Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Will Parsons <wbparsons AT alum.mit.edu>]

On Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:46:15 -0300, "Nir cohen - Prof. Mat." 
<nir AT ccet.ufrn.br> wrote:
> isaac, karl,
...
> back to isaac's response. there is the problem of the greek transliteration
> (ASENNETH etc) being
> limited to proper greek grammatical laws, which might at times avoid some
> impossible combinations. however, i do not know greek to have an opinion.

This has nothing to do with "grammatical laws", but Greek phonology is
certainly relevant.  If the Hebrew name were pronounced [asnat] or [asnaθ]
there's no reason why it wouldn't be transcribed Ασναθ/Asnath in Greek.  The
fact that it was in fact transcribed Ασεννεθ/Asenneth indicates that there
was a vowel following the samekh in the pronunciation they were transcribing.

> finally, the greek translators may have consulted other sources (aramaic,
> phoenician etc) in transliterating these names. and these names may have 
> been
> non-hebrew to begin with.

It's very doubtful there were any other sources to consult.  These were not
common Hebrew words that had equivalents in Aramaic or other non-Hebrew
sources, but foreign names that probably only occurred in these particular
places.  The only guide would be the oral tradition.

-- 
Will Parsons