ABSTRACT
For our present purpose it is not feasible to treat as evidence the various early translations of the Bible made by Jews for internal Jewish or for controversial use. The tendencies of these can, it is true, be established; but since these responsible for them did not provide them with prefaces, we cannot properly say whether the translators had convinced themselves that they were invariably expressing the primary meaning of their original as closely as they might, or were consciously rendering the words in ac cordance with that sense which, in their opinion, conveyed the ultimate value of the text. In the unique instance of the prologue to the Greek Ecclesiasticus by Ben Sira’s grandson, the latter’s plea for the reader’s indulgence wherever he may seem to fail (ἀδυναμεĩν) in choice of language in any point regarding the interpretation (i.e. translation, ἑϱμηνείαν) into which great pains have been put, 1a is followed up by the remark that things said in Hebrew do not retain their meaning accurately ( ο ὐ γὰϱ ἰσοδοναμεĩ) when translated. It is clear that the grandson did not attempt
a slavish translation; and his grandfather’s wisdom being direct rather than allusive, it is improbable that he was much puzzled by problems of selecting the primary meaning from a number of possible constructions of the original text. But even disregarding this, the existence of recensional problems both Hebrew and Greek makes any attempt to reconstruct the exegetical canons of the younger Ben Sira unprofitable. 2 As regards the words of Neh. v i i i :8 (ending wayyavinu ba-Miqra’), in which rabbinic comment 3 was able to discover a reference to various hermeneutic and exegetical processes, the Greek translator, who had a somewhat different original before him, restricts himself to a bald rendering of the facts; yet
1a. ἐφ’ oῗς ἇv δοxῶμεν τῶν ϰατὰ τὴν ἑϰμηνείαν πεφιλοπονημῳνων τισἰν τῶν λῳξεων ἀδυναμεῖν. Cf. J. H. A. Hart, Ecclesiasticus in Greek, 1909, p. 267; W. O. E. Oesterley and G. H. Box in R. H. Charles, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, I, 1913, p. 316.
