The Editio critica maior of the Greek Psalter
For more than hundred years the major critical edition of the Old Testament in Greek, the so-called Septuagint, is being prepared in Göttingen: From 1908 to 2015, the “Septuaginta-Unternehmen” was responsible for this edition, and since 2016, a research commission, called “Kommission zur Edition und Erforschung der Septuaginta”.
In 2020, a new long-term Academy project is established: “Die Editio critica maior des griechischen Psalters”. This project is exclusively dedicated to the edition of the Greek Psalter. The Psalter belongs to the most widespread, complex, and extensively interpreted books in the Bible. As a liturgical prayer and individual meditation book, it combines Judaism with Western and Orthodox Christianity. Its influence on poetry (e.g. Arnold Schönberg, Moderne Psalmen; Paul Celan, Tenebrae), music (e.g. Igor Stravinsky, Symphony of Psalms; Leonard Bernstein, Chichester Psalms), and visual arts (e.g. Marc Chagall, Psalms of David) reaches up to the present and makes it one of the fundamental texts of European literature, and world literature as well.
The aim of the new Psalter project is to explore the tradition and textual history of the Greek Psalter, and to prepare a new critical edition of the Septuagint Psalms and Odes for the Göttingen series, which will substitute the outdated edition by Alfred Rahlfs (1931). At the end, the critically reconstructed text is promised to be provided in a hybrid edition, printed as a book and presented online.
The project is divided into six modules. In the first module, which ran from January 2020 to June 2023, inter alia, a total of 1,300 Psalter manuscripts were described. A beta version of our Manuscript Catalogue is now online. The second module, which is entitled “The Lucianic-Antiochene Text Type” is reserved for the identification of this complexly attested text type, which represents one of the Christian revisions of the oldest text form of the Septuagint Psalter. It runs from July 2023 to December 2026.
Currently, the Göttingen Psalter Team is preparing collations of Theodoret of Cyrrhus’ Commentary on Psalms. The Commentary on Psalms (Interpretatio in Psalmos) occupies an important place among Theodoret’s exegetical works. It is the longest commentary from an Antiochene author which has entirely survived until today. It is also one of the main witnesses to the so-called Antiochene text of the Psalter and an important source of hexaplaric readings. In agreement with our cooperation partner “Die alexandrinische und antiochenische Bibelexegese in der Spätantike” (Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities), led by Prof. Christoph Markschies, this commentary shall be edited as part of the Göttingen Psalter project. In addition, the evaluation of the Syrohexapla of the Psalter is the focus of the second module. Here we are very pleased about the cooperation with Prof. Willem van Peursen from the Peshitta Institute in Amsterdam.
As members of the Göttinger Septuaginta, we express our unwavering solidarity with Israel and the Jewish people. We categorically denounce all forms of antisemitism and the spread of disinformation about the Jewish community. We condemn with great concern the actions of those who incite violence against Jews.
We deplore these activities in the strongest possible terms and distance ourselves from any individuals in universities, academic circles, or scientific organisations who engage in such reprehensible behaviour. Our commitment to truth and justice compels us to stand firmly against hate and to support the enduring rights and security of the Jewish people and their sovereign state.
We pledge to promote understanding, respect, and peace and to oppose any actions or statements that undermine these principles.
Professor Robert Hanhart, the most distinguished Septuagint scholar of our age, died peacefully in Göttingen on 11 July 2025 at the age of 100. His passing deprives Septuagint studies of its longest-serving and most illustrious text editor, theologian and linguist of exceptional calibre, and the wider academy of a Swiss-born Göttingen scholar of international standing. His critical editions remain enduring monuments of philological rigour, and his legacy will continue through the Robert Hanhart Foundation. May he rest in peace.
Read the full obituary here
A Festschrift has been published in honour of Professor Hanhart’s centenary: Das Erbe der Göttinger Septuaginta. Festschrift aus Anlass des 100. Geburtstages von Robert Hanhart (1925–2025).
by Jonathan Groß, September 26, 2025
by Felix Albrecht, August 31, 2025
by Vadim Wittkowsky, July 31, 2025
As of 1 October 2025, a new research project has started within the framework of the Greek Psalter Edition. Funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), the project brings together Mr Alex Savinelli, who will carry out a philological study of Paeanius’s Greek translation (Metaphrasis) of Eutropius’s Abridged Roman History, and Dr Jonathan Groß, who will prepare a new critical edition of this important text. Created only ten years after the Latin workaround 379 CE, Paeanius’s translation is one of the few surviving examples from antiquity of a near-contemporary translation from Latin into Greek.
The project aims to deepen our understanding of late antique historiography and the transmission of Latin historical writing into Greek, thereby contributing to ongoing research in classical philology and translation studies.
The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation is generously supporting, within the framework of its Programme for the Promotion of Institute Partnerships, a research collaboration between Dr Felix Albrecht (Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Göttingen) and Prof. Dr Anna Kharanauli (Faculty of Humanities, Tbilisi State University) for the funding period 1 July 2025 – 30 June 2028.
The project’s principal objective is to refine and expand methodologies and digital tools that can be applied not only to the Greek and Georgian Bibles and their manuscripts but also to texts in all biblical languages. It aims to further develop the existing platform used for the Göttingen Septuaginta, enabling it to accommodate texts and manuscripts from a wide range of traditions. By applying a consistent methodology, the project seeks not only to establish the text and its historical evolution but also to reconstruct manuscript traditions and the cultural milieus through which the text circulated.
For the Georgian component, the publication of the Digital Edition of the Old Georgian Translations of the Minor Prophets and the Fourth and Sixth Odes represents both the initial step and the core objective of the collaboration.
- Guests
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Matteo Domenico Varca
Sapienza Università di Roma
20/09/2025–19/12/2025
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Nino Giorgadze
Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University
20/09/2025–19/10/2025
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Mariam Tkhinvaleli
Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University
20/09/2025–19/10/2025
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Prof. Dr. Anna Kharanauli
Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University
20/09/2025–19/10/2025
Editio critica maior des griechischen Psalters
Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities
in Lower Saxony
Friedländer Weg 11
D-37085 Göttingen