[B-Greek] How Markos reads the LXX (was future indicative in Jonah 1:11 (Joseph Justiss)
Mark Lightman
lightmanmark at yahoo.com
Fri May 20 08:17:33 EDT 2011
John Sanders wrote
<The Greek text needs to stand on its own feet and be understood in terms
of
Greek.>
Hi, John,
This is one of my ad nauseams, but in this case it has the added benefit
of being true. I want to use this thread as an opportunity to elaborate on
a point I tried (tried!) to make a while back in the
PSALMOS TWi DAUID thread and how
I personally, just me, have come to the conclusion that the best way to
read the LXX is to do so independently of the Hebrew (or any other (meta)language.)
This passage from Jonah illustrates nicely that you can take
most passages
from the LXX in two ways. Clearly the καὶ κοπάσει (KAI KOPASEI)
is a Semitism. The KAI is not really a Greek KAI, but a rendering of the Hebrew
vov which can introduce a purpose clause. You can argue that you cannot
REALLY understand what is going on in this passage unless you know Hebrew.
And of course, you cannot really know Hebrew unless you know Arabic and
Ugaritic. And these languages cannot be understood unless you deal with
proto-Semitic. And you cannot understand a dead language unless you
have a firm grounding in the latest (what time is it?) linguistic fad.
But on the other hand, καὶ κοπάσει makes sufficient sense in Greek.
ετοιμαζω το δειπον. και φαγουμαι. This really means BASICALLY the same
thing as ετοιμαζω το δειπνον ινα φαγω. Could you find such a simple
paratactical
construction in attested Greek? Maybe, maybe not, but no Greek could fail
to understand BASICALLY what LXX Jonah is saying. Albert P. and I discussed a while
back how much of the LXX you could describe as "traditional Greek." It turns out
Dana/Mantey on page 15 give you a number:
"As a matter of fact, however, the LXX is not as intensely Semitic as has formerly been
supposed. Of eighty-one varieties of grammatical usage
discussed by Conybeare and
Stock (Selections from the Septuagint), a careful examination in the light of the
present knowledge of the Koine reveals that fifty-three of them are typical Greek, and the
remaining twenty-eight would likely be considerably reduced by further knowledge of the
Koine. That is, at least sixty-five per cent of
the Septuagint represents Greek of the age
in which it was made."
I am not endorsing their number, and anyway, it's silly because, based on these
numbers, you can say that up to 35% of the LXX is NOT traditional Greek. I would
say that the LXX is as Greek as you want to make it. It all depends on how you choose
to look at it. A parallel is the English phrase "and it came to pass." You can always look
at the "and" there as a semitism, again going back to και εγενετο and before that to the
same Hebrew vov. But every English speaker knows what "and it came to pass" means.
Did the phrase exist in English before Tyndale? Maybe, maybe not, but the
King James Bible needs to stand on its own feet and be understood in terms of
the English. Sure, there are a few passages that are incomprehensible as English,
just like there are a few LXX passages where the Greek can
only be
made sense of
by an appeal to the Hebrew, but as a whole, both are translationese only if you
choose to look at them that way.
The real point I want to make is this: A few years ago, I set up a goal for myself
to read through the LXX cover to cover. I've probably read about a third of it jumping
around, but I always struggled with it. I found its Greek for the most part insipid.
And I always wondered about the underlying Hebrew. At one point I read through
Oxford's fantastic Comparative Psalter, where you have the Hebrew and literal English
translations of both the Hebrew and Greek on opposite pages. This allows you to
see if maybe the Hebrew can shed light on what is REALLY going on in a given
passage. It's not a bad way to read the LXX.
But as my Greek has gotten a little better, I find that the best way to read
the LXX is just to read it as Greek. Sure, it's a
little odd. Homer and Plato it
ain't. But it makes sense. It is very easy to understand BASICALLY what is
going on, and for me, I find that this is has to be enough. Nothing wrong with
analyzing a passage in terms the underlying original, just like there is nothing
wrong with analyzing a Greek passage in terms of whatever metalanguage floats your
PLOION. But for me, to do this inevitably slows me down, it takes me out of the
Greek I want to learn into something else. This is true when we have the Hebrew
original. How much more so in the case of the NT where isolating putative
semitisms is not so much bad as unnecessary.
John wrote
<The Greek text needs to stand on its own feet and be understood in terms
of
Greek.>
You see, the Greek text stands where it stands. We are free to stand anywhere
we want when we look at it. If we stand here, we see Aramaisms. If we stand
here where see Latinisms. If we stand here we see a middle force in a deponent.
>From over here we see result, from there purpose, here tense, there aspect.
When I read Greek now I hear all these people standing from their positions telling
me to leave the Greek and come stand where they are.
Mark L
Φωσφορος
FWSFOROS MARKOS
--- On Thu, 5/19/11, spencerj76 at aol.com <spencerj76 at aol.com> wrote:
From: spencerj76 at aol.com <spencerj76 at aol.com>
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] future indicative in Jonah 1:11 (Joseph Justiss)
To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Thursday, May 19, 2011, 10:15 AM
19 May 2011
Friends,
I've checked the Masoretic Text of Jonah 1:11, and it does seem, as George indicated, that the expression καὶ κοπάσει (KAI KOPASEI) in the Septuagint text of Jonah is mostly an effort to translate the Qal imperfect (or jussive) of the the Hebrew verb SH-T-Q ("be quiet"). I would think that in this example of translation Greek, the translators of the Septuagint are just trying to translate the Hebrew tense along with the conjunctive WAW in the Hebrew
text
(which, as George explained, can be used in many ways). It may be worth noting that the translators don't seem to take the Hebrew imperfect to have a jussive sense ("that the sea might be....") as far as I can tell. Because it's translation Greek, I'm not sure I'd draw too many grammatical conclusions with regard to the Greek. As to the subjunctive in the sailors' question, that, too, seems like the most natural way for the Greeks to translate the Hebrew original (a Qal imperfect of the verb "to do").
Best wishes,
Jeremy Spencer
-----Original Message-----
From: George F Somsel <gfsomsel at yahoo.com>
To: Joseph Justiss <jljustiss at gmail.com>; b-greek <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wed, May 18, 2011 6:22 pm
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] future indicative in Jonah 1:11 (Joseph Justiss)
Jonah 1:11 (GS 12 Proph)
1 καὶ εἶπαν πρὸς αὐτόν Τί σοι ποιήσωμεν, καὶ κοπάσει ἡ θάλασσα ἀφʼ ἡμῶν; ὅτι ἡ
άλασσα ἐπορεύετο καὶ ἐξήγειρε μᾶλλον κλύδωνα.
11 KAI EIPAN PROS AUTON, "TI SOI POIHSWMEN, KAI KOPASEI hH QALASSA AF' hHMWN?"
OTI hH QALASSA EPOREUETO KAI ECHGEIRE MALLON KLUDWNA.
'm not sure what your problem with κοπάσει KOPASEI might be, but it seems that
hat we have here is a very literal translation of the MT here (note the καί
AI joining it to the preceeding). I suspect, however, that you are questioning
hy a future is used here. Note that the subj of the aorist is used in the
uestion Τί σοι ποιήσωμεν TI POIHSWMEN as might be expected in a question
xpressing uncertainty. In keeping with Semitic practice the current clause is
oined to the preceeding by a copula which has many uses in Hebrew including
xpressing result or purpose. In this case we are looking at a purpose clause
o that the question is asked regarding what must be done SO THAT the danger may
be averted.
george
fsomsel
search for truth, hear truth,
earn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth,
efend the truth till death.
Jan Hus
________
_______________________________
eek
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