Hello Paul: Thanks for your simple and direct answer; and your nice explanation.
At least one scholar however, opines that septuagint represents a hebrew text different from and precedent to, the masoretic text. Does that opinion change your answer? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Tov#Septuagint On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 5:36 AM, Paul Zellmer <[email protected]> wrote: > Fred, > > The answer is in fact simple. It is "no," the Greek LXX does not define > the meaning of the Masoretic text, any more than the versions of the English > translations define it. The LXX is a translation, which means that there is > an interpretive step, which is necessary to take the concept expressed by > the original vocabulary, grammar, and syntax (the last two parts of which > your questions always seem to overlook) and state it (the concept) using the > target vocabulary, grammar, and syntax. Everyone who tries to understand > any language that is foreign to them goes through this interpretive step. > All that written translations of works do is to standardize the > interpretation for those of the target language. The translation is only as > good as the accuracy of the interpretation and its resulting expression. To > some degree, all interpretations have an element of degradation of the > original message. > > By continually trying to use the LXX to define the Hebrew text, most of us > are actually running into two interpretations. Because most of us are not > native Greek speakers, and definitely not native Koine speakers, we have to > interpret the LXX into English. This adds a new level of degradation of to > an already degraded message. > > Hope this helps, > > Paul Zellmer > _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
