[B-Greek] How Markos reads the LXX (was future indicative inJonah 1:11 (Joseph Justiss)

Barry H. nebarry at verizon.net
Sat May 21 13:14:36 EDT 2011


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jack Kilmon" <jkilmon at historian.net>
To: "Mark Lightman" <lightmanmark at yahoo.com>; "Albert Pietersma" 
<albert.pietersma at sympatico.ca>
Cc: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2011 12:32 PM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] How Markos reads the LXX (was future indicative 
inJonah 1:11 (Joseph Justiss)


> 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.
>
> [M. EGRAYEN]  I guess I'm trying to read the LXX the way the God-fearers 
> did, who presumably did not know Hebrew.

Jack, I think this, buried amidst his humor, is the heart of what Mark is 
saying (and also, I think, Albert).  How would a "God-fearer" or recent 
convert to Judaism, who only had access to what we call the OT in Greek, 
have read the Greek?  He would have read it trying to understand the Greek, 
without any access to, or perhaps even awareness of, the Hebrew.  Would he 
have been aware that he was reading and hearing a very odd style of Greek? 
Probably.  When I read the NASB, it often sounds very odd.  I certainly 
wouldn't say it or write it that way, and most "native" English speakers 
would not, but we still understand it as English or at least try so to 
understand it.  As Silva used to put it, translators may produce some very 
odd receptor language renderings, but they rarely produce impossible ones. 
I've shared in other contexts (if this is too personal a faith perception, 
please disregard) my experience reading the book of Revelation after a 
couple of intense seminars on the Greek tragedians and orators.  Talk about 
strange Greek!  But I had no trouble reading it and understanding, at least 
at the semantic and syntactic level, what was intended.  I strongly suspect 
our ancient God-fearers would have had a similar experience.

N.E. Barry Hofstetter, semper melius Latine sonat...
Classics and Bible Instructor, TAA
http://www.theamericanacademy.net
(2010 Salvatori Excellence in Education Winner)
V-P of Academic Affairs, TNARS
bhofstetter at tnars.net
http://www.tnars.net

http://my.opera.com/barryhofstetter/blog
http://mysite.verizon.net/nebarry




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