Biblical Greek (Old Testament)

The students can obtain from the iCampus server a bibliography, a text on Greek accenting and other working tools.

Basic knowledge of ancient Greek (at least LTHEO1150 or LFLTR1770), but preferably a more advanced knowledge (LGLOR1271 or LGLOR1371).

Those students whose level is insufficient will be oriented towards LTHEO1240.

Study of the Greek of the Old Testament (Septuagint and other translators).

Alternating with LGLOR2781 (New testament), the course provides an introduction to specific questions of morphology, syntax, and vocabulary which arise from biblical Koine. Special attention is paid to Semitism, translations indices and bilingualism. It attempts to show the nature of "a translation language", and brings out how any translation is an interpretation and examines the question of what view the Septuagint had of the work of translation.

At the the end of this course, the student will be capable of reading with profit the Septuagint in its Greek text, with the aid of the appropriate grammar and dictionaries. He will be able to find in it the specialities of the bible Koine, and to get the best out of printed and computer based work tools (dictionaries both general and specific, concordances grammars and encyclopedias).

The contribution of this Teaching Unit to the development and command of the skills and learning outcomes of the programme(s) can be accessed at the end of this sheet, in the section entitled “Programmes/courses offering this Teaching Unit”.

Continuous assessment , with an oral exam covering the texts seen during the course, and reading of one or several texts from the Septuagint.

The active participation of the students is a prerequisite, and the texts to be studied will be indicated at the start of the course. They should prepare their own translation of these texts.

The course consists of a commented reading (from a linguistic and grammatical point of view) of the texts of the Septuagint, of which certain were written directly in Greek and others were translated from the Hebrew, the texts being chosen to illustrate the different levels of literalness in the translation. The course also includes a systematic revision of Greek grammar. There will be an introduction to the principals of accenting, for those students who have not yet acquired it.   Biblical students should familiarise themselves with the tools of classical philology, the students of philology with the tools of bible studies.

Students are requested to arm themselves with:

- a Greek grammar for example that of Ch. Van de Vorst),
- a Greek dictionary (for example that of A. Bailly),

They should also equip themselves with an edition of the Septuagint (A. Rahlfs, Septuaginta, 2e éd., Stuttgart, Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2006).

Other working tools to which the student will be introduced:
- J. Lust, E. Eynickel, K. Hauspie, Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint. Revised Edition, Stuttgart, Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2003.
- T. Muraoka, A Greek-English lexicon of the Septuagint, Leuven, Peeters, 2009.
- E. Hatch et H. A. Redpath, A Concordance to the Septuagint and the Other Greek Versions of the Old Testament, 2d edition by T. Muraoka, Edinburgh, Clark, 1998.
- F.M. Abel, Grammaire du grec biblique suivie d'un choix de papyrus (Études bibliques), Paris, 1927.
- Henry St. John Thackeray, A Grammar of the Old Testament in Greek according to the Septuagint, Cambridge, 1909; réimpr. Darmstadt, G. Olms, 1978.

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