Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 70:1 (NA 2019)
Article: Septuagint Lexicography And Language Change In Greek Judges
Author: William A. Ross

TynBull 70:1 (2019) p. 156

Septuagint Lexicography And Language Change In Greek Judges1

William A. Ross

([email protected])

The language of the Septuagint has a mixed reputation. Although many explanations could be offered for this state of affairs, at a fundamental level the matter is one of perspective. With such a diverse corpus of texts traditionally falling under the rubric of ‘the Septuagint’, scholars understandably differ over which aspects of the data to emphasise in their analysis as well as the standards with which to carry out that analysis. The prevailing tradition in scholarship typically views the degree of word-for-word correspondence between the Greek and Hebrew texts under analysis as the data fundamental to evaluating the language of the Septuagint. From this perspective, it is the supposed Hebrew or Aramaic Vorlage that provides a default standard of analysis. Other scholars frame the discussion in different terms, however, preferring to address the language of the Septuagint first of all in light of contemporary conventions, such that the Greek linguistic milieu provides both the controlling standards and data for analysis. To be sure, these two perspectives are not strictly contradictory, and each has its own purposes and benefits.

This dissertation follows the second path. In doing so, it follows in the footsteps of scholars such as Adolf Deissmann, Henry St. John Thackeray, John A. L. Lee, Trevor V. Evans, and James K. Aitken, all of whom haves shown the importance of situating the language of the Septuagint within the broader history of Greek. One area in which the benefits of doing so could not be clearer is that of lexicography. Yet, despite increasing interest and promising developments in this area of the discipline, Septuagint lexicography as a whole remains remarkably

TynBull 70:1 (2019) p. 157

underdeveloped, unsettled in method, and practically isolated from its linguistic milieu. This dissertation sets out to address these issues by using case studies of language change within the textual history of Greek Judges and by offering several sample lexical entries that demonstrate the results of this approach to Septuagint lexicography.

As explained in the first chapter of the dissertation, Greek Judges has a very complex textual history that provides unique opportunities for lexical analysis. Generally speaking, the Hebrew textual tradition is very well preserved and, with the exception of chapter 5, exhibits little obvious instability. The Greek tradition is significantly more complicated, but possible to analyse in two distinct historical stages: the reconstructed Old Greek (OG or Judg^OG) and a revision preserved in t...