Septuagint: Joel

While the Book of Joel is accepted by many as dating to the 9th through 7th centuries BC, the oldest fragments of it to survive to the present are Hebrew fragments of the Sheneim Asar found among the Dead Sea Scrolls written in the Aramaic script, dating to the Hasmonean era, and fragments of the Dôdeka dating to the same era. The Dôdeka’s fragments are quite similar to the later copies of Joel in the Septuagint manuscripts, and the Hebrew fragments found within the Dead Sea Scrolls are generally the same as the Aleppo Codex’s Joel, which shows the surviving texts have been copied accurately since around 100 BCE.

As it is unclear when exactly Joel lived, it is difficult to place his writing into a historical context, however, he does refer to his temple as being in the valley of acacias, also called the valley of Shittim, which identifies his Lord as Ba'al Hammon, the Canaanite fertility god. The Temple of Hammon, at the ruins of Tell el-Hammam in Jordan, reportedly sent tribute to Solomon when he was the king, and the town around the city existed from roughly 980 to 332 BCE. As Joel mentioned the Valley of Jehoshaphat, it is accepted he lived after the time of King Jehoshaphat, King of Judah between approximately 870 and 849 BCE. At the time, the region northeast of the Dead Sea, where the valley of acacias is located, was under the dominion of the Kingdom of Samaria. Joel also refers to Zion and Jerusalem, which implies a strong connection to the Kingdom of Judah.