[B-Greek] Gen 32:30 GOT (32:29 in English) and demonstrative
Trevor Peterson
06PETERSON at cua.edu
Wed Jan 29 12:03:00 EST 2003
>===== Original Message From "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu>
=====
>(b) we can't really be
>sure, can we, that the Hebrew passage as represented by the Masoretic text
>is exactly what the LXX translator put into Greek. I'm no expert, but I'm
>aware that, although the reliability of the MT has been shown by means of
>the DSS and other ancient Hebrew fragments to be considerably more reliable
>than had once been thought, nevertheless there are readings in the LXX text
>that can't be readily reconciled with the plain sense of the corresponding
>MT passage, whether that's to be explained by the LXX translator's looking
>at a different form of the Hebrew text or by the LXX translator's
>misunderstanding or erroneous translation of the Hebrew into Greek. I think
>you're asking a good question, but I'm not sure that it can really be
>answered in terms of the available evidence.
A worthy consideration, to be sure. But I only chose one of several examples
where the Greek shows precisely the same construction for precisely the same
Hebrew construction. I think it would be unrealistic to explain them all,
scattered throughout the OT, as resulting from a different Vorlage. To put
most of my cards on the table (the Greek ones, anyway), I looked at several
passages (not all) where this Hebrew construction appears to get a sense of
how the Greek translators handled it. In a few places, they omitted the
demonstrative, I think I might have seen one or two that actually produced a
good cleft-sentence construction, but what we see in this particular passage
seems to have been the norm. We can look at other examples, if anyone feels
inclined, but I think this one works to talk about the phenomenon.
Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list