Psalms to the Reader

24-Ps-NETS-4.qxd 11/10/2009 10:34 PM Page 542 PSALMS TO THE READER EDITION OF THE GREEK TEXT The NETS translation of the book of Psalms has been based primarily on the edition of Alfred Rahlfs, Psalmi cum Odis (Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum Auctoritate Academiae Litterarum Gottingensis ed- itum X [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1967 (1931)]). Although Rahlfs is not a full-fledged criti- cal edition of the Greek Psalter, it is the best available and as such an appropriate text with which to begin. The present NETS translation has been revised from its first appearance in a separately published fascicle.1 At not a few places, Rahlfs enclosed within square brackets items of text, which, although they could not in his judgment justifiably be regarded as original, nevertheless have widespread support in the textual traditions. Since in all of these cases I agree with Rahlfs’ conclusion, I have taken the next step and have excluded these items from NETS without comment. Further improvements to Rahlfs’ edition have been made in the light of additional textual information (chiefly II–V CE; especially the famous P. Bodmer XXIV [Rahlfs 2110]) and more recent study. All these, however, have been included in the footnotes to NETS. Nevertheless, there remains good reason to em- phasize that a liturgical text such as the Psalter, with its long and intensive transmission history, can hard- ly be expected to have been fully restored as yet to its pristine purity. I have therefore followed Rahlfs’ lead and, in addition to changing his text, have placed within square brackets items whose originality I consider to be suspect. These may be eliminated altogether by a future editor more courageous than I or armed with additional evidence. TRANSLATION PROFILE OF THE GREEK General Character There can be no doubt that the NETS paradigm of the Greek as an interlinear translation of the He- brew is applicable to the book of Psalms. That is to say, the linguistic relationship of the Greek text to the Hebrew text is one of dependence and subservience. Yet within that model it has its own profile. Its translation is literal, if literalness is understood to refer to a high degree of consistency in one-to-one equiva- lence, including not only so-called content words but structural words as well. Thus literalness might be labeled its central characteristic. Literalness may, however, be nuanced in several ways. The number of many-to-one Hebrew-Greek equations is relatively high. That is to say, the translator often selected a single Greek word (or root) for several Hebrew counterparts. This feature, semantic leveling, is fully compatible with the interlinear paradigm and for that reason should not be attributed to the translator’s lack of literary imagination. In- cluded here are words and concepts that seem to have been his default stock-in-trade. Thus, for example, a0ntilh/mptwr (“supporter”) and bohqo/j (“helper”) translate seven Hebrew words each, and their cognates further underscore the translator’s predilection for them. Obviously, these readily came to mind when the translator looked for suitable equivalents to the Hebrew. Similarly, Greek words that convey re- latedness to the “law” (no/moj) such as “lawlessness” (a0nomi/a), “lawless” (a1nomoj), “to act in a lawless manner” (a0nome/w), “to transgress the law” (paranome/w), “transgressor of the law” (para/nomoj)—are prominent. Or again a concept like “injustice” (a0diki/a + cognates) receives an emphasis in the Greek dis- proportionate to the Hebrew. As a result, the reader of NETS will read more about God’s “supporting” and “helping” of humans, and similarly more about the law as a yardstick for “good,” “evil” and “injustice,” than will the reader of NRSV. Not surprisingly perhaps the number of one-to-many Hebrew-Greek equations is relatively low. In such cases a single Hebrew word or root is translated by at least two or more Greek words. Some exam- 1 Albert Pietersma, ed., A New English Translation of the Septuagint: The Psalms (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). 24-Ps-NETS-4.qxd 11/10/2009 10:34 PM Page 543 to the reader of psalms 543 ples of such differentiation are “good” (bw+) rendered by “good” (a0gaqo/j) and “kind” (xrhsto/j), and “servant/slave” (db() translated most often by “slave” (dou=loj) but on a few occasions by “child/servant/slave” (pai=j). As might be expected, such differentiation of meaning happens with greater frequen- cy on the verbal (more abstract) side of the language than on the nominal (more concrete) side. Hebrew “to turn” (bw#), for instance, is rendered by twelve different Greek verbs. Nonetheless, though a measure of differentiation occurs, it is typically rather restricted. Thus, in the example just cited, e0pi- and a0po- stre/fw account for nearly two-thirds of all instances. Again, this phenomenon of limited and restricted differentiation or an overemphasis on word-centered meaning may be said to be at home in an interlinear linguistic environment. The above does not preclude that leveling, and especially differentiation, cannot at times serve purely stylistic purposes, but given the general nature of the Greek translation of Psalms, leveling and differentiation are usually the better explanation. An interesting example, which could be differentiation for purely stylistic reasons, is the equation of Hebrew “to answer” (hn() with Greek “to listen to” (e0pakou/w or ei0sakou/w), when God is the subject. Though it is not difficult to discern something of a semantic shift from Hebrew to Greek, it is not certain that one should make a distinction in meaning between the two Greek words. Interestingly, ei0sakou/w also translates Hebrew “to hear” ((m#), though e0pakou/w does not. Thus, in part at least, here too a difference in the Greek echoes a difference in the Hebrew, and to that extent it is still expressive of literalness. For NETS I have opted for the synonyms “to listen” (ei0sakou/w) and “to hearken” (e0pakou/w) re- spectively. Other aspects of literalness—or better isomorphism—at both the lexical and grammatical levels add further flavor to the Greek of Psalms. As noted, expressive of the interlinear model, our translator had a strong tendency to overemphasize the importance of individual words and formal details of the Hebrew, at the expense of communicating its coherent meaning. For example, in a number of passages he mechanically transferred the Hebrew gender of a pronominal, thereby presenting an exegetical challenge to anyone reading the text independent of the Hebrew: 26.3–4; 73.18; 80.6; 108.27; 117.23; 118.50, 56; 131.6. (I have flagged such instances in the notes.) Indeed, the Greek translator’s starting point was at times almost directly opposite to that advocated by modern semanticists. Not infrequently, he began with the individual word and its supposed core meaning rather than with meaning as it is conveyed by the in- terrelationship of words in syntactic units. Differently put, one could say that he tends to maximize the individual word and to minimize the context in which it stands, rather than vice-versa. Though at times the translator might be charged with throwing at his reader the Hebrew text in Greek guise, to call him a hack would be unfair. Instead, as has been suggested, his translating is heavily cir- cumscribed by linguistic interlinearity, which informs his task. Indeed, from that perspective it clearly makes little sense to charge him with inadequate knowledge of Greek and lack of stylistic sensitivity. Even in the superscripts where no context comes to his assistance, he at times introduces an interpretive spin. One may note, for example, that although lyk#m (a type of song) is rather mechanically glossed by “understanding” (su/nesij), usually the latter is interpretively put into the genitive case (31.1; 51.1; 52.1; 53.1; 54.1; 73.1; 77.1; 87.1; 88.1), with the result that the entire psalm in question might now be read as hav- ing to do with “understanding.” Yet, other such interpretive spins in the titles seem less transparent. When, for example, an individual composition is labeled both a psalm and song (in line with the parent text), he usually makes one an attributive of the other. So in Ps 29.1; 47.1; 66.1; 67.1; 74.1; 86.1; 91.1 we have “a psalm of a song” (yalmo\j w|)dh=j) and in 65.1; 82.1; 87.1; 107.1 “a song of a psalm” (w)|dh\ yal- mou=). Since yalmo/j refers in the first instance to instrumental music and w)|dh/ to vocal music, it is not im- possible, as has been suggested ad loc., that he had in mind the relative predominance of these two aspects. But what of “praise-song of a song”(?) (ai]noj w|)dh=j) in 90.1; 92.1; 94.1, since both terms seem to have a vocal reference? Thus, it is clear that the translator often puts the form of the text above its meaning. Admittedly, he is kinder to his readers in the acrostic Ps 118, when he not only gives the names of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, which mark the beginning of each alphabetic strophe, but also sup- plies a standard Greek numerical equivalent. Understandably, it is especially idiomatic and figurative language that tends to suffer severely at the hands of a heavily word-based, interlinear mode of translation. When in 34(35).3 “to empty out the spear” (tynx qrh) is translated by “to pour out the sword”—and a big sword at that!—(e1kxeon r9omfai/an) we have decidedly unidiomatic Greek.

Load more