Texts in Conversation
In 1 Samuel 3, Eli calls Samuel “my son,” but in the Greek Septuagint this is changed to “child,” since Samuel is not his son. This change shows a concern for accuracy and how translators corrected their sources when there are interpretive choices.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
1 Samuel 3:16
Hebrew Bible
15 So Samuel lay down until morning. Then he opened the doors of the Lord’s house. But Samuel was afraid to tell Eli about the vision. 16 However, Eli called Samuel and said, “Samuel, my son!” He replied, “Here I am.” 17 Eli said, “What message did he speak to you? Don’t conceal it from me. God will judge you severely if you conceal from me anything that he said to you!”
Date: 600–501 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX 1 Samuel 3:16
Septuagint
15 And Samuel slept till morning, and rose early in the morning, and opened the doors of the house of the Lord; and Samuel feared to tell Eli the vision. 16 And Eli said to Samuel, Samuel, child; and he said, Look, here I am. 17 And he said, What was the word that was spoken to you? Please do not hide it from me: may God do these things to you, and more also, if you hide from me any thing of all the words that were spoken to you in your ears.
Date: 100–1 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... 1 Samuel 3:16 includes the address “my child” though Samuel is not really a descendant of Eli. Whereas the Targum does not see the necessity for corrections, the Septuagint writes only τέκνον ('child'). From a hermeneutical point of view, the text must, as far as possible without major corrections, meet the requirement of factual correctness ..."
Martin Meiser, The Septuagint and Its Reception: Collected Essays (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022), 70.
* 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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