[B-Greek] EGW EIMI hO WN (LXX of Exodus 3:14)
Carlton Winbery
winberycl at earthlink.net
Sat Mar 29 21:34:38 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)
>
Carl, I wrote about a ten page review of Boman's book in 1968 for a
doctoral seminar. The review is stuck in a box of files somewhere. As
I recall he argued that Hebrew had no verb "to be." HAYAH was a verb
of action according to him. You are right that people either swore by
him or at him. No one with whom I discussed the questions he raised
was neutral. It was a lot like a chapter in a book by edited by O.
Cullmann, "The Hebrew Concept of Resurrection and the Greek Concept
of Immortality of the Soul."
Carlton
--
Carlton L. Winbery
Retired Professor of Religion
Louisiana College
318-448-6103
winberycl at earthlink.net
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list