The Lost Zabur: From Epic Poetry to the Septuagint

The Qur’an refers to the Torah as a book of guidance and judgment; that is, as a legislative book with a clear function. The Torah circulated today, however, appears largely as a historical narrative text, filled with genealogies, wars, migrations, and the construction of national memory. From here, the question arises: Is the historical Torah we possess today the same as the legislative Torah to which the Qur’an refers?

This question leads us to the Zabur. The Qur’an does not present the Zabur as a book of laws, nor does it quote from it commandments and prohibitions as it does with the Torah. Rather, it says: “And We gave David the Zabur.” The act of giving here opens an important door: David does not appear as the author of the Zabur from nothing, but as one who was given a prior text or tradition. The nature of the Zabur itself is also closer to remembrance, chant, wisdom, and singing than to law and legislation. Therefore, the Zabur can be understood as an older poetic layer that preserved memory before it later became written historical narrative.

Here the role of epic poetry appears. The poems attributed to Homer and Hesiod were not merely decorative literature, but vessels for preserving the accounts of peoples, kings, wars, genealogies, cities, and gods. This poetry long remained in the form of oral chant before it was collected and arranged. Josephus, in Against Apion, indicates that the Greeks scarcely knew any writings older than the poems of Homer, and that these poems were preserved in memory and circulated as songs before being collected and written down.

Then came the stage of Aristotle and Alexander. Plutarch states that Philip of Macedon summoned Aristotle to educate his son Alexander, and that Alexander carried a copy of the Iliad edited by Aristotle. It was known as the “casket copy,” and Alexander kept it with his dagger under his pillow. This shows that the Iliad was not, for Alexander, an ordinary poem, but an intellectual, military, and ethical treasure. From here, epic poetry entered a new stage: from oral memory to an edited text suitable for shaping the king and the state.

After Alexander, centers of knowledge passed to his successors, especially the Ptolemies in Alexandria. In this context, the Septuagint appeared in the Ptolemaic period, traditionally in the reign of Ptolemy II. Yet viewing it only as a literal translation conceals the nature of that stage. Alexandria was a center for collecting, comparing, editing, and reorganizing texts. Therefore, the Septuagint can be understood not merely as a linguistic translation, but as a stage in the purification and rearrangement of ancient poetic texts within a new historical and religious framework.

From this perspective, the Torah is no longer simply a text translated from one fixed original, but a text rebuilt from older layers, some of them poetic and epic. This explains the epic character of many of its stories: wars, vows, genealogies, cities, the exodus, the wandering, and national memory.

One of the clearest examples is the story of Jephthah and his daughter. The biblical text recounts that Jephthah made a vow before battle, saying that whatever came out of his house to meet him after victory would belong to the Lord. Then his only daughter came out, and the vow became a family tragedy. This structure corresponds to the story of Agamemnon and Iphigenia, where Agamemnon leads the army to Troy, the winds stop, and he is required to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia so the campaign may proceed. In both cases, we face a war leader, an obstacle before battle, a daughter who pays the price of victory, and a tragedy that becomes memory.

The resemblance does not stop with the daughter. Jephthah is presented in the biblical text as the son of a prostitute, rejected by his brothers, then returning as leader when the community needs him. Agamemnon comes from the troubled House of Atreus, where power, betrayal, blood, and family conflict are intertwined. Agamemnon also appears in the Iliad as an arrogant commander in his conflict with Achilles. Jephthah likewise appears as a harsh leader who demands authority when he is summoned, then enters into a severe conflict with Ephraim. Thus, Jephthah does not appear merely as an independent figure, but as a biblical purification of the structure of Agamemnon: a war leader, troubled origin, arrogance, internal conflict, and family tragedy.

Then comes the model of Achilles / Gideon. Gideon, from the tribe of Manasseh, appears in a moment of fear and weakness, needing reassurance before performing his role. One of the most important phrases in his story is: “Do not fear; you shall not die.” This phrase places him directly before the question of death. Achilles, meanwhile, is the greatest warrior-hero in Greek memory, known for his immunity from death except in his heel. Just as Achilles appears as the hero who cannot be defeated except through a hidden point of weakness, Gideon appears as a hero reassured before death, then transformed into an instrument of military deliverance.

The significance increases when geography is linked with genealogy. In this reading, the tribe of Manasseh corresponds to the Aeolian sphere in northwestern Asia Minor, that is, northwestern Turkey, while Ephraim corresponds to Thessaly. Thus, the conflict between Manasseh and Ephraim in the biblical narrative becomes an echo of an older conflict between the Aeolian and Thessalian spheres in Greek memory. In this way, the resemblance between Achilles and Gideon, or between Agamemnon and Jephthah, is not merely literary similarity, but the geographical and cultural transfer of an ancient poetic memory into a new biblical framework.

From here, the function of the Septuagint in the time of Ptolemy II becomes clear: it was not merely translation, but purification and reconstruction. Ancient poetic materials, some connected with Homer, Hesiod, and Greek tragedy, were taken and rearranged within a biblical narrative that gave them new names, genealogies, and religious functions. Iphigenia appears in the form of Jephthah’s daughter, Agamemnon appears in the form of Jephthah, Achilles appears in the form of Gideon, and the conflict between Thessaly and the Aeolians appears in the form of the conflict between Ephraim and Manasseh.

Thus, the lost Zabur is not merely a lost book in the physical sense, but an older poetic layer that preserved memory before it was divided into Torah, Zabur, history, genealogies, and laws. From this layer, poetry passed into history, myth into law, and epic into religious text.