TRIALS OF THE FOREIGN: AN INVESTIGATION OF OLD GREEK GENESIS 49.1-15

The Septuagint was a landmark literary achievement that was pivotal for the development of Hellenistic Judaism and Christianity, yet this Greek version of the Jewish Scriptures often exhibits a peculiarly literalistic translation approach that replicates the syntax of its Semitic source texts. To gain fresh perspectives on the strategies employed during the Septuagint’s production, researchers have turned to the discipline of Translation Studies. Among influential translation theorists is Antoine Berman, whose seminal essay entitled “Translation and the Trials of the Foreign” outlines twelve deforming tendencies that a text may undergo during its translation. The present thesis undertakes to test the efficacy of Berman’s negative analytic for use in Septuagint research, in conjunction with a detailed philological commentary on Old Greek Genesis 49.1-15. This study demonstrates that, besides elucidating the features and nature of this translated text, Berman’s categories constructively facilitate the description of the translator’s proclivity for foreignization/domestication and translation/commentary.