Robert Doran, «Emending 1 Macc 7,16», Vol. 87 (2006) 261-262
This short note suggests that the Greek translator of 1 Macc 7,16 read the Hebrew
original as the third person singular perfect verb with the third person pronominal
suffix (wObtfk) instead of the passive participle bw%tkf. The resulting Greek text read
as if Alcimus the high-priest had written Ps 78, instead of Ps 78 being quoted.
Emending 1 Macc 7,16
The clause at 1 Macc 7,16 has troubled translators. When Alcimus the high-
priest met with the Asidaioi, they trusted his peaceful words as he was a priest
of the line of Aaron. However, he apprehended sixty of them and killed them
in one day “according to the word which he wrote it (kata; to;n lovgon o}n
egrayen aujtovn), ‘The flesh of your faithful ones and their blood they poured
[
out all round Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them’†(1 Macc 7,16-
17).
The quotation is a clear, though not exact, reference to Ps 79,2-3. To
avoid the conclusion that Alcimus wrote Psalm 79, translators have adopted
several strategies: 1) avoidance: “as Scripture says†(NEB); “suivant la parole
de l’Écriture†(La Sainte Bible); 2) take the relative clause as a passive: “in
accordance with the word that was written†(NRSV); 3) suggest that “heâ€
refers to God. The manuscript variants also evidence a struggle to make sense
of 7,16. Some manuscripts tack on oJ profhvth", so that it is clear that the
prophet, not Alcimus, wrote the verse. Some manuscripts specify that Asaph
the prophet (asaf oJ profhvth") or David (dad) is the subject of ‘wrote’. Some
Latin manuscripts read ‘the word which was written’ (verbum quod scriptum
est), where the third person singular aorist passive of gravfw (egravfh) is read
j
instead of the third person singular aorist active (e[grayen), and this reading
anticipates our suggestion.
However, Jonathan Goldstein took the verb as active, and translated: “in
accordance with the verse which he himself wrote†(1). Goldstein insists that
Alcimus wrote Psalm 79. In this he has been followed by Benjamin Scolnic,
who has made this verse the spring-board for his re-evaluation of Alcimus (2).
Scolnic’s conclusion is that Alcimus was a devout Zadokite priest “with
poetic and spiritual feelings and expressions that were well known†(3).
The problem is that recent commentators on the psalms have not dated
Psalm 79 to the Maccabean revolt. As Beat Weber recently remarked, “Die
früher noch häufiger…vertretene Datierung in die Makkabäerzeit
(Tempelentweihung von 168 v.Chr. als Entstehungsanlass) wird heute zu
Recht kaum mehr vertreten†(4). Weber locates it in the early post-exilic
period, as does Erich Zenger, who also allows that the psalm could have been
written in the 5th-4th century BCE (5).
What is one to make of this impasse between the present text of 1 Macc
7,16, which has Alcimus as author of Psalm 79, and the conclusions of psalm
interpreters? It is important to note that almost all scholars accept that our
present text of 1 Maccabees is a translation from a Hebrew original. The
present clause is a case in point. It is a clear example of a retrospective object
(1) J.A. GOLDSTEIN, I Maccabees (AB 41; Garden City, NY 1976) 327, 332-333.
(2) B.E. SCOLNIC, Alcimus, Enemy of the Maccabees (Lanham, MD 2005).
(3) SCOLNIC, Alcimus, 159.
(4) B. WEBER, “Zur Datierung der Asaph-Psalmen 74 und 79â€, Bib 81 (2000) 521.
(5) F-L. HOSSFELD – E. ZENGER, Psalms 2 (Minneapolis, MN 2005) 305.