[B-Greek] How Markos reads the LXX (was future indicative inJonah 1:11 (Joseph Justiss)
Albert Pietersma
albert.pietersma at sympatico.ca
Sat May 21 11:20:00 EDT 2011
I am NOT advocating that the source text be ignored. To explain the
kind of Greek we have in the translated corpus one needs to have
recourse to the source. What I AM advocating is that the the Greek
translation (LXX or OG) be taken seriously as being written in the
Greek language and comprising a Greek document. Whether it is then
evaluated as standard/normal/conventional Greek or as non-standard/
abnormal/unconventional Greek is irrelevant. It is Greek all the same,
and Greek is the yardstick by which one judges.
What this means concretely is that Greek words have their conventional
Greek meanings, rather than meanings modified by the Hebrews words
they translate. As a result lexicography can no longer superimpose a
Hebrew sense on Greek words, as was standard in LSJ and has by no
means been eradicated from contemporary LXX lexicography. It may well,
of course, that Greek words were badly used due to word-for-word
translation from the source text, that scarcely changes their
conventional sense. Similarly, grammatical constructions may become
badly mangled due to one-to-one transfer from the source, but that
scarcely means that we can then speak of new Greek constructions. We
simply label them instances of negative transfer, because they violate
Greek linguistic code.
Basic in all of this the textual-linguistic make-up of the translation
rather than preconceived notions about "translation," its reputed
purpose or its date. The only guide to the nature of the text is its
linguistic make-up.
Al
On May 21, 2011, at 9:39 AM, Jack Kilmon wrote:
>
>
> -----Original Message----- From: Albert Pietersma
> Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 10:52 PM
> To: Mark Lightman
> Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] How Markos reads the LXX (was future
> indicative inJonah 1:11 (Joseph Justiss)
>
> Mark,
> If you have in mind that we must read the Greek of the LXX in terms
> of the Greek language of the period, I couldn't agree more and can
> only wish that more scholars (including Septuagint scholars) would do
> the same. Though at times one may turn to the source language to
> arbitrate between existing senses of Greek words, at no point ought
> one superimpose a Hebrew sense on a Greek word simply because Hebrew X
> happens to be paired with Greek Y in translation.
>
>
> JK] I have been following this thread and I am not sure I am
> getting the sense of this so I need your help on this. The LXX was
> a translation of Early Biblical Hebrew (EBH) texts (the Pentateuch)
> in the Greek of the 3rd century BCE in use in the ANE. Christians
> refer to any Greek translations of the remaining Navi'im and Ketuvim
> as "Septuagint" but they are more accurately called "Old Greek"
> translations (Cross) done over another two or three centuries from
> variant Hebrew and Aramaic (Daniel) exemplar texts and they append
> the books of the New Testament, all authored in Greek of varying
> competency from the 70's CE to 150 CE some of which is also
> translational Greek from Hebrew LXX EBH or LBH texts and Aramaic
> sources for the Jesus materials. I am not quite grasping how the
> source language can be ignored in an attempt to understand the sense
> of the Greek, particularly when a text like Mark was written by
> someone whose first language was Aramaic and whose Greek
> demonstrates Aramaic syntax and structure. Doesn't the Semitic
> sense of a word or phrase being translated assist in understanding
> the Greek translation? Are you talking about a Greek for Greek's
> sake only method regardless of original source material sense and
> content?
>
> BIBLICAL Greek, is, after all, a translational Greek of Semitic
> materials, is it not?
>
> Best,
>
> Jack
>
> Jack Kilmon
> San Antonio, TX
>
—
Albert Pietersma PhD
21 Cross Street,
Weston ON Canada M9N 2B8
Email: albert.pietersma at sympatico.ca
Homepage: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~pietersm
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