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In Genesis 35, Jacob buries foreign idols under a tree near Shechem. The Greek Septuagint adds that he “destroyed them until this day,” not in the Hebrew text. This changes the story into an ongoing tradition that was relevant in the translator’s time.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Genesis 35:4
Hebrew Bible
3 Let us go up at once to Bethel. Then I will make an altar there to God, who responded to me in my time of distress and has been with me wherever I went.” 4 So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods that were in their possession and the rings that were in their ears. Jacob buried them under the oak near Shechem 5 and they started on their journey. The surrounding cities were afraid of God, and they did not pursue the sons of Jacob.
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX Genesis 35:4
Septuagint
3 And let us rise and go up to Bethel, and let us there make an altar to God who listened to me in the day of calamity, who was with me, and preserved me throughout in the journey, by which I went. 4 And they gave to Jacob the strange gods, which were in their hands, and the ear-rings which were in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the turpentine tree which is in Shechem, and destroyed them to this day. 5 So Israel departed from Shechem, and the fear of God was upon the cities all around them, and they did not pursue after the children of Israel.
Date: 300–201 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Clearly Jacob did not destroy them because he still had something left to hide after this. For the verb አስቀመጠ ("he placed, established"), compare the LXX plus at the end of LXX Genesis 35:4: καὶ ἀπώλεσεν αὐτὰ ἕως τῆς σήμερον ἡμέρας ("and he destroyed them until this day") ..."
James C. VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees (Leuven: Peeters, 1989), 201.
* 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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