[B-Greek] How Markos reads the LXX (was future indicative inJonah 1:11 (Joseph Justiss)
Jack Kilmon
jkilmon at historian.net
Sat May 21 12:32:08 EDT 2011
OK, Mark. I was expecting a response based more on scholarship rather than personal faith “perceptions” so there would be no sense in my addressing misperceptions. At least I know where this paradigm comes from.
Thanks
Jack
From: Mark Lightman
Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2011 10:39 AM
To: Albert Pietersma ; Jack Kilmon
Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] How Markos reads the LXX (was future indicative inJonah 1:11 (Joseph Justiss)
Jack wrote
<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.>
Hi, Jack,
If the world really does end today, are you sure THIS is how you want to spend the day?
<I am not quite grasping how the source language can be ignored in an attempt to understand the sense of the Greek...>
I guess I'm trying to read the LXX the way the God-fearers did, who presumably did not know Hebrew.
< ...particularly when a text like Mark was written by someone whose first language was Aramaic and whose Greek demonstrates Aramaic syntax and structure.>
If you begin with the assumption that Mark spoke Aramaic, you are going to find
semitisms. If you begin with the assumption that he spoke Latin you can find
Latinisms. If you begin with the assumption that he spoke Greek you will just
find Koine Greek. "Very like a whale." I have no idea what Mark's first language was.
<BIBLICAL Greek, is, after all, a translational Greek of Semitic materials, is it not?>
It may be. We had a guy here on B-Greek a while back who was convinced that
even Paul could not have written his letters in Greek. What was funny about this
guy was that he wasn't sure if Paul wrote in Hebrew or Aramaic or Latin (Latin!) but
he insisted he did not write in Greek. This allowed the guy to say that the Greek
NT as we have it now is a "translation of a translation" and that only he knew what
the original New Testament REALLY meant.
<Are you talking about a Greek for Greek's sake only method regardless of original source material sense and content?>
I'm not, no, but there is that old joke: If the LXX was good enough for Moses, it's good
enough for me.
ερρωσο, ω φιλε μου.
Mark L
FWSFOROS MARKOS
--- On Sat, 5/21/11, Jack Kilmon <jkilmon at historian.net> wrote:
From: Jack Kilmon <jkilmon at historian.net>
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] How Markos reads the LXX (was future indicative inJonah 1:11 (Joseph Justiss)
To: "Albert Pietersma" <albert.pietersma at sympatico.ca>, "Mark Lightman" <lightmanmark at yahoo.com>
Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Saturday, May 21, 2011, 7:39 AM
-----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
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