Editorial theory and the range of translations for ‘cedars of Lebanon’ in the Septuagint

Abstract

Although the Hebrew source text term אֶרֶז [cedar] is translated in the majority of cases as κέδρος [cedar] or its adjective κέδρινος in the Septuagint, there are cases where the following translations and strategies are used: (1) κυπάρισσος [cypress] or the related adjective κυπαρίσσινος, (2) ξύλον [wood, tree] and (3) non-translation and deletion of the source text item. This article focuses on these range of translations. Using a complexity theoretical approach in the context of editorial theory (the new science of exploring texts in their manuscript contexts), this article seeks to provide explanations for the various translation choices (other than κέδρος and κέδρινος). It further aims to determine which cultural values of the translators have influenced those choices and how they shape the metaphorical and symbolic meaning of plants as determined by Biblical Plant Hermeneutics, which has placed the taxonomy of flora on a strong ethnological and ethnobotanical basis.

The Translation of Hebrew Flora and Fauna Terminology in North Sámi and West Greenlandic fin de siècle Bibles

“…The article fits into the broader study of techniques for dealing with geographically specific biblical terminology, particularly flora and fauna, in translation (see, e.g., Koops 1995, 1998; Du Toit and Naudé 2005; Miller-Naudé and Naudé 2018; Naudé and Miller-Naudé 2018). More specifically in the Arctic context, similar challenges have been noted in the translation of words for biblical flora and fauna such as “camel,” “sheep,” and so on, into twenty-first-century Inuktitut from Arctic Canada (Posner 2012) and in the early translation of biblical fauna into Cree (Careless 2001).…”