Gurtner, Daniel M.

English

Andrews University

347Book reviewSwhich was the creation of  the Negro Department of  the General Conference in the first decade of  the twentieth century. Readers will find this book immensely helpful. Though it is lengthy (440 pages), it reads quickly and interestingly, a testament to the author’s ability. I highly recommend it and applaud Morgan for a well-researched, well-written, scholarly biography that fills a gap in African American and denominational religious history. Andrews University                                                               clifford JoneSMuraoka, T. A Greek-English Lexicon of  the Septuagint. Leuven: Peeters, 2009. xl + 757 pp. Hardcover, $138.00.This volume is an expanded version of  the lexicon published in 2002 and reviewed previously in AUSS 45 (2007): 277-278. The coverage of  that volume was “Chiefly of  the Pentateuch and the Twelve Prophets” and was itself  an expansion of  a 1993 volume dealing with the Twelve Prophets. Septuagint lexicography has been on Muraoka’s mind at least since his publication on the subject as early as 1984! This volume, then, is the completion of  an expanding project. Like its predecessors, it begins with an Introduction, which outlines the scope of  the project. The lexicon covers the entire LXX including the so-called “apocrypha,” proto-Lucianic 4 Kgdms, Antiochene text of  Judges and that of  codices A and B, the Old Greek and Alpha text of  Esther, the Old Greek and Thedotionic versions of  Daniel, Job, a later recension of  Sirach, both Tobit versions from the Hanhart edition, and the Prayer of  Manasseh (Ode 12). As in his prior versions, Muraoka recounts his approach to lexicography. His concern is with the LXX primarily as a Greek document, to “try to find out what sense a reader in a period roughly 250 B.c.–100 a.d. who was ignorant of  Hebrew or Aramaic might have made of  the translation” (viii), though Muraoka did compare the LXX with those texts in his work. An alternative is to understand the LXX Greek in relation to its Semitic original, as in A Greek-English Lexicon of  the Septuagint as compiled by J. Lust, E. Eynikel, and K. Hauspie (rev. ed. [Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2003]). Muraoka regards the language of  the LXX to be a “genuine representative of  the contemporary Greek . . . of  the Hellenistic and Early Roman periods” that is necessarily “influenced by the grammar and usage of  Aramaic and Hebrew,” which, of  course, varies from one translator to the next (ix). The textual bases are the Göttingen critical editions, where completed, otherwise from Rahlfs’s Handausgabe (1935), with occasional use of  the Cambridge Larger Septuagint. Only on a rare occasion does Muraoka depart from these. As a “fully fledged lexicon” (x), this volume provides morphological, syntagmatic, paradigmatic, and semantic information. What differs from the prior edition seems to be the removal of  his (very helpful!) Semitic background information. The prior edition listed corresponding Hebrew terms for entries, whereas that seems to be removed since it “is not integral to LXX lexicography” (xv). He 348 Seminary StudieS 48 (autumn 2010)remarks in a footnote (xvi, n. 35) that he does hope to provide that information in a separate publication as he has done with the 1998 Baker edition of  the Hatch and Redpath’s Concordance the Septuagint. This is an understandable but unfortunate omission, for which one will need to return to Muraoka’s earlier edition, forthcoming work, or the Lust volume. Muroaka’s outline of  his “working methodology” (x-xi) cites the need for more context than that provided by Hatch and Redpath for accurate lexicographical work. One requires analysis of  semantically related lexemes to establish “the semantic ‘profile’ of  the word concerned.” This necessarily allows the lexicographer to distinguish between it and like words, determine what sort of  adjective a given noun is qualified by, or what sort of  nouns or nominal entities a given verb takes as its grammatical subject or object. This description is followed by some examples and references, along with a helpful articulation of  what Muraoka conceives as true “definitions” rather than simple translation equivalents. The introduction to the lexicon is followed by a list of  abbreviations and key to symbols (xix-xxiii), an extensive bibliography (xxv-xl), and at the very end a list of  lexemes found in Hatch and Redpath, which are primarily variant readings not accounted for in the present work (753-757). The layout (described in full on pp. xi-xvi) provides three parts to each entry in identical form to prior editions. The first section provides the bold-faced headword, along with morphological information and symbols designating the scope of  data considered. The second section is the main body of  any entry, defining senses of  the headwords and describing its usage. A “sense definition” is given with occasional listing of  a translational equivalent(s) enclosed with single quotes is marked off  by a colon from the following description of  the uses of  the headword in the sense so defined (xiii). Muraoka’s third section lists, where appropriate, a word or group of  words semantically associated with the headword. The final section from the prior edition, concerning the relationship between the LXX and its Hebrew original, has been removed from this edition. As with prior editions, the strength of  Muraoka’s lexicon is its preference for a true “definition” rather than simple “translation equivalents.” Indeed, this is an important distinction between it and the other English LXX lexicon, that of  Lust et al. The problem of  prior editions of  the lexicon, which provided a bibliography but no connections to the lexical entries, has been resolved. Lust’s lexicon also provides bibliographic references (where they exist) to articles and portions of  books (especially in L’Bible d’Alexandrie volumes) specifically related to the particular entry under consideration. For this information, one can still consult the new Muraoka volume together with that of  Lust with profit. I find myself  keeping both within reach while working in the LXX. Yet the comprehensive nature (9,548 lexemes!), up-to-date texts and methodologies, and careful attention to semantic domains exclusively within the word’s Greek contexts renders Muraoka’s careful work a reliable guide for LXX research. Bethel Seminary                                                          daniel m. gurtnerSt. Paul, Minnesota

A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint [review] / T. Muraoka

https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3119&amp;context=auss

A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint [review] / T. Muraoka

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