Blaise Webster of Tell Me The Story, another production of the Ephesus School Network, joins me to talk: Old Greek, Arabic(s), and Biblical (Consonantal) Hebrew.

Joshua Alfaro is a Septuagint (Old Greek translation(s) of the Hebrew Bible and their daughter translations Ge'ez, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian) scholar and student focusing on the Scroll of Esther. He recently attended the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) annual conference, where he watched and heard the Ethiopic (Classical and Modern) sessions. Hear what he has to say, about what they said.

"The Scroll of Esther stands corrupted by various translators. Which (scroll) I, lifting up from the archives of the Hebrews, have translated more accurately word for word. The common edition drags the book by knotted ropes of words hither and yon, adding to it things which may have been said or heard at any time. This is as is usual with instruction by schools, when a subject has been taken up, to figure out from the words which someone could have used, which one either suffered injury, or which one caused injury (to the text).

And you, O Paula and Eustochium, since you have both studied to enter the libraries of the Hebrews and also have approved of the battles of the interpreters, holding the Hebrew Book of Esther, look through each word of our translation, so you may be able to understand me also to augmented nothing by adding, but rather with faithful witness to have translated, just as it is found in the Hebrew, the Hebrew history into the Latin language. We are not affected by the praises of men, nor are we afraid of (their) slanders. For to be pleasing to God we do not inwardly fear those caring for the money of men, "for God has scattered the bones of those desiring to be pleasing to men" (Ps 52.6), and according to the Apostle, those like this are "not able to be servants of Christ" (Gal 1.10)."
-St. Jerome

Deacon Alem serves the EOTC in the Washington D.C. Metro area through the liturgy and the ministry of the word. His day job is in aerospace engineering, but on the side he studies scripture, and completed his M.A. in Theological Studies from Agora University. Transforming his thesis into a book for popular consumption, here is a slightly condensed conversation we had about, The Letter That Kills: Variant Readings of Genesis 37:3 in the Andmta Corpus. It is a review of the current English literature available regarding the Aksumite School of Biblical Exegesis, and his own insights to what we can glean from this tradition of studying scripture.