ana translation

67
SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES.
In the attempt to render back into Greek the proper names which
occur in the foregoing extracts, much difficulty has been found, and
certainty seems unattainable.
The usage of the LXX varies, even in treating one and the same
name : sometimes it is reshaped by the addition of a Greek termination ;
sometimes it is merely transliterated (e.g., for
Hli^D we find MamaarJ,
Mavao-a^s), and in such transliteration no definite rules appear to
have been followed.
The Syro-Hexaplar version in its turn is similarly inconstant in its
method of forming Syriac representatives for the names as exhibited in
the LXX.
Semitic words do not readily lend themselves to be expressed in
Greek letters :
the differences between the Greek alphabet on one hand,
and the Semitic (Hebrew or Syriac) on the other, stand in the way.
The gutturals especially of the Semitic, which occur so often, are the
main hindrance. For heth (at the beginning of a word), the aspirate
sometimes stands in Greek but it
may also stand for lie : or % may be
employed but it more properly represents kaph. Still more difficult
l
is it to deal with the peculiarly Semitic 'am ( It has no
e).
possible
equivalent among Greek consonants, and its presence can only be
denoted by a modification of the vowels of the syllable to which it
belongs ;
but this is done with no uniformity. So the labial van may
pass not only into v or ov, but into av, o>,
or even o.
Conversely, in the counter process of rendering into Syriac the names
as they are found in the Greek, the difficulty recurs. The Syro-Hexaplar
translator, in reproducing in Semitic dress the graecized names, is
similarly hindered, and equally far from uniform. Sometimes he is
content to transliterate, but with little consistency in his choice of
letters ;
sometimes he seeks more or less fully to restore to the names
their original Hebrew shape.