A Lexical Study of the Septuagint Version of the Pentateuch

To distinguish new words and uses from old is not essential.
After all, the distinction would have been felt in few cases by
the ordinary speakers of the language. But it is a useful
practical one for us. It is the neologisms of the Hellenistic
period that are often most in need of analysis and illustration,
whether one's main interest is the LXX vocabulary alone or the
wider subject of the development of the Greek language as a
whole.
The type of attestation outside Biblical and related liter­
ature of words and uses in this category varies greatly from one
instance to another. As would be expected, in many cases we do
not have the extensive evidence from the contemporary vernacular
that is desirable.
Frequently the only parallels recorded are separated from
the time of the Pentateuch by some centuries. Thus e.g. Ιχνος in
the sense of 'route' has so far been recorded elsewhere only in
a papyrus of ii A.D.; the formation άγαθοττοι. έω, apart from
Aristeas, only in S.E. (ii A.D.), Plot, (iii A.D.), and other
late writers; βηρύλλιον only in D.S. (i B.C.); όλεθρεύω only in
Vett. Val. (ii A.D.).
Other words appear once or twice in literature about the
time of the Pentateuch or a little earlier and then not again
until much later: e.g. γελοιάζω, Aristarch. (iii/ii B.C.), then
Plu. (i/ii A.D.) and later writers; βρούχος, Thphr. (iv/iii B.
C.), Herod, (iii B.C.), then writers of iv A.D. and later;
έκτρωμα, Arist. (iv B.C.), then Phryn. (ii A.D.) (also Ph. and NT) .
Some words are at present attested only once in a rather
out-of-the-way text of uncertain date: e.g. κερατίζω once in
Schol. Theocr. (LSJ Suppl.), καταπενθέω once in the Greek
Anthology U P 7.618).
Moreover, as these examples illustrate, documentary evi­
dence is often lacking. This makes it difficult to judge the
currency of the word or use in the vernacular language,
γελοι,άζω, for example, is possibly a literary rather than
vernacular word, if we are to judge by the examples so far known.
When, on the other hand, documentary evidence is available it is
often of later date than the Pentateuch. This is so for example
with Ιχνος noted above, and κτηνοτρόφος, subst., recorded in