[B-Greek] How Markos reads the LXX (was future indicative inJonah 1:11 (Joseph Justiss)
George F Somsel
gfsomsel at yahoo.com
Sat May 21 15:12:00 EDT 2011
Let's face it, the LXX is not standard off-the-rack Greek. Almost anyone other
than those of a particular community (viz. the Jewish community of Alexandria)
would from time to time scratch his head a bit over some of the translation. We
encounter a similar problem today. Some people whose native language is not
English occasionally come out with expressions which may take a bit of time to
digest by those whose native language is English. It's not that we don't
understand what is being said, it is that it is not the way we would express
it. Is a back-translation necessary ? No, but sometimes if we understand how
things are stated in their native language we understand a little better what
they are saying -- or at least why they say it so. My wife was from a Dutch
background. When her parents would speak about going to visit someone they
would say "Let's go by so-and-so. The method of expressing this in Dutch is to
say that they would go "bij" so-and-so. I would occasionally joke about driving
past the house, and I don't think they appreciated the joke, but I did
understand. It's not the case either that they were "straight over on the boat
come." They had been born here, but that was the manner of speech in their
community. I think we find evidence of a similar phenomenon in the Greek of the
LXX. We might think it a bit strange, but we do generally understand it --
especially if we compare it to the Hebrew though that isn't entirely necessary.
george
gfsomsel
… search for truth, hear truth,
learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth,
defend the truth till death.
- Jan Hus
_________
________________________________
From: Barry H. <nebarry at verizon.net>
To: Jack Kilmon <jkilmon at historian.net>; b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Sat, May 21, 2011 11:21:52 AM
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: "Barry H." <nebarry at verizon.net>; <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2011 1:58 PM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] How Markos reads the LXX (was future indicative
inJonah 1:11 (Joseph Justiss)
> 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.
You are advancing as confident fact what is in a great deal of dispute.
> 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.
Jack, we don't have an Aramaic original. I know it's a thing of yours, but
retroversion to understand what someone might have said is a flawed
methodology. How do you know that Luke's Greek (which is perfectly
understandable, good Greek) doesn't reflect the intent of what Jesus may
have originally said? Now, I know you can come up with some sort of
defense, but really, you don't know, not for sure. Your Aramaic is just a
guess, really. It may be a really educated, well thought out guess, but a
guess nonetheless.
But I suspect we are getting into extra-B-Greek sort of issues, so I'll stop
there and let you have the last word, if you like.
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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