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Re: Ps 8:5 LXX - Heb 2:7 AGGELOUS for ELOHIM??
> > I had a rather deep discussion recently with respect to the meaning of
> > the word "God." A center of focus was why the LXX translators would
> > translate the Hebrew ELOHIM as AGGELOUS, or "angels" in Psalms 8:5
> > (quoted in Heb 2:7). My friend's assertion was that the LXX translators
> > here made a scribal error. My contention was that the LXX translators
> > here translated what they understood the meaning of the word to be in
> > this context as opposed to a slavish translation of the Hebrew.
>
> To quickly give you an answer, there is literature on this subject, but I
> do not know any references off the top of my head. Another instance of
> this phenomenon occurs in Psalm 82 (verse 1 or 2, I forget exactly which
> one).
>
> I think most scholars would follow your reasoning, and I believe that a
> commonly proposed solution is to assert that these compositions reflect an
> archaic literary period when polytheistic ideas were still current in
> Israelite thought. Thus, we would have references to the divine assembly.
> By the time the LXX was being produced, such notions were incongruous with
> monotheistic religion, and so, as you propose, they rendered the Hebrew
> with a term more akin to their theological point of view.
A somewhat more conservative and linguistically-oriented explanation is
that "elohim" in these contexts means "mighty ones" in keeping with the
etymology of the term. This view would say that the LXX translators
understood this and knew that elohim wasn't always a proper noun, and
translated accordingly as context necessitated it.
Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur/
dwashbur@nyx.net
Feel the music.
References: