This just over the transom from London Ed<\/span>:<\/span><\/p>\n Pedantic, but I think you will secretly enjoy it.<\/span><\/p>\n Matt. 3:3 quoting Isaiah 40:3. The Vulgate has Vox clamantis in deserto: parate viam Domini<\/em>. [Right, I checked both quotations in my Biblia Vulgata<\/em><\/span>.] There has always been a question about the parsing of this. Is it<\/span><\/p>\n A voice of one calling in the wilderness, \u201cprepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God\u201d,<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n as your quotation<\/a> implies. Or is it<\/span><\/p>\n A voice of one calling: \u201cIn the wilderness prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Different translations differ. Of course the ancient Hebrew\/Greek may be ambiguous, as they were not cursed with the quotation mark. I shall investigate further.<\/span><\/p>\n [Time passes<\/span>]<\/span><\/p>\n OK I looked further. I always wondered if Matthew knew his scripture, but checking the Isa 40:3 in the Septuagint (the Jewish Alexandrian translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek), it is identical, i.e. Matthew\u2019s Greek accurately reflects the Greek translation of Isaiah.<\/span><\/p>\n However, at least according to Pentiuc<\/a>, the Septuagint Greek is a mis-translation of the Hebrew. <\/span><\/p>\n According to the reading proposed by the Masoretes, this voice "cries" to the one called "to clear" the way in the wilderness (cf. Mal 3:1). Babylonian texts speak in similar terms of processional ways prepared for a god or a victorious king; this is the road by which Yahweh will lead his people through the desert in a new exodus. Quite contrary to this reading is the Septuagint's rendering<\/em>, where the "voice is crying in the wilderness." This version indicates that the wilderness is the location of the mysterious voice, rather than the meeting place for God and his people returned from exile.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n My emphasis. The Masoretes were the Jewish scribe-scholars who worked on the interpretation of the ancient texts.<\/span><\/p>\n BV: I am not competent to comment on the scholarly punctilios, , but I prefer the Septuagint reading for the (non)reason that I live in a desert. And I know Ed Abbey, the author of Vox Clamantis in Deserto<\/a>, would agree for he too lived in the desert, in fact, in Oracle, Arizona, not far from here.<\/span><\/p>\n By the way, the preceding sentence is not good English by the lofty standards of MavPhil<\/em>. Can you see why? Combox open.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This just over the transom from London Ed: Pedantic, but I think you will secretly enjoy it. Matt. 3:3 quoting Isaiah 40:3. The Vulgate has Vox clamantis in deserto: parate viam Domini. [Right, I checked both quotations in my Biblia Vulgata.] There has always been a question about the parsing of this. Is it A … Continue reading “A Note on Vox Clamantis in Deserto<\/i>“<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[581,6,115,166,574],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abbey-cactus-ed","category-language-matters","category-latin","category-new-testament","category-old-testament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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