Digital Continent Digital Continent_Template amended | Page 42

Comparative Exegesis of the Septuagint Text of Genesis 4:1-16
Genesis 4:1-2
Αδαμ δὲ ἔγνω Ευαν τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ, καὶ συλλαβοῦσα ἔτεκεν τὸν Καιν καὶ εἶπεν
Ἐκτησάμην ἄνθρωπον διὰ τοῦ θεοῦ. καὶ προσέθηκεν τεκεῖν τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ τὸν Αβελ. καὶ
ἐγένετο Αβελ ποιμὴν προβάτων, Καιν δὲ ἦν ἐργαζόμενος τὴν γῆν.
And then Adam knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain and said, ‘I
have acquired a man through God. / And she proceded to give birth to his brother Abel. Abel
became a shepherd of sheep, and Cain worked the land.
Although the LXX was based on a Hebrew vorlage and not on the MT, in many ways,
the LXX rendering of 4:1 follows the MT quite closely. ‫י‬ ‫־ו‬ ִ֖ ֶ ‫ו‬ is rendered as γυναῖκα, thus
conveying the Hebrew notion of knowing as relational and life-giving. 153 The LXX also provides
a very close translation of the first part of Eve’s exclamation (‫וא‬ ‫׃‬ ִ֖ ‫י‬ ‫ו‬ ָֽ‫ו‬
‫ת‬ ‫י‬ ‫)י־‬, which is rendered
Ἐκτησάμην ἄνθρωπον. Perhaps the most interesting deviation from the MT in the LXX in 4:1
comes in the second half of Eve’s exclamation. The MT provides a phrase (ֶ‫ת‬ ‫ֶי‬
‫וה‬ ָֽ ‫)׃ה‬ which
153
Susan Ann Brayford, Genesis, Septuagint Commentary Series, (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 248.