Hebrew sounds in Greek script: Transcriptions and related phenomena in the Septuagint, with special focus on Genesis

Transcriptions of Hebrew words into Greek have long interested students of the Hebrew language. Because the Hebrew writing system was primarily consonantal until Islamic times, Greek transcriptions provide a valuable window into an early pronunciation of Hebrew. The oldest substantial source of Hebrew words in Greek script is the translation of the Bible commonly known as the Septuagint (LXX), and particularly its first five books (the Septuagint proper or Greek Pentateuch), which were translated in Alexandria, Egypt in the first half of the third century B.C. LXX transcriptions, in spite of their importance, have not received the attention they deserve because of the many complex issues that surround their interpretation. These include the presence of target-language linguistic features in the transcriptions, heterogeneity of translators and chronological strata within the Septuagint, the effects of translation technique upon the transcriptions, questions of LXX textual criticism, and the fact that the Septuagint\u27s Hebrew Vorlage is not extant. Chapter 2 discusses these and other methodological issues. Chapter 3 focuses primarily upon one translation unit, the Book of Genesis, and attempts to identify the factors that shape the transcriptions. It distinguishes broadly between those factors that imply a variant to the received Masoretic tradition and those that do not. The final chapter highlights findings that have relevance for Septuagintal studies and the development of the Hebrew and Greek languages. The study is based upon the recently completed Pentateuchal volumes of the Gottingen Septuaginta-Unternehmen. Appendices include a listing of transcriptions, loan words, and instances of homeophony in the Pentateuch; a listing of Hebrew-Greek formal graphemic correspondences in the transcriptions of Genesis; and a numerical summary of graphemic correspondences in Pentateuchal transcriptions