Common Hebraisms in LXX Greek?

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Mitch Tulloch
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Common Hebraisms in LXX Greek?

Post by Mitch Tulloch »

Following up on my previous question which Jason answered, I was wondering if someone has put together a list of common Hebraisms in the LXX that can help me in my reading of the LXX. By googling I found the article "Hebraisms in the Greek Versions of the Hebrew Bible" on Academia.edu, but I'm looking for something simpler e.g. a list of the most common syntactic constructions in the LXX that upon reading one would say, "Hey that's not good Greek!" or "That expression just doesn't make sense in Greek" etc. And I don't need something that delves deeply into the underlying Hebrew as my grasp of Hebrew syntax is almost nil. I just need a list of expressions or phrases that occur frequently in the LXX and whose odd syntax reflects the Hebrew they were translated from. Does such a list exist? Thanks!
Cheers,
Mitch Tulloch
Ken M. Penner
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Re: Common Hebraisms in LXX Greek?

Post by Ken M. Penner »

Mitch Tulloch wrote: December 24th, 2023, 4:10 pm Following up on my previous question which Jason answered, I was wondering if someone has put together a list of common Hebraisms in the LXX that can help me in my reading of the LXX.
Perhaps it's too detailed, but it sounds like you would appreciate Conybeare & Stock's Grammar of Septuagint Greek. https://ccel.org/ccel/conybeare/greekgr ... ge_74.html
Ken M. Penner
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Jason Hare
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Re: Common Hebraisms in LXX Greek?

Post by Jason Hare »

Ken M. Penner wrote: December 24th, 2023, 8:40 pm
Mitch Tulloch wrote: December 24th, 2023, 4:10 pm Following up on my previous question which Jason answered, I was wondering if someone has put together a list of common Hebraisms in the LXX that can help me in my reading of the LXX.
Perhaps it's too detailed, but it sounds like you would appreciate Conybeare & Stock's Grammar of Septuagint Greek. https://ccel.org/ccel/conybeare/greekgr ... ge_74.html
I was also going to lean this way in answer. :!:
Jason A. Hare
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Mitch Tulloch
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Re: Common Hebraisms in LXX Greek?

Post by Mitch Tulloch »

Thanks for this. I've had a quick look thru a dozen pages or so of this, and also done a bit more research, and I'm now wondering how reliable some of Conybeare's inferences are.

For example regarding section 80. Misuse of the Participle Conybeare says "But we find sentences in the LXX in which a participle is the only verb. Sometimes this arises from following the Hebrew as in [Jdg. 13:19,20] More often it does not, as in [Ex. 12:37]." But the author of https://www.academia.edu/104683549/On_t ... hn_Malalas says that the participle functioning as a finite verbal form is "rather common in Hellenistic Greek (in the Bible, papyri from the Ptolemaic period on and in other literature), while sporadic use of similar forms can be traced back as early as the Classical period." So could it be that instead of reflecting the LXX translator's rigid adherence to imitating Hebrew syntax, some of these Hebraisms simply reflect an emerging syntactical trend of Hellenistic Greek that made such translations acceptable to the translator?

Then there's section 91. εν where Conybeare says that in Biblical Greek this preposition is found "in the plentitude of its power, as expressing innumerable relations, some of which seem to the classical student to be quite beyond its proper sphere" such as the instrumental use where "εν invades the domain of μετα and συν" which he says in most cases may be rendered by the English "with." But when I look up εν in my Cambridge Greek Lexicon which I purchased recently to accompany my CGCG (which I've finished my initial readthrough of and am now plowing through more slowly) it says under subheading F (agency) that εν can be found in Homer in the expression "seeing with the eyes" and in Sophocles in expressions like "summoning with prayers" and "provoking with certain language". And while instrumental εν may be common in LXX/NT as Conybeare illustrates with quotations, how common was it in other Hellenistic Greek literature? Has any research been done concerning this?

My hope though was that there might be something more contemporary on this topic than Conybeare's book which was published back in 1905. I do appreciate your recommendation however, and I'll try to make the effort to read what Conybeare has to say about Hebraisms in the LXX. But having made the decision to use CGCG as my intermediate Greek grammar instead of Smyth, I'm going to take any grammars from 100 or more years ago with a grain of salt because of (a) outdated grammatical concepts and terminology which I don't want to learn lest they confuse me (b) lack of representation of contemporary research and more recently discovered sources like papyrii and (c) archaic English language that makes reading and understanding too bloody frustrating!!

Anyways, all of the above is just my 2 cents as a total novice in this area :-)

P.S. I realize that I do need to get a mile-high overview of Biblical Hebrew syntax. What's a good no-nonsense summary resource on the subject? Anything that either of you can recommend? Prefer a few pages I can download and print, not an online course.
Cheers,
Mitch Tulloch
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