla are found in Greek manuscripts of the Septuagint, as well as manuscripts of the Syro-Hexaplar version. However, in a number of cases, the names of "Hexapla" and "Octapla" (in the Book of Job from the manuscripts of the Syro-Hexapla and the hexaplar Psalms) are also applied to the work of Origen. This caused a discussion in its time about whether these were separate works. According to Eusebius, the Hexapla contained three more translations of the Greek

Psalms The Book of Psalms ( , ; ; ; ; , in Islam also called Zabur, ), also known as the Psalter, is the first book of the third section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) called ('Writings'), and a book of the Old Testament. The book is an anthology of B ...

(Quinta, Sexta and Septima), which, however, have not been preserved (for a total of 9 columns, a so-called ''Enneapla''). According to Epiphanius of Salamis, the original Hexapla compiled by Origen had eight columns. It included two other anonymous Greek translations, one of which was discovered in wine jars in Jericho during the reign of

Caracalla Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (born Lucius Septimius Bassianus, 4 April 188 – 8 April 217), better known by his nickname Caracalla (; ), was Roman emperor from 198 to 217 AD, first serving as nominal co-emperor under his father and then r ...

. The so-called "fifth" and "sixth editions" were two other Greek translations supposedly discovered by students outside the towns of Jericho and Nicopolis: these were later added by Origen to his Hexapla to make the ''Octapla''.Cave, Wm.
A complete history of the lives, acts, and martyrdoms of the holy apostles, and the two evangelists, St. Mark and Luke
', Vol. II. Wiatt (Philadelphia), 1810. Accessed 6 Feb 2013.

References

Literature

* Felix Albrecht: ''Art. Hexapla of Origen,'' in: The Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception 11, Berlin et al. 2015, cols. 1000–1002. * Alison Salvesen (Hrsg.): ''Origen's hexapla and fragments. Papers presented at the Rich Seminar on the Hexapla, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, 25th July – 3rd August 1994'' (= ''Texts and studies in ancient Judaism.'' Bd. 58). Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1998, . * John Daniel Meade,
A Critical Edition of the Hexaplaric Fragments of Job 22-42, Origen's Hexapla: A Critical Edition of the Extant Fragments
' (Leuven: Peeters, 2020). * Erich Klostermann: ''Analecta zur Septuaginta, Hexapla und Patristik.'' Leipzig: Deichert, 1895. * Frederick Field (ed.): ''Origenis hexaplorum quae supersunt: sive veterum interpretum Graecorum in totum vetus testamentum fragmenta. Post Flaminium nobilium, Drusium, et Montefalconium, adhibita etiam versione Syro-Hexaplari.'' 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1875 (vol. 1: ''Genesis – Esther.'' ; vol. 2: ''Hiob – Maleachi.'' ). * Anthony Grafton and Megan Williams, ''Christianity and the Transformation of the Book: Origen, Eusebius, and the Library of Caesarea''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006. * *
Jewish Encyclopedia: Origen: His "Hexapla"

External links

Full scan of Origen of Alexandria, Hexapla Vol IFull scan of Origen of Alexandria, Hexapla Vol II

A Hexapla's mss

Another Hexapla's mss
{{Authority control 3rd-century Christian texts Lost religious texts Early versions of the Bible Works by Origen Christian terminology Polyglot bibles Translations into Greek

History

Structure

See also

References

Literature

External links