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Re: orion Re: translation central

I have a few questions about Jim West's theories:
	1. Is this Greek bible that you're proposing supposed to have been a
"creatio ex nihilo," a free creation of the imagination, or is this
document the Greek rendering of a long and well-developed oral
tradition?

	2. As one of his theories Jim West states:
>the OT was originally composed in Greek during the Hasmonean period by Hellenized folk seeking to legitimize their claim to the land (land propoganda in the most positive sense of the term)>.
	Now why would Jews living in a Hasmonean state which was at least
nominally Jewish and which had a Jewish dynasty, corrupt as it may have
been, need to legitimize their claim to the land? They lived there; they
weren't recent immigrants. Please refresh my memory but I don't recall
any issue with the Seleucids concerning a Jewish claim to the land.

	3. In support of one theory, Jim West wrote <snip>
> Are we to assume that every wooden document written in a stilted, horrid, not very grammatical style is a translation?  If so, many third graders must be
> translating documents written in greek!>

	A third graders' writing may stilted and horrid but it is still third
grade writing and differs from the stilted and horrid writing of
literate adults.  
	However, I am not clear about one thing:  Do you consider the Hebrew
bible to be a (snip) > wooden document written in a stilted, horrid, not
very grammatical style >?  If your response is negative then we have an
interesting example of a translation that is more literary than the
original.  If your response is positive, then we have a situation where
the writers of the Greek text are awkward in using their own language
(and if Greek is not their "home" language why would they want to write
their stories in Greek). 

	BTW are there "Greekisms" in the Hebrew bible?

	These types of theories do force us to consider our evidence and
assumptions.

i. riegner
 

	 




> Are we to
> assume that every wooden document written in a stilted, horrid, not very
> grammatical style is a translation?  If so, many third graders must be
> translating documents written in greek!