The Translator's Tell: Translation Technique, Verbal Syntax, and the Myth of Old Greek Daniel's Alternate Semitic Vorlage

Abstract:Using the linguistic concepts of idiolect and register, this study develops a new, empirically grounded method for textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible by focusing on verbal syntax and translation technique in Old Greek Daniel, particularly chapters 4–6. The translator of OG Daniel regularly uses distinctive verbal syntax in the plus material. These verbal forms and syntactic constructions are idiosyncratic compared to established translational patterns with a known Aramaic Vorlage, betraying the translator's linguistic idiolect, which is generally of a higher register. These data constitute the translator's tell: a single translator is not translating an alternate literary text but composing and rewriting in Greek.