[B-Greek] AISCUNE

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat Apr 19 07:21:10 EDT 2003


At 1:02 PM +0200 4/18/03, Knut Klaveness Heidelberg wrote:
>Dear Friends,
>
>I am looking for an explanation to the following footnote found in Conybeare
>& Stock "Grammar of Septuagint Greek" (1995) note 6, p. 285-6:
>
>"Josephus (Ant. IX 2§1) expressly tells us that the deity in this case was
>a female one - KAI NOSHSANTA PEMYAI PROS THN AKKARWN QEON MUIAN, TOUTO GAR
>HN ONOMA THi QEWi. He was apparently unaware of the ingenious explanation
>which is now offered of the variation of gender, namely, that the feminine
>article does not denote the sex of the deity, but indicates that the word
>AISCUNE is to be substituted for the name in reading."
>
>Why AISCUNE and where can I read more about "the ingenious explanation"?
>
>Anyone?

I think you must be citing not the "Grammar" but the annotated anthology of
LXX texts to which that grammar is an introduction (and both have continued
to be reprinted for nearly a century for good reasons). I no longer have
the anthology and can't find the note you refer to in the
independently-published grammar, but the idea here, I think, is that in the
Hebrew the word Bosheth "shame" is to be substituted in reading aloud the
Hebrew for any appearance of a Canaanite divine name. Baal-Zebub would be
read as "Bosheth-Zebub" and that might be translated as AISCUNH in Greek.
If "Lord of the Flies" is read as hH AISCUNH, then I suppose that could
give rise to hH QEOS for a masculine deity. But as the note indicates,
Josephus evidently didn't understand it that way; I assume that the text
you're looking at is 2 Kings 1:2, "... EPIZHTHSATE EN THi BAAL MUIAN QEON
AKKARWN ..."
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/


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