La tradizione della traduzione: riflessioni sul lessico del ‘tradurre’ nella Bibbia greca e nel giudaismo-ellenistico

Abstract

This study investigates how the lexis of translation processes occurs in the Greek Bible and the Jewish-Hellenistic literature. The Hebrew Bible mentions a written translation only in Esr 4,7 and hints at the figure of an ‘interpreter’ in Gen 42,23. The Greek Bible, on the contrary, is itself a witness to the translation activity and presents some related passages in the sections written in Greek (Dan LXX 5,1; Ester Add. F,11; 2 Mac 1,36). It also makes a comment about translating the Holy Scripture and the ensuing difficulties (see the Greek Prologus to Sirach). To express the translation activity in Hellenistic Greek, besides the semantic group of ηρμενεύω ‘interpret’, already operative in the classical language, there are some words whose original sense is more generic; these words are mainly used in the passive diathesis. Verbs like μεταγράφω ‘transcribe’, μετάγω ‘transfer’, μεταλλάσσω ‘change’, μεταβάλλω ‘throw into a different position’, μεταλαμβάνω ‘exchange/substitute’, μεταβιβάζω ‘carry over/transfer’, μεταφέρω ‘transfer/change’; μεταφράζω ‘paraphrase’ frequently occur in the Jewish-Hellenistic literature, with some semantic innovations as well. A quick survey of the earliest evidence for the many roots in the Greek literature introduces the in-depth analysis of the texts from the Greek Bible. The analysis of the Letter of Aristeas, the fragments of Aristobulus and Artapanus, the Old Testament apokrypha, Philo of Alexandria, NT and Flavius Josephus will follow. The passages containing relevant expressions related to ‘translation’ have been selected from these works in order to grasp the different semantic nuances of various lexemes, specially when more roots occur in the same context. The analysis of this kind of vocabulary also mirrors the different attitudes towards the Septuagint text and its relations with the Hebrew: it also bears witness to different moments in the history of the Septuagint text because the excerpts often deal with the undertaking of the Septuagint version (Letter of Aristeas, De vita Mosis II, 25-44; Antiquitates Iudaicae XII, 11-114). Tradition in translation results from issues inside the plurilingual Judaism converging on the cultural milieu of Ptolemaic Egypt.