Muraoka on Septuagint Lexicography (LXX 5)

For general orientation to this series of posts see here.

Takamitsu Muraoka, ‘Recent Discussions on the Septuagint Lexicography With Special Reference to the So-called Interlinear Model’ in Die Septuaginta - Texte, Kontexte, Lebenswelten: Internationale Fachtagung veranstaltet von Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D), Wuppertal 20.-23. Juli 2006 (ed Martin Karrer & Wolfgang Kraus; WUNT 219; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 221-235.


The Septuagint lexicography debate continues and Muraoka reminds us of the polarities of the discipline: translator-oriented vs reader-oriented approach.

NETS approaches LXX as the translator, not the audience, perceives the text, and the so-called Interlinear Model, advocated by Albert Pietersma, understands that the LXX aims at bringing the reader to the Hebrew, not vice versa.

Muraoka disagrees with Boyd-Taylor's pessimistic approach to LXX lexicography. Boyd-Taylor sees the LXX as a mirror of the Hebrew. He holds that, to treat such a decidedly hybrid linguistic environment as bearing on the study of word-use in the target-language is, to say the least, highly problematic. He thinks that LXX data are nothing more than parole data from which one cannot extract and distill a langue. (p. 228, 230)

Muraoka, however, does not think it is restrictive. For him it is wrong to start with the assumption that LXX Greek, being translational Greek, must necessarily deviate from the "normal" contemporary Greek. (p. 228-229)

A reason for strangeness of LXX Greek is the interference of the source language, some of which may have been tolerated. The average member of the congregation would have adjusted his bearings a little bit to understand the text. Therefore, the reader is not compelled to fall back on the source text to infer what possibly the translator wanted his reader to understand. (p. 235) According to Muraoka, no serious lexicographer can leave out translated works when compiling a lexicon of any language or time. (p. 234)

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