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  • From: Kevin Riley <klriley AT alphalink.com.au>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] cognate alphabet
  • Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2010 09:50:20 +1100

Are you aware of why the LXX has historically (in recent centuriess) been rejected? Most translation committees start with an acceptance of the MT as 'the' text. Unless the MT fails to make sense, why would they go to the LXX? After all, it is the MT they are translating, not the LXX. I am not sure how that leads to the conclusion that the LXX has 'failed' as a translation. You may also find that the picture is not quite so clear if you look beyond English language translations. Unless things have changed recently, there are still millions of Christians who give the LXX primacy over the MT. Perhaps it would help if you saw it in terms of two different questions: 1) what did the original author write? and 2) what is the original reading of the MT tradition? I suspect most translation committees are (for very good reasons) asking question 2), whereas you seem to be wanting to ask question 1). How much help the LXX can give in answering either question will depend to a large degree on your understanding of the history of the text(s), including all those religious and philosophical questions we like to pretend don't exist so we can talk about the Hebrew text without getting side-tracked into interminable arguments over doctrinal details.

Kevin Riley

On 26/11/2010 9:23 AM, fred burlingame wrote:
Hello Bryant:

Happy Thanksgiving.

Thanks for your comments.

I agree; and modern day publishers (and their academic consultants) of
english language bibles, agree also as to the big difference between:

a. tanakh; and

b. septuagint.

These publishers' apparent, uniform rejection of the septuagint, and uniform
acceptance of numerous, corresponding, but differing, renderings in the
tanakh, argues strongly in favor of the conclusion that the septuagint has
failed ... as a translation.

regards,

fred burlingame

On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 1:53 PM, Bryant J. Williams III<bjwvmw AT com-pair.net
wrote:
Dear Fred B.,

One has to distinguish from Hebrew Tanakh and Greek LXX. The Tanakh was
written
primarily in Hebrew with portions of Daniel, Ezra and a verse in Jeremiah
in
Aramaic of the 6th - 5th Centuries BC. The LXX is Greek from the 3rd
Century
(ca. 250) - 1st Century BC. There are some later editors, e.g. Theodotion,
etc.,
from about the 1st - 3rd Century AD. Of course, the Great Codices,
Alexandrinus,
Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, are from the 4th Century AD (ca. 320) have the
LXX and
the NT.

Now that the DSS Biblical MSS have been open to all scholars they will now
be
included in any text-critical problems in translating the Tanakh into
English.
TNIV or NIV 2011, and possibly others, was supposed to use the DSS for this
purpose (?).

The use of the LXX can possibly help in some of the hapax legomena, but not
always. The Pentateuch, or Law of Moses, is fairly consistent in its
translation
method, but the rest of the Tanakh is not so consistent. See the NETS
translation of the LXX for further information
(1) The print version is available: Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G.
Wright
are the editors and the publisher is Oxford University Press (Oxford)
www.oup.com/us ISBN (9780195289756);

(2) An electronic version (PDFs viewable online or downloadable) is
accessible
online at: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/edition/.

I am giving a general overview of the situation, but not too general.

BTW, Happy Thanksgiving to all

Rev. Bryant J. Williams III

----- Original Message -----
From: "fred burlingame"<tensorpath AT gmail.com>
To: "fred putnam"<fred.putnam AT gmail.com>
Cc:<b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 25, 2010 10:00 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] cognate alphabet


> Hello Fred:
I am not sure of the boundaries of these two professions: textual
criticism;
and comparative linguistics.

You may well be correct that my original post in this thread addresses
matters more within the former versus the latter profession. After all
has
been said in this thread to date however, I am not entirely convinced of
the
wholly alien nature of ancient greek to masoretic text ("MT") hebrew. If
cuneiform can inform MT, why not septuagint greek, from a comparative
linguistic standpoint?

Be that as it may, my un-scientific experience with modern english bible
publishers, unanimously accepting the MT rendering and correspondingly
rejecting a competing and differing septuagint greek rendering ...
discloses
to me that this phenomenon occurs frequently and not "in a relatively
few"
occasions. Such circumstance implies to me one of two conclusions:

a. the failure of one language to achieve translation of the other; or

b. the two languages addressed two different subjects and stories.

Either way, the situation becomes remarkable .... in my humble opinion.

regards,

fred burlingame

On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 10:36 PM, fred putnam<fred.putnam AT gmail.com>
wrote:
Fred,

It seems that your question has more to do with textual criticism--why
relatively few LXX/MT differences are decided "in favour of" LXX. Is
this
right?

You might find Emanuel Tov, *Textual Criticism*, helpful, or his
earlier
work on the Septuagint (1980?). Sorry, I'm doing this from home, and
most of
my books are at school.

Also, no English version that I know footnotes every time the
translators
or editors decide to accept a particular reading of LXX. This is,
again, a
matter of textual criticism (above).

Fred Putnam

On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 6:54 PM, fred burlingame
<tensorpath AT gmail.com>wrote:
Hello Kevin:

Thanks for your comments.

I can appreciate your distinction between alphabet and language.

The tie that binds greek and hebrew, phoenician alphabet, appears to
me,
however, more than a matter of form.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Greek_alphabet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Hebrew_alphabet

I just don't see why (cognate to hebrew) ugarit language (for example,
but
without limitation) instructs the understanding of biblical hebrew;
whereas
ancient greek does not do so.

regards,

fred burlingame

On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 5:34 PM, Kevin Riley<
klriley AT alphalink.com.au
wrote:
Yes - the sequences are similar because the sequence was borrowed
with
the
alphabet. No one is questioning the borrowing of the alphabet. But
sharing
an alphabet does not make two languages 'cognate' - at least, not as
that
term is usually used.

Kevi Riley


On 25/11/2010 9:45 AM, Hedrick Gary wrote:

Not to add fuel to the fire here, but one cannot help being struck
by
some
of the similarities in sequences, even between Hebrew, English, and
Greek.
qof, resh, shin, tav
p, q, r, s, t
pi, rho, sigma, tau

Gary Hedrick
San Antonio, Texas USA

On Nov 24, 2010, at 4:31 PM, Kevin Riley wrote:

The *alphabets* have a common ancestor. That is not the same as
the
*languages* being cognate. As far back as there is reliable
evidence,
Greek
and Hebrew are not cognate languages. In terms of language, if
there
was a
'proto-Canaanite', then it is the mother of Hebrew, Phoenician,
Moabite,
Ammonite, etc, but not of Greek.

Kevin Riley

On 25/11/2010 4:41 AM, fred burlingame wrote:

affirmative; the common parent = proto-canaanite.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_alphabet

regards,

fred burlingame

On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 11:11 AM, Christopher Kimball<
transcriber AT tanach.us

wrote:
Is Greek usually considered a cognate language of Hebrew?

Chris Kimball
West Redding, CT
USA

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