Hillel I. Newman, «A Hippodrome on the Road to Ephrath», Vol. 86 (2005) 213-228
LXX to Gen 48,7 refers to a hippodrome in the vicinity of
Rachel’s Tomb. This cannot be satisfactorily explained as an exegetical creation
of the translator’s imagination and probably refers to a genuine structure. This
is also true of the stadium or hippodrome mentioned in Tg. Onq. to Gen
14,17, as the meeting place of Abram, the king of Sodom, and Melchizedek. Since
1QapGen locates the same meeting in the Valley of Beth Hakerem, which should be
identified as the valley between Ramat Rahel and Bethlehem, it is reasonable to
assume that both versions refer to the same hippodrome. There is no textual
justification for assuming a late interpolation in LXX and no geographical or
archeological justification for explaining these passages as allusions to a
Herodian hippodrome. LXX may attest to a case of profound Hellenistic influence
in Judea already under Ptolemaic rule.
A Hippodrome on the Road to Ephrath
Few professions are as exacting in their insistence on the suppression
of one’s identity as is translation, yet it is inevitable that translators
betray in the fabric of their work something of the context in which
they write. No target language exists outside of time and space, and
even the most faithful translator will deliberately or inadvertently
introduce an occasional anachronism to render a remote text more
accessible to a contemporary audience. This phenomenon is familiar
from ancient Bible versions, where it often manifests itself in the
identification of obscure place-names and the clarification of
geographical allusions. At such points the historian and historical
geographer may step in and ask if anything useful is to be learned from
the translation. In what follows I examine several such cases — all of
them, I shall argue, ultimately connected — considering first their
exegetical foundations and then their historical implications.
1. LXX to Gen 48,7
Before blessing the son’s of Joseph, Jacob recalls his return to the
land of Canaan and the death of his wife Rachel: “As for me, upon my
return from Paddan, I was bereaved of Rachel in the land of Canaan
en route, some distance (1) remaining till Ephrath, and I buried her
there on the road to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem†(Gen 48,7). LXX,
however, introduces a surprising entity into the translation: “When I
came from Mesopotamia of Syria, your mother Rachel died in the land
of Canaan as I approached the hippodrome of Chabratha (2) of the land
going to Ephratha, and I buried her on the road of the hippodrome,
(1) “Some distance†renders the problematic Hebrew ≈ra trbk. For various
ancient and modern attempts to grapple with the meaning of the phrase (found
elsewhere only in Gen 35,16 and 2 Kgs 5,19) see N.H. TUR-SINAI, “In the Wake
of Halashon Vehaseferâ€, LeÏ€ 20 (1957) 1-3 (Hebrew); E. VOGT, “Benjamin
geboren ‘eine Meile’ von Ephrataâ€, Bib 56 (1975) 30-36; Y. MAORI, The Peshitta
Version of the Pentateuch and Early Jewish Exegesis (Jerusalem 1995) 81, n. 43
(Hebrew); C.T.R. HAYWARD, Saint Jerome’s Hebrew Questions on Genesis
(Oxford Early Christian Studies; Oxford 1995) 214-215.
(2) Cf. htrbk (instead of MT’s trbk) in 4Qgenf. See J.R. Davila’s edition in
E. ULRICH et al., Qumran Cave 4. VII. Genesis to Numbers (DJD 12; Oxford
1994) 54.