Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 12/3/06, Bob MacDonald wrote:

> Dear list
>
> How about Greek to Hebrew?
>
> We have a reading of the Psalms in Greek from within a few hundred years of
> when they were written and we have Greek psalms in the NT - e.g. the
> Magnificat which are clearly based on Hebrew tradition.  Surely there is an
> expert poet in koine Greek among us who could render Mary's song into Hebrew
> poetry in such a way that we would have pleasure in the connection.
>
> I am not quite ready to try it - but it is tempting :) only because it is
> poetry - and that, from the heart of two women (Mary and Hannah), is the
> human aspect of the word - whatever people might say about its divine
> revelatory aspect.

An interesting side to all this is the book of Ben Sira.  This book
was translated
into Hebrew by a scholar, yet parts were later found in the Hebrew that were
unknown previously.  For example:
Ben Sira 25:8 Translation )$ry $[l) nk$l bl$wnw w)ynnw] (bd nklh [mmnw]
Ben Sira 25:8 Original )$ry $l) npl bl$wn wlw (bd nklh mmnw
Ben Sira 25:8 Translation )$ry] b(l )$h m[$klt w)ynnw] xwr$ k$wr [wxmwr yxdw
Ben Sira 25:8 Original )$ry b(l )$h m$klt wl) xwr$ k$wr (m xm[wr]
Ben Sira 25:20 Translation km(lh [xwl brgly zqn kn] )$t [l$wn l)y$ (nw]
Ben Sira 25:20 Original km(lh [xzq l)y$ y$y$] )$t [l$wn l)y$ mk]
Ben Sira 25:21 Translation )l tpwl [bypy )$]h w(l y$ lh [)l txm]d
Ben Sira 25:21 Original )l tpwl )l ywpy )$h w(l y$ lh [)]l tmhr

Only the bracketed parts were unknown.  Today, we still have a broken piece 
that
causes two letters to be missing in 25:8/25:21. However, one can still
fill in the
missing parts and compare how the missing parts were translated ahead of the
discovery, and how they are known to be rendered into Hebrew.

The missing piece is available here:
http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Taylor-Schechter/GOLD/Or1102/AS213_4.html

Yitzhak Sapir