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

Jack Kilmon jkilmon at historian.net
Sat May 21 13:58:56 EDT 2011



-----Original Message----- 
From: Barry H.
Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2011 12:14 PM
To: Jack Kilmon ; Mark Lightman ; Albert Pietersma
Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] How Markos reads the LXX (was future indicative 
inJonah 1:11 (Joseph Justiss)


----- 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

I understand. Our ancient "God-fearers" like the rest of the population was 
95+% illiterate nor could afford a Codex Sinaiticus nor would be interested 
in a text critical view of what a presbyteros was reading to them.
That is not the case in today's literate society.

One of my best examples of a translation that without appeal to Aramaic is 
downright silly is Luke 14:26.  I will transliterate the Greek and 
phoneticize the Aramaic since I am not sure Hebrew and Greek fonts unicode 
here.

EI TIS ERXETAI    PROS ME KAI OU MISEI TON PATERA
If someone comes    to       me   and   does not hate the  father
EAUTOU KAI THN MHTERA KAI THN GUNAIKA KAI
of himself   and    the   mother      and    the    wife          and
TA TEKNA KAI TOUS ADELFOS KAI TAS ADELFAS
the  children  and    the     brothers     and    the    sisters
ETI TE              KAI THN YUXHN EAUTOU OU DUNATAI
and in-addition   also   the    life         of himslef  he is not able
EINAI MOU MAQHTHS
to be    ny       disciple

The Aramaic would be:

MAN DATE L'WATHY         W'LA          SANE L'ABUHY
Whoever comes to me   and does not set aside his father
W'L'IMMEH      W'LATT-TEH
and his mother     and the wife
W'LABNAWHY W'L'AXUWHY W'L'AXWATEH
and the children   and the brothers  and the sisters
WAP L'NAPSHEH TALMIDA LA MISHKAX DIHWE LY
even his own life         disciple not of mine can he be


This requires that we look closer at the word "sana" in the Aramaic version 
above. Sana could indeed be translated into Greek as "hate." Aramaic words 
had multiple meanings. This has been the cause of a number of Greek variants 
on translations between text types...Greek variants that will distill to one 
Aramaic word on back-translation.

The Aramaic word sana means "hate" or "stand up straight' or "put out a 
light" or "threshing floor" or "set to one's side."  It has been used also 
in the LXX and Targums for "love less."  "To set aside" one's family also 
conforms with Jesus' remark at Matthew 12:50.

Aramaic lacks comparatives so "more than" or "less than" can be "first" and 
"last."  The Hebrew cognate for the Aramaic sana is "shana" and is used in 
much the same way as you will see in Deuteronomy 21:15-17 and Malachi 1:2-3.

Similarly the Talmud enjoins students to have more affection for their 
teachers than their fathers.... "his teacher has priority, for his father 
brought him into this world, but his teacher, who has taught him wisdom, 
brings him into the world to come."
None of the current translations, to my knowledge, uses the correct 
translation of this idiom so Like handling snakes or drinking poison it 
leaves readers scratching their heads why Jesus would say something totally 
out of character for any Jew, no less a good little Jewish boy like Yeshua 
Bar Yahosef.

Best,

Jack



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