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1 Samuel says that Hannah brought three bulls as an offering when presenting Samuel at Shiloh. The Greek Septuagint translation refers to a single three-year-old bull, the difference based on difficulty with the Hebrew source.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
1 Samuel 1:24
Hebrew Bible
22 But Hannah did not go up with them, because she had told her husband, “Not until the boy is weaned. Then I will bring him so that he may appear before the Lord. And he will remain there from then on.” 23 Then her husband Elkanah said to her, “Do what is right in your eyes55. Stay until you have weaned him. Only may the Lord fulfill his promise.” So the woman stayed and nursed her son until she had weaned him. 24 Then she took him up with her as soon as she had weaned him, along with three bulls, an ephah of flour, and a container of wine. She came to the Lord’s house at Shiloh, and the boy was with them. 25 They slaughtered the bull, then brought the boy to Eli.
Date: 600–501 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX 1 Samuel 1:24
Septuagint
22 But Hannah did not go up with him, for she said to her husband, I will not go up until the child goes up, when I have weaned him, and he shall be presented before the Lord, and he shall stay there continually. 23 And Elkanah her husband said to her, Do that which is good in your eyes, stay until you have weaned him; but may the Lord establish that which comes out of your mouth: and the woman stayed, and suckled her son until she had weaned him. 24 And she went up with him to Shiloh with a calf of three years old, and loaves, and an ephah of fine flour, and a bottle of wine: and she entered into the house of the Lord in Shiloh, and the child with them. 25 And they brought him before the Lord; and his father killed his offering which he offered from year to year to the Lord; and he brought near the child, and killed the calf; and Hannah the mother of the child brought him to Eli.
Date: 100–1 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Probably the text of the Masoretic text, T V on the one hand, and LXX S 4QSamA on the other, derived from a common source: בפרמשלש. According to the context, it is reasonable to assume that this word cluster originally referred to a פר, “bull” in the singular, i.e., “she ⟨Hannah⟩ took him ⟨Samuel⟩ up ... along with a three-year-old bull”. When word division and matres lectionis were inserted into the text (a yod in the first word and a he at the end of the second one; furthermore, the non-final mem was changed into a final letter), the common source of LXX S 4QSama retained this understanding, while the text of the Masoretic T V was corrupted. For further examples, see 1 Samuel 1:1; 2 Samuel 7:1; Jeremiah 2:20; 5:6; 23:33; 41:9; Psalm 9:6; 23:4; 2 Chronicles 32:22. When the word division reflected in the LXX presumably is not original, the exegesis behind it derives either from the translator or from his Vorlage. The former possibility is the more likely when several differences between the LXX and MT occur within a short stretch, relating not only to word division, but also to matres lectionis and vocalization, and sometimes to graphically similar consonants as well ..."
Emanuel Tov, The Text-Critical Use of the Septuagint in Biblical Research, 3rd ed. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2015), 130.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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