Trevor V. Evans, «Some Alleged Confusions in Translation from Hebrew to Greek», Vol. 83 (2002) 238-248
Two remarkable passages in the Greek translation of Numbers have recently been identified by Anssi Voitila. Both show a clear influence from Hebrew verbal forms on the translator’s choices of Greek verbal forms which overrides the semantic indicators of the broader context. Confused translations result. Are they isolated phenomena or representative of translators’ habits in general? Voitila argues for the latter interpretation. He seeks to demonstrate a number of additional instances in the Greek Pentateuch and sees here support for the theory of segmentation in translation technique, as developed by the Helsinki School. The present paper reassesses his examples and draws the opposite conclusion.
whatever one’s general response to Soisalon-Soininen’s arguments32, I hope to have shown already that the Numbers 9 and 10 passages are isolated instances of confusion in verbal renderings. They thus lend weaker support to the idea of segmentation.
How, then, are these passages to be explained? Given that all the Pentateuchal translators usually chose effectively in rendering Hebrew verbal forms, I suggest that we are dealing with cases of temporary aberration. A possible cause for this lies in the broader context of the two passages. In both places we find repeated switches between narrative and direct speech. These may well have caused the confusions.
Numbers 9 displays a past narrative framework within which are set God’s commands to Moses in vv. 2-3.10-14, and the direct speech exchange between certain Israelites and Moses in vv. 7-8. It seems plausible that the translator has slipped in vv. 18-23 by mistaking the narrative there for further direct instruction, taking the lines to be spoken by God. The thread of the narrative is then recovered in v. 23, though perhaps more by accident than design, since the aorist e)fula/canto translates a Hebrew perfect, as we saw in §I.
The structure of Numbers 10 is roughly similar, with detailed instructions from God to Moses in vv. 2-10, followed by a narrative account of the departure from Sinai, which runs down to v. 28. The last eight verses of the chapter show interchange of narrative and direct speech. Once again, I suggest that the translator, lulled by the consecutive perfects in the Hebrew, has slipped back into the construction of divine instructions in vv. 17-25. In fact the confusion in this second passage is even worse than Voitila has indicated. In the midst of his sequence of futures there we find the aorist e)ch=ran translating the consecutive perfect (snw in v. 18, following e)carou=sin for w(snw in v. 17 and preceding further instances of future indicative for the consecutive perfect of the same verb in vv. 21.22.25.
So I agree with Voitila that in these two places the translator has lost awareness of the general context and has produced confused Greek renderings. The value of his contribution in identifying them needs to be stressed. It enables us to nuance the argument put earlier by Barr, sharpening our understanding of translators’ practices regarding verbal forms in the LXX. On the basis of Voitila’s identifications it would not surprise to discover further instances of such confusion in the work of one or another of the Pentateuchal translators.
On the other hand, it has been argued in the present study that none of Voitila’s other examples can be proved (his strongest case seems to me to relate to the Exod 3,17 and 4,23 instances). Though it is accepted here that they manifest influence on the translators from Hebrew text components — including specific Hebrew verbal forms — the resulting translations need not