[asa] Cainan

Does anyone on this list know whether there is anything close to a
consensus about what was probably the original reading of those verses in
Genesis 10 and 11 in which the Septuagint mentions Cainan?

The Masoretic Text and the Septuagint agree on the Cainan in Genesis 5,
but the name occurs in the LXX in Gen. 10:22 and 10:24 (twice) and
11:12,13 (four times) without a mention in the MT. If the Hebrew on which
the LXX is presumably based was correct, then some copyist must have
deliberately gone through and cut out the passages that contained it when
making a copy that eventually led to the MT. On the other hand, if the MT
version is correct, then someone deliberately changed the text to insert
the references to Cainan.

What is also strange in the LXX is that in 10:22 Cainan is mentioned as
being a son of Seth (and brother of Arpachshad if son really means first
generation), and in 10:24 he is a son of Arpachshad. That might indicate
two people with the same name.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are of no help since these verses are in a gap of
several chapters that were not recovered from the Genesis manuscripts.

Several years ago someone on this list suggested that a copyist of Luke 3
had accidentally lost his place and included the second Cainan. Then he
suggested that Christians had changed their copies of the Septuagint to
include him in Genesis. However I find it hard to believe that no copies
from exclusively Jewish sources would have survived.

Gordon Brown (ASA member)

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Received on Tue Feb 5 22:07:21 2008