The Textual History of 2 Kings 17

The textual history of the Books of Kings forms one of the most complex and debated issues in the modern text-historical scholarship. This book examines and reconstructs the textual history of 2 Kings 17 in light of the preserved textual evidence. The analysis of textual differences between the LXX, the Old Latin, and the MT allows the reconstruction of the oldest text attainable. The Old Latin version appears to have in many cases best preserved the Old Greek edition of the chapter, now lost in the Greek witnesses due to Hebraizing revisions. The Old Greek version of 2 Kings 17 evidences a Hebrew Vorlage often radically differing from the MT. In most cases the MT exhibits signs of later editing. The LXX can thus help the scholars reconstruct multiple text-historical layers previously out of our reach, as well as shed new light on certain historiographical details recounted in 2 Kings 17. As supposed by the literary critics for well over a century, the textual data shows beyond doubt that there happened vast editing and rewriting of the Books of Kings even at very late date. Text-critical considerations are therefore not only useful, but invaluable to all scholarly work on 2 Kings 17, and the Books of Kings as a whole.

Timo Tapani Tekoniemi, University of Helsinki, Finland.