Also, I agree wholeheartedly with your use of the second half of Isa 40:3. I was actually talking to a friend about that the other day. The idea that we should punctuate the verse as “…crying, ‘in the wilderness…’” I think is greatly helped by recognizing the two halves of the verse as parallels. When align the verse like this:

A voice cries:
…“In the wilderness (a)
……..prepare the way of the LORD; (b)
…[] in the desert (a)
……..make straight [] a highway for our God (b)

On a tangent: my thoughts were initated by George MacDonald and his treatment of John 1:3 and similar punctuation issues. As a result, he re-rendered John 1:3.

I have tended in your direction for this reason. It seems to me that the second half of Isa 40:3 is a restatement of the first half. If that is the case, then it seems to support your analysis.

Get to work!

First of all, thanks for stopping by!
Your points are absolutely valid- it is a matter of presuppositions on whether to take the masoretic pointings as pointing to an earlier reading tradition, and as I point out there is much debate about this, and they certainly aren’t to be considered inspired.

I don’t think the assumptions necessarily run counter to Mark’s use of the LXX. That just simply shows that the LXX was most likely his primary source for quotation while writing. If (and yes, I realize the assumptions here) the pointings are an attestation to an earlier tradition, it seems that the community around Mark would know this reading, even if Mark himself was unaware at first, as Paul and Peter et al quote from the Hebrew text as well as the LXX. Certainly, it seems like Mark would hear this come out in teaching and discussion within the community. So while the point is valid that it could run counter to the LXX usage, I don’t think it necessarily does.

The basic issue for me here is why the difference between the two texts? The Greek of Mark and the LXX can certainly be read the same as the Masoretic reading of Isaiah- Is it an attempt to read the OT as the OT and the NT as the NT? This doesn’t make sense as most of the translations translate the OT in light of the NT. I’m wondering what the decision process was in many of the translations to go one route in Isaiah and another in Mark.

I do not find any modern English translation that renders Mark 1:3

“A voice crying out, “in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord…’ “

so I’m sure there’s got to be a valid explanation that for this

I want to look at what Beale & Carson say in their Commentary on NT use of OT… but I need to do schoolwork!

To the extent that the marks attest to an earlier reading tradition, one would have to assume both that Mark knew the Hebrew text in the same form as the MT, and this reading tradition of Isa 40:3. Yet, these assumptions run counter to the fact that Mark follows the LXX here.

Even if the translator of the Hebrew into Greek knew of the Masoretic reading tradition (another assumption), that understanding is not reflected in the rendering of the Greek that Mark read.