No Worse Than Any Other I: Leviticus 4:16

I am often asked to recommend my favorite Bible translation. I usually disappoint my interlocutors by telling them that the King James Version is no worse than any other. This series of posts is designed to illustrate my claims. As a foil, I decided to take the list of recommended English translations that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recently posted. The following are the recommended translations:

Ages 14 and Above

• English Standard Version (ESV)​
• New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)​

Ages 11–13

• New International Version (NIV)​
• New Living Translation (NLT)​
• New King James Version (NKJV)​

Ages 8 and Above

• New International Reader’s Version (NIrV)​

A number of years ago, I saw a book on finding Christ in the Old Testament. I had looked at the scriptural index to the book and noticed that while the author was pushing finding symbolic references to Christ, he had overlooked several explicit references. One of these is Leviticus 4:16. My personal favorite translation for this particular verse is the Septuagint:

Septuagint (LXX): καὶ εἰσοίσει ὁ ἱερεὺς ὁ χριστὸς ἀπὸ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ μόσχου εἰς τὴν σκηνὴν τοῦ μαρτυρίου
And the priest, the Christ, shall bring from the blood of the bull to the tent of the witness. 

King James Version (KJV): And the priest that is anointed shall bring of the bullock’s blood to the tabernacle of the congregation:

English Standard Version (ESV): Then the anointed priest shall bring some of the blood of the bull into the tent of meeting,

New Revised Standard Version (NRSV): The anointed priest shall bring some of the blood of the bull into the tent of meeting,

New International Version (NIV): Then the anointed priest is to take some of the bull’s blood into the Tent of Meeting.

New Living Translation (NLT): The high priest will then take some of the bull’s blood into the Tabernacle,

New King James Version (NKJV): The anointed priest shall bring some of the bull’s blood to the tabernacle of meeting.

New International Reader’s Version (NIrV): Then the anointed priest must take some of the bull’s blood into the tent of meeting.

The Septuagint explicitly identifies the priest in the sin offering with Christ. None of the translations listed do. The King James Version, however, is no worse than any of the others. If one is interested in a different translation to help find Christ in the Old Testament, none of these translations will help.

 

 

A Passover Connection

One never knows where one might find insight into a scripture. Sometimes it is simply a matter of making an odd connection.

This connection deals with a side note on something I wrote about a a few years ago on the various versions of Leviticus 1-5. (Sorry, the pdf or print version will be necessary to follow the philological arguments.)

In the Septuagint version of the Chronicles account of the passover feast of Hezekiah it mentions more than once the peace offerings that were made (2 Chronicles 29:35; 30:22). Specifically it says:

And Hezekiah spoke to every heart of the Levites and of those who had a good understanding of the Lord, and they finished the feast of unleavened bread, seven days of offering "peace offerings" and confessing to the Lord God of their fathers (2 Chronicles 30:22 LXX).

The peace offerings, of course, are detailed in Leviticus 3. Two details strike me as significant in this passage.

1. The first is that the major offering of Passover was the so-called peace offering. 
2. The second is that the Septuagint does not call it the "peace offering." That is the translation the King James Version uses for the Hebrew of this term. The Septuagint calls it the θυσία σωτηρίου "the offering of salvation."

For early Greek-speaking Christians, whose version of the scriptures was the Septuagint, the connection of Jesus's death with the Passover would have made perfect sense. The major sacrifice associated with Passover was the sacrifice of salvation and Jesus offered his life to bring about salvation.