“(John) Joseph”: a fifth-century Greek translator of Jeremiah

Book section : Chapter

In the margins of the ninth or tenth century manuscript Rahlfs 86 (Barberinus 549) there are around one hundred short readings and glosses to the LXX text of Jeremiah. These readings are attributed to a certain ‘Joseph’ and marked by the siglum ιω´. In the first volume of his Origenis Hexaplorum quod supersunt…, Frederick Field briefly discussed the possible provenance of this translator and his glosses. The readings are also included in the second apparatus of Joseph Ziegler’s Göttingen edition of LXX Jeremiah, along with some brief remarks in the introduction. In 1961 Balduino Kipper listed the biblical references for which the readings are preserved. He noted the freedom of the renderings, the occasional affinities with Jerome’s iuxta Hebraeos Latin version (perhaps via Sophronius), and the frequent divergences from LXX. His findings were included in the Introducción to the Greek versions of the Bible by Natalio Fernández Marcos. The availability of new tools for research in classical and biblical studies has made it possible to build further on Kipper’s research. Yet there is still much we do not know about this enigmatic translation from the fifth century, whose surviving fragments would surely also have intrigued our greatly missed colleague, Jim Aitken.

Authors: Salvesen, AG

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Reviewed (other)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Host title: Language and Identity in Hellenistic Judaism: Essays in Memory of James K. Aitken
• Publication date: 2026-02-05
• EISBN: 9780567715104
• ISBN: 9780567715081
• Language: English
• Keywords: Vulgate; Theodoret of Cyrus; Book of Jeremiah; Greek Bible; Hexapla
• Subtype: Chapter