Oh, yes! More than one Greek professor once we were doing biblical readings said if he caught any of us with an interlinear he’d flunk us.
Interlinears contributed to why I started taking Greek: I could hear ten different preachers relying on an interlinear expound on “what the Greek means” and get a dozen different answers.
- Initially, I was going to say: “Spill on Aisle 8!” but I figured hollering for a medic would be less “demeaning”.
- Once upon a time, I was a language collector, picking up Latin, Greek, a little bit of Vietnamese, and a little bit more of Modern Greek, and finally Spanish when I married into a Spanish-speaking family. My interest in languages (and dialects) was a consequence of being a hearing kid born into a nest of Deaf who communicated with each other in American Sign Language. Never did anything with the classical languages and rarely use them now. The Vietnamese and Modern Greek have faded almost completely; the Spanish fades fast in the absence of others to use it with; and ASL–the language of my youth–is well on it’s way to becoming a fuzzy memory. And now the OP’s author says he doesn’t know what I’m talking about. Makes me more eager to get to the next world where there are folks I can understand and who will understand me.
2 Likes
I am wondering about the claim the Septuagint places the Alter of Incense in a different location to the other bible translations…
May i quote the English translation of the Septuagint?
Exodus 30: 6 “and you shall place it in front of the veil that is over the ark of witnesess by which i will be known to you there”
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/edition/02-exod-nets.pdf
Am i missing something or is the claim, that the Septuagint is ambiguous about the location of the Alter of Incense in the Sanctuary, false?
I hate losing languages!
My French is long lost, as are my German and Latin; Spanish comes and goes; Hebrew is fading, and my Koine and older Greek is rusty as heck.
It’s like doors swinging shut in my brain and they don’t open again.
= - = - =
Thinking of language … come on, people, it’s “altar” and “censer”. “Alter” means “change”; “censor” means the guy who says “You can’t print that!”
With the exception that we are talking about the “Censor” in the heavenly Sanctuary…not the Alter of incense. Thats my point. The author is describing the “post Cross” Sanctuary in heaven, Christ did not enter the heavenly sanctuary immediately after his death on the cross. He did not return to heaven for at least 3 days (or parts of days actually). The timeline the author of Hebrews is using in this description of the events in the heavenly (ie post cross) our High Priest [Christ] had already made redundant the Alter of Incense…our prayers are in his Censor!
The Alter of incense carries the prayers of daily sacrifice into the Most Holy Place. That is not the case at the time the High Priest carries the Censor into the MHP on the Day of Atonement Service. This is a key difference.
I do see a potential theolgoical problem with my claim above…it relates to the ongoing symbolism of footwashing services post cross Christians participate in as directed by Christ at the last supper…i am working on that.
Exodus 30 associates the altar of incense with the ark of the testimony. The altar is to be set in front of the mercy seat, that is in front of the ark. There was also a veil (between) but the emphasis seems to be in the closeness of these two, altar and mercy seat (ark). I cannot read Hebrew so I cannot say what exactly is written but different translations seem to differ in clarity, some tell clearly that there is a veil between while some are less clear. The English translation of Septuagint seems to belong among the latter.
As previous comments have told, there are different interpretations about the apparent mistake. There may be an error made by the writer (not a problem for me) but there is also the possibility that the writer had in mind something specific where the veil was not anymore separating the altar of incense and the seat of mercy. I would leave that possibility open.
Actually, if you read the text more carefully in Exodus 30 and later chapters regarding the placement of the Alter of Incense, the direction to place it in front of the Ark of the covenant is actually and alignment statement (not a location in terms of which room in the Sanctuary).
Take a look at Exodus 40… note that its essentially in reverse order. The Ark of the Covenant is put into the Most Holy Place and then the veil is installed partitioning it off from the Holy Place. Note that after this veil has been installed the Lampstand, table of showbread and Alter of Incense are brought in. The placement of the Alter of Incense in front of the Ark simply means, its located in the centre of the room just in front of the veil (clearly on the Holy Place side of the veil).
1Then the LORD said to Moses, 2“On the first day of the first month you are to set up the tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting.
3Put the ark of the Testimonya in it and screen off the ark with the veil.
4Then bring in the table and set out its arrangement; bring in the lampstand as well, and set up its lamps.
5Place the gold altar of incense in front of the ark of the Testimony, and hang the curtain at the entrance to the tabernacle.
6Place the altar of burnt offering in front of the entrance to the tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting.
7And place the basin between the Tent of Meeting and the altar, and put water in it.
8Set up the surrounding courtyard and hang the curtain for the entrance to the courtyard. (this is the main sanctuary entrance curtain…not the veil sheilding priests from the Ark of the Covenant)
There are other texts that support this location for the Alter of Incense. Note Exodus 30…
There are other texts that talk about this that are the same (ie exodus 30)
6Place the altar in front of the veil that is before the ark of the Testimony
In Exodus 30 we again see that the Altar of Incense is placed "in front of the veil which is before the Ark "…this is very obviously as if you are looking into the Sanctuary from its main entrance. So “in front of” would be as seen from the viewer when looking in from the main entrance…eg it would be just before the veil and centered from left to right. The Ark of The Covenant is behind the veil in its own room.
Some may choose to try to argue with this, however, such arguments would be ignoring a very significant fact about the role of the veil. The veil was specifically put in place to protect the priests in the Holy Place going about their activities on other days during the year. The only day they were allowed into the MHP was the day of Atonement and under very strict protocols. Any priest enterring the Sanctuary to top up the altar of incense (which was done daily), would have immediately been struck down and killed if it had been in the MHP…so the altar of incense could not have possibly been in the MHP in any case!
This topic was automatically closed 6 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.