On Conditionals in the Greek Pentateuch: A Study of Translation Syntax. By ANWAR TJEN.

Abstract

This revised version of a doctoral dissertation bridges to some degree the work of the ‘Finnish school’ of Septuagint translation technique and the work of Trevor Evans (Verbal Syntax in the Greek Pentateuch, 2001). However, the sheer variety of ways of expressing conditional constructions in both Hebrew and Greek makes this a particularly challenging enterprise. The present book is by far the most thorough study of conditionals within the translated books of the LXX. It is appropriately limited to the Pentateuch, the part of the LXX likely to have been the first to be rendered into Greek. Thus the LXX Pentateuch reflects the original translators’ efforts to represent a very different syntactical system, and was foundational for the treatment of other LXX books. The author lays out the survey systematically, examining first the very varied nature of Hebrew conditional clauses, including those of doubtful status, those with unmarked conditionals (since not all commence with the particles אם or כי), and others displaying ellipsis of protasis or apodosis. Clauses involving wishes and oaths are also covered by this study. The author compares his own taxonomy of the Hebrew examples (not confined to the Pentateuch) with those of S. R. Driver and C. van Leeuwen. The analysis of examples in Hebrew is useful in its own right. Tjen surveys a wide range of Hebrew markers that would enable the translators to identify conditionals in the source language, and also possible misreadings or textual variants, for example לא ‘read’ as לו and vice versa, and אולי as לולי. Non-standard cases are discussed, and idiomatic expressions such as ‘if I have found favour in your eyes’.