Euripides’s Helena and Pentateuch traditions: The Septuagint from the perspective of Ancient Greek Tragedies

Evangelia G Dafni

doi:10.4102/hts.v71i1.2902

Abstract

In some cases discussed below, the present form of the Septuagint is not representative of how Ancient Greek Tragedies were received by the LXX translators, but of how Old Testament traditions in Greek form were received by the tragedians.

Highlights

In the Ancient Greek tragedy, a great number of linguistic and conceptual elements affecting gender relations in the context of marriage, family and society, remind of the language and thoughts of the Greek Old Testament, the so-called Septuagint
Why precisely has this expression become possible about 600–400 BC under Greek and Hebrew speaking peoples, if an intellectual and linguistic exchange had not taken place, the traces of which we find in the literary legacy of both nations? If the biblical formulations in question have been made very late, it is most likely that the Old Testament Pentateuch redactors knew the works of the Presocratics, Euripides or Plato
Known in the handling of the Jewish scribes with older biblical traditions, characterises Euripides’ approach to the Old Testament, but perspectivation according to the way oral and/or written traditions were delivered to posterity and adapted in the Ancient World

Summary

Introduction

In the Ancient Greek tragedy, a great number of linguistic and conceptual elements affecting gender relations in the context of marriage, family and society, remind of the language and thoughts of the Greek Old Testament, the so-called Septuagint. Is reflected the most important distinction between the Ancient Greek and the Old Testament God-likeness and/or similarity-concept, which plays an important, albeit subtle, role in Euripides’s tragedy to be discussed.

Results

Conclusion