FW: RE: Psalm 129 LXX

Paul Wendland wendlanp at wls.wels.net
Thu Dec 26 23:19:54 EST 2002




========================
Paul O. Wendland
Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary
wendlanp at wls.wels.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Albert Pietersma [mailto:albert.pietersma at sympatico.ca]
Sent: Thursday, December 26, 2002 3:15 PM
To: Paul Wendland
Subject: Re: [b-greek] RE: Psalm 129 LXX




Paul Wendland wrote:

> Richard:
>
> ||Vss 3 and 4 read:
> ||
> ||EAN ANOMIAS PARATHRHSHiS KURIE, KURIE, TIS hUPOSTHSETAI;
> ||hOTI PARA SOI hO hILASMOS ESTIN
> ||
> ||Surely God's provision of atonement is NOT the ground for the negative
> ||response expected by the question KURIE, TIS hUPOSTHSETAI? That doesn't
> ||make sense to me. I know this is poetry. Perhaps an answer lies in that
> ||direction?
>
> I think the problem here is in the LXX translation.  hOTI here reflects a
KI
> in the Hebrew MT.  Although the KI can introduce a clause that gives the
> grounds for what precedes it, it can also be a marker of contrast, which I
> believe it is in this case.  "No one will endure you, LORD, if you keep
> careful record of inquities, BUT with you atonement exist."
>
> What did surprise me was that none of the Greek grammars I looked at
> (Wallace, BL/D, Moulton/Turner) mentions this translationese rendition of
KI
> as a possibility for hOTI.  Perhaps the LXX translators did view it as
> causal.

It seems to me, Paul, that your label "translationese" explains why the
authorities
(Wallace etc) would make no mention of hOTI =  KY = "but". Since grammar
documents
usage in the living language and since translationese is by definition NOT
the living
language, one cannot claim that hOTI ever means  "but". Differently put,
unless one
can demonstrate that hOTI  means "but" in normal Greek usage, one has no
warrant for
translating hOTI in  Ps 129.4 by "but" (whatever Hebrew KY is thought to
mean there).

Needless to say, such a rendering, whether by design or by inadvertence,
does affect
exegesis. That is to say, a Greek reader would either read v.4  either as
the ground
of v.3 (as Richard intimates), or the causal is more general in reference
and harks
back to vv.1-2.
Because of the generally word-based nature of the Psalms translation, the
text tends
to be atomistic, as a result of which the contextual meaning of the source
may be
lost or altered.
Al


> A support for this thought might be found in Jerome's rendition of
> the Hebrew:
>
> si iniquitates observabis Domine, Domine quis sustinebit *quia* tecum est
> propitiatio cum terribilis sis--if you paid heed to sins, O Lord, O Lord,
> who will withstand [you]?  *Because* with you is atonement, though you are
a
> God who strikes terror [into us].
>
> That last clause, btw, strikes me as a very odd translation of lema;an
> TiwwArE';
>
> This and a comparison of the ancient versions (which also seem to indicate
> that they were reading a different text) leads me to believe that they
> understood these verses differently from what the MT would lead one to
> expect.
>
> Paul
> ========================
> Paul O. Wendland
> Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary
> wendlanp at wls.wels.net
>
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--
Albert Pietersma
Dept of Near&Middle Eastern Civilizations
4 Bancroft Avenue
University of Toronto
Toronto M5S 1C1
albert.pietersma at sympatico.ca
homepage http://www.chass.utoronto.ca:8080/~pietersm/




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