Quale archetipo per la Vetus Latina di 2Re 23,4b-5?

Abstract

In 2Kgs 23:4b-5 the Vetus Latina (= VL) doesn't seem to depend on the Septuagint text edited by A. Rahlfs. So the comparison with the main editions and recensions of the Greek Version is necessary for identifying the archetype supposed by the Latin translator. Especially the so-called recensio Luciani, or Antiochene Text (= TA), shows various similarities with the VL about the procedure of rendering the archetype. Compared to the other Ancient Versions, both of them have some coincidences, but of different type. The analogies between VL and TA in v. 4b are of formal nature and concern the used paraphrastic procedure: duplicates, midrashic expansions, explanatory changes; in v. 5, instead, both texts agree substantially. The notice of massacre of the idolatrous priests was already in the v. 5 of the archetype of both of them. Perhaps the VL depended on the same archetype of TA and rendered it more faithfully in v. 5, but more freely, and imitating its technique, in v. 4b.