How good is Septuagint as a translation of Hebrew Scripture?

Albert L. Lukaszewski alski at fuller.edu
Sat Feb 27 13:50:18 EST 1999


For those interested in translation technique in LXX, a very helpful book I
have found is Staffan Olofsson's _The LXX Version:  A Guide to the
Translation Technique of the Septuagint_.  It essentially contains the
reference material he used in his dissertation which is published as _God
is My Rock:  A Study of Translation Technique and Theological Exegesis in
the Septuagint_.  Both books are in the Old Testament Series published by
Almqvist & Wiksell International of Stockholm, Sweden.

Regards,
Albert L. Lukaszewski
Fuller Theological Seminary
alski at fuller.edu


At 01:02 AM 2/27/99, Moon-Ryul Jung wrote:
>Many thanks for the answers to my previous question on the location of
>chapter 26 of MSS in Septuagint. It was chapter 33 in LXX. I read it, and
>found out that the translation was unacceptably literal to me. For example, 
>the waw-relative with imperfective and the waw-relative with
>perfective form are translated to "KAI + perfect or aorist", and to 
>"KAI + future". So, the waw is mapped to KAI one to one. It seems that the  
>LXX translators disregard the discourse function of waw in wayyiqtol or 
>wqtl forms. I read that the LXX translators were Jew,
>who spoke Greek. From this I, as a novice in this field, would draw the 
>following tentative conclusions. I would be thankful if you make some 
>comments on them.
>
>1. The range of meaning/function of KAI is much broader than
>  that of English  "and", and can cover the range of meaning/function
>   of Hebrew WAW. I remember I read that "X KAI Y" may be translated to 
>   "X, namely (or even) Y". Here Y is taken to explain X. One of the 
>   functions of wayyiqtol form is to explain the previous statement.
>   But can KAI be used to state the logical or temporal
>    consequence of the previous statement  like wayyiqtol form can?
>   If so, this first conclusion seems plausible. I would like to 
>    draw conclusions that respect those translators who knew Hebrew   
>    being Jew  and spoke Greek as a living language. 
>
>2. Even if those translators knew that mapping WAW to KAI did not produce
>   meaning preserving Greek, they thought that making the translation
>    as close to the original Scripture was appropriate. This conclusion
>    is odd at the fact that some translation in LXX are quite free. But
>    some translators might have thought that literal translation was
>    good, while others did not. 
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Moon-Ryul Jung, Ph.D
>Dept of Computer Science,  
>Soongsil University
>Seoul, Korea
>
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