Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Henry Churchyard <churchyh AT ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>]

> Subject: Josephus & 1Esdras (Only vaguely related)
> From: Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>
> Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 00:50:40 +0200

> if I understand correctly Josephus was a speaker of Hebrew who had
> difficulty in Greek and while the original version of 1 Esdras is
> understood to have been in Hebrew, it would seem to me that Josephus
> has used the Greek version of 1 Esdras.  A Persian known as Tattenai
> in Ezra who is governor of Shetharbozenai (5:3) is Sisinnes governor
> of Sathrabuzanes in both 1Esdras (6:7) and Josephus (11.1.3).  If I
> assume for the moment that Josephus had a copy of 1Esdras in Hebrew,
> would it be possible that the names be transliterated in the same
> manner independently from thaose in the Greek version of 1Esdras?

Actually, I would assume that Josephus was a native speaker of Aramaic
who had a reasonably functional knowledge of practical spoken Greek,
but didn't trust his ability to produce a properly polished written
"literary" Greek prose style, if working on his own.

There are several possibilities that could give rise to a sound being
transcribed by both "t" and "s" in Greek, the most obvious being the
Proto-Semitic interdentals (non-sibilant coronal fricatives) which
merged with fricatives in Cannanite, and utimately with stops in
Aramaic.  Without knowing which language the word is from, and its
etymology, it's hard to say for sure....

--
Henry Churchyard   churchyh AT ccwf.cc.utexas.edu   http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/