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LXX

the indictment just now seen on this list makes the mistake of treating several
specifics as generics.

the one related to content's quite simple. i asserted part of it was
translation, and that could have been 90%, for all the indicter knew.

one of the translators of the ogr (versions, not a single consistent lxx
version) throws in a cuv = syn to represent every hebrew 'eth that marks a
direct object in his document. what linguistic pool would speak or write greek
that way? i repeat that i'd hate to think that any linguistic pool tried to
communicate in such greek.

the other inductive leap consists of a personal attack that favorably
generalizes the entire ogr corpus and unfavorably generalizes all my
compositions. of course, i would be first to admit that for the purposes of
scholarship i would manifold times prefer that the ogr survive than that
anything i write might survive. still, mine does communicate in phraseology
that would not leave persons guessing who are moderately well read in
hellenistic materials.

almost all valuable lessons needed to interpret the documents that serve as
grist for this mill will have been better learned from shrewd use of certain
ancient texts than from the secondary surveys of syntax and lexica on which the
hellenistic industry here seems so heavily to lean, ee.g. for the potentially
intended time or aspect of verbs a useful exercise will have been to examine
very carefully the formal difference in tenses that occur in the synoptics for
reporting the same event, and there's hardly a grammatical category that's not
more thoroughly covered by watching carefully ancient translating from greek
into latin or latin into greek. i got into this back in the 50's as a grad
student  under pharr at texas when i was trying to figure out the hapaxes in
justinian's novellae and made detailed comparisons of the greek versions of
imperial edicts with the latin authenticum.

the impression zeller's post leaves of me seems terribly unfair. i could
explode all kinds of garbage that seems to be taken for granted in  hellenistic
circles these days. i hate most of the obfuscation wasted on childsplay
produced by this and that kind of linguist, but that does not mean that i do
not have a deep respect for the linguistic baptisms done by the department of
defense, &c. who was it that put on the levels post recently? philip? macte! (a
plautine bravo)

when i started trying to help students learn greek in the 40's the nt people
were beginning to circulate syntactical statements about participles of means,
&c. but that was really old hat already to all the philologists of pharr's
stature, who had long since been pointing out the frequent translation of such
greek participles into latin ablative gerunds of means. some of the summaries
folks on this list use are fine teaching devices, but the methods of learning
that i have suggested would offer a much more comprehensive grasp of your
subject matter.

until the nt industry really digs into the other abundant sources of
information, e.g. comparing the greek text of josephus with the ancient latin
versions or comparing origen's original with rufinus, your people will in the
eyes of some not seem very expert.


shalom,
bearded bill of asheville <bthurman@unca.edu>
unca not having approved either whom or thereof.

p.s. it's easier to talk about talk about talk than to do what i suggest.