[B-Greek] EGW EIMI hO WN (LXX of Exodus 3:14)
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Fri Mar 28 06:46:45 EDT 2008
On Mar 27, 2008, at 7:55 PM, Eric S. Weiss wrote:
>
>> No, it really isn't totally accurate. The Hebrew has the
>> imperfect (prefix form) of the existential verb twice and
>> would more accurately be translated "I will be who / what
>> I will be." I think I'll leave the Greek to your own
>> efforts. It would almost seem that the LXX was translated
>> under some Platonic influence.
>>
>> george
>> gfsomsel
>
> Richard Elliott Friedman chooses "I am who I am" and Robert
> Alter chooses "I will be who I will be." Both discuss the
> other one's choice, and Alter also discusses using "what"
> instead of "who." Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan (The Living Torah)
> goes with "I will be who I will be," and also refers to
> Rambam's Moreh Nevukhim 1:63 (1200 A.D.) when he says that
> the name "denotes that God has absolute existence," and
> refers the reader to the Septuagint; and that He is
> outside the realm of time (Rabbi Ovadia ben Yaakov Sforna,
> 1567 A.D.).
>
> Thus, it appears that the Hebrew imperfect need not be
> translated with the future, according to some
> Jewish/Hebrew scholars, and the concept of hO WN may not
> be Platonic (or maybe Rambam was a Platonist?).
>
> I am not asking for theological or philosophic arguments
> (which would violate B-Greek rules), but if you have some
> Hellenic texts that show how hO WN might have been used by
> Platonists (or other Greek philosophers) with reference to
> the Deity, and/or that show The Seventy's understanding of
> the Hebrew and/or Jewish tradition to be properly expressed
> by translating the Hebrew as hO WN, it would help address
> my question.
For my part, I don't see how this question is anything but theological
and philosophical. You are citing English versions of the Hebrew text
of Exodus 3:14 and asking how they may illuminate what the LXX
translators meant by using the participial hO WN for the Hebrew 'asher
ehyeh." I don't think that your question can be dealt with in purely
linguistic terms. Even if I point to Parmenides' discussion of the
verb EIMI with its insistence that this verb be understood solely in
the existential sense, not in the usage as copula, how will that help?
Or to Plato's discussion, in the dialogue, SOFISTHS, of whether TO ON
(and Plato there doesn't use hO WN but TO ON -- usually conveyed as
"Being") can be devoid of life, how would that help in terms of
language usage itself?
I might suggest that you read a classic little work of Thorleif Boman
entitled, _Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek" -- it was originally
published back in the 50's of the last century and I was surprised
just now to find that it is still in print and in a paperback edition
(Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/3dlvxr). It was back in the 50's while I
was beginning graduate work that I read it. It is an interesting read
(as I recall) but it has been both highly praised and damned and
pronounced "dated." It has a chapter comparing the Hebrew verb "hayah"
with the Greek verb EIMI.
For my part, I haven't ever seen a discussion of the question here
raised that did anything more than a superficial probe of how the
Greek translation expresses the Hebrew original of the MT. I tend to
doubt whether the question can be resolved by any approach that could
be called in any way "scientific."
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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