Septuagint: Lamentations

The Septuagint's version of the book of Lamentations, is virtually identical to the Masoretic book of Eykhoh, which translates as 'How?' This was a question many were no doubt asking in the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem, a city that had stood since before the Amarna Letters were written, generally dated to the 1300s BC. The Greek name of the book, Thrênoe, translates as 'laments' or 'wailings,' and is the source of the common English name Lamentations.

To date, fragments of Eykhoh / Lamentations have been found in three of the Qumran caves, all dating to the Herodian Dynasty, circa 37 BC to 6 AD, and all in the Assyrian (Hebrew) script, as one would expect from the period. The texts that survive, generally match the texts found in the Masoretic Texts, with minor spelling variations, however, do have a significant number of deviations where the terms 'adonoi () and dvn (), and the name Yahweh () and Yhwh () are concerned. These two sets of terms are synonymous, with 'adonoi () and dvn () being two ways of spelling the Aramaic and Hebrew term 'my lord,' and Yahweh () and Yhwh () both being the Hebrew spelling of the name of the Jewish god, however, these terms are not used in the Masoretic Texts and the Dead Sea Scrolls in the same places. Meaning, where the Masoretic Texts reads reads 'adonoi,' the Dead Sea Scrolls may read 'dvn' or 'Yhwh,' and in places where the Masoretic Texts reads 'Yahweh,' the Dead Sea Scrolls may again read either 'dvn' or 'Yhwh.' This is most evident in Dead Sea Scroll 4QLama, in which a large amount of the text of chapters 1 and 2 survive, as these terms are more common in those chapters.

As all of the fragments of Eykhoh / Lamentations found among the Dead Sea Scrolls date to the Herodian Dynasty, it seems clear that at that time, Yahweh was considered 'Lord' among Jews, however, there is no evidence of the name being in the text that the Greeks translated a couple of centuries earlier at the Library of Alexandria. The Septuagint does include the name Yahweh, as Iaw (), derived from the Aramaic Yhw, in some early fragments, however, there is no evidence that it was used in the text that the Greeks translated Lamentations from.

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