A Lexical Study of the Septuagint Version of the Pentateuch

accidently, as it were, fell into normal Greek in those places.
But there can be no doubt that idiomatic renderings are much too
common to be explained in this way.
My examples have been taken only from the Pentateuch. But
the argument cannot be seriously affected by this limitation. It
is very likely that similar examples are to be found elsewhere
in the LXX. But even if this should not be so, the fact that
there are such examples in the Pentateuch is a serious obstacle
to the hypothesis of a 'Jewish-Greek' dialect. If it is ad­
mitted that the translators of the Pentateuch did not speak such
a dialect it becomes difficult to maintain its existence at all.
It is clear from the arguments we have considered that a
satisfactory case for regarding the LXX as a specimen of 'Jewish-
Greek' has not been made out. To answer the question as put at
the beginning of this chapter: in order to account for the
peculiarities of LXX Greek it is sufficient to refer to the fact
that the work is a translation, and unnecessary to posit the
existence of a living 'Jewish-Greek' dialect.
I would emphasize, however, one final point. That there
were some features peculiar to the Greek of Hellenistic Jews is
not to be denied. Without doubt their Greek included a number
of terms for specifically Jewish ideas and objects. Loan-words
like σάββατα and πάσχα are obvious examples, and others of
various kinds could easily be added. Moreover, it is probable
that the 'translation language' which resulted from translation
of the or into Greek exerted an influence on the spoken language
57
of Jews, particularly in regard to religious terminology. The
special uses of words like διαθήκη and δό^α, and terms like
Ίλαστήριον and κιβωτός are likely to have become current in their
speech. They may also have used certain Semitizing expressions
or idioms found in the LXX. What I would deny is that such fea­
tures were anything like extensive enough to justify regarding
the language of the Jews as a dialect separate from ordinary
Greek.
57. Cf. Rabin, op.cit. lOf.: 'In the receptor language, the
translated text is a piece of literature like any other ... and
its particular usages ... have the average chance of becoming
part of the language' . Cf. Moulton, Proleg . 13 , Deissmann,BS 69f.