A Lexical Study of the Septuagint Version of the Pentateuch

Gehman's hypothesis it was that kind of Greek that was spoken by
Egyptian Jews. In other words, if there was a 'Jewish-Greek',
it was a form of Greek that has been influenced by Hebrew.
But it is generally agreed that the everyday language of
the Egyptian Jews before they adopted Greek was Aramaic, not
Hebrew. Papyri, ostraka, coins, and grave inscriptions all
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witness to this. There are, besides, a number of indications
to this effect in the LXX itself. Certain words appear in forms
that must be derived from Aramaic: e.g. γειώρας from Aramaic
ÎOI>> , not Hebrew ; τιάσχα < κηοο πάταχρα < ίοοηο
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σαββατα < Nroe> . It is especially significant that the words
for the Sabbath and the festival of the Passover, terms which
must have been in constant use among Jews, are Aramaic in form.
Also, the translators occasionally take a word in its Aramaic
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sense instead of its Hebrew sense.
It follows that if the Greek spoken by Egyptian Jews was
affected by the idioms of a Semitic language, that language must
have been Aramaic. Although Hebrew was the language of the or
and was no doubt still understood by some, it had never been the
spoken language of Egyptian Jews generally. It is therefore
unlikely that it could have exerted a significant influence on
their Greek at any stage. 'Jewish-Greek', if it existed, would
17. See e.g. L. Fuchs, Die Juden Ägyptens in ptolemäischer und
römischer Zeit, Wien, 1924, 114ff.; F. Büchsei, ZAW XIX (1944)
133-8; R.A. Bowman, JNES VII (1948) 80f., 86; V. Tcherikover,
Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum I 30; L. Delekat, ντ VIII (1958)
225ff.
18. For a summary of the evidence see Delekat, ib.
19. Thackeray, Gramm. 28, Büchsei, op.cit. 137, Bickerman, op.
cit. 22, L.H. Brockington, ZAW XXV (1954) 84, Bl. DF §141.3; cf.
already Thiersch, De Pentateuchi versione Alexandrina, Erlangae,
1841, 29. But Bl. DF, ib., following Schwyzer, KZ LXII (1935)
10f., take σαββατα as Hb. ma + α 'to make it pronounceable in
Greek': this I find unconvincing.
20. Examples have frequently been noted. See e.g. Brockington,
loc.cit.; J. Ziegler, Beiträge zur Ieremias-Septuaginta {MSU VI),
Göttingen, 1958, 18f.; J. Barr, Comparative Philology and the
Text of the old Testament, Oxford, 1968, 54f., and references
there.