Note on Report

The Annual Report of the Hexapla Project to the I.O.S.C.S. in 2004 was presented to the XIIth Congress of the I.O.S.C.S. held in conjunction with the XVIIIth Congress of the I.O.S.O.T. in Leiden. The present report on The Hexapla Project, therefore, covers the period from July, 2004 to November, 2005.

Promotion

The task of gaining international visibility for The Hexapla Institute and The Hexapla Project continued to be a focus in 2004-2005. First, arrangements were made for a "Hexapla Panel" at the XIIth I.O.S.C.S. Congress in Leiden, 2004. Papers were given by Peter Gentry (Chair, "Establishing Critical Texts of the LXX and of the Three: Aspects of Interrelationship and Interdependence in Ecclesiastes"), Bas ter Haar Romeny ("Editing the Hexaplaric Fragments of Genesis: New Material, New Choices"), and Alison Salvesen ("The Role of the Three in Modern Philological Commentaries on the Bible: the Case of Exodus"). Unfortunately, funds for Petra Verwijs to travel to the Congress fell through and her paper had to be cancelled from the Panel. Nonetheless, The Hexapla Project as presented was well received by the members of I.O.S.C.S. and valuable constructive criticism was received by the Editorial Board of the Hexapla Project.

Second, Alison Salvesen, Bas ter Haar Romeny, and Peter Gentry were awarded the Grinfield Lectures on the Septuagint to be held in Oxford, 2005-2006. The projected title for the lecture series, "The Role of the 'Three' in the Text History of the Septuagint," was later modified as "Origen's Hexapla: The Development of Septuagint Tradition and its Reception in Antiquity." The first group of lectures were given at the Oriental Institute May 23-26, 2005 as follows: Peter J. Gentry, "Old Greek and Later Revisers: Can we Always Distinguish Them?", Bas ter Haar Romeny, "Hexaplaric Readings for Genesis and their Reception by the Church," and Alison Salvesen, "Hexaplaric Readings for Exodus." These lectures focused on the Hexapla and the need for a new critical edition. The attendence at the lectures was greater than in previous years and also grew during the week. The Editorial Board used this time to meet and make further plans for the future edition. Third, we have arranged for a group of three papers to be presented as a Hexapla Session in the Meetings of I.O.S.C.S. in Philadelphia, November, 2005. Petra Verwijs, Alison Salvesen, and Bas Romeny will make presentations on issues related to a new edition of the Hexapla.

Publishing Arrangements and Development of Database Structure

A dinner for the Executive Committee and Advisory Committee of the Hexapla Institute and any other participating scholars was held on July 31 during the XIIth I.O.S.C.S. Congress in Leiden. This was the first time for both Executive and Advisory Boards to meet and discuss the edition. Dr. Bernhard Neuschäfer, the new director of the Septuaginta-Unternehmen in Göttingen was added to our Advisory Board. The Advisory Board was extremely helpful in evaluating the proposed layout for the new edition.

During the last year work has progressed between the Editorial Committee and Peeters to finalise the format of the new edition. The format was finalised during the meeting of the Editorial Board in Oxford, May 2005. Bas Romeny produced a document providing guidelines and instructions on Database Format and Final Layout. This was distributed to all collaborators in September of 2005 to use as a model for their work.

Alison Salvesen is devoting her sabbatical in the fall of 2005 to working on the Exodus Fascicle and will come to The Hexapla Institute at Southern Seminary, November 2 - 18, 2005. This will aid in correlating the work of collaborators with with the setting up of the database.

Assignments, Personnel and Website

Few assignments have been made during the past year. Numbers has been assigned to Kevin Burris, a doctoral student under the supervision of Peter Gentry at Southern Seminary. Phillip Marshall, another doctoral student being supervised by Peter Gentry is at the dissertation stage and has begun work on Ecclesiastes. Daniel has been re-assigned to Richard A. Taylor, and Jeremiah and Lamentations has been assigned to Kevin J. Youngblood. Michael Law has begun graduate work at Oxford University under the supervision of Alison Salvesen and plans to do 3/4 Kingdoms as his doctoral research. Gathering hexaplaric materials for 3/4 Kingdoms will be carried out in collaboration with Julio Trebolle, the editor who is preparing these books for the Göttingen Edition. We are planning a five year goal for each fascicle, so a number of fascicles should be out in five years. Apart from the Historical Books and Song of Songs, all books have now been assigned.

Leonard R. Smith, Jr. has gotten our Hexapla Website up and running with basic information on The Hexapla Project (www.hexapla.org). Progress was made on the development of the database. Leonard graduated in May of 2005 and Elizabeth Robar, a Ph.D. student at Southern Seminary has succeeded Leonard as the new Fellow of The Hexapla Institute. She is paid by The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to work 10-15 hours per week to continue developing the database and website.

Collaboration and Funding

We are seeking ways to foster the Hexapla Project. As of September, 2005, The Hexapla Project is now sponsored by The Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center in Claremont, California. We have also established a good understanding with the Septuaginta-Unternehmen in Göttingen. Those working on assignments for The Hexapla Project will collaborate where possible with Göttingen Editors to gather the materials for the Second Apparatus. We also want to establish a fund which will help participating scholars get the materials needed for their task and if necessary, travel to Clarement or Göttingen where they can check manuscript microfilms, etc. in the course of preparing the fascicles.

We are also planning to collaborate with the Institute for Septuagint Studies in Leuven, Belgium under the leadership of Dr. Katrin Hauspie. They are interested in creating a lexicon of the Three. This could be incorporated into the fascicles of the New Edition of the Hexapla as appendices providing concordance and lexical information. Where possible, the editorship of the Hexapla fascicle and the compilation of lexical material will be combined.

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