What’s in a (personal) Name? Morphology and Identity in Jewish Greek Literature in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods
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Robert Crellin
Abstract
It has traditionally been taken to be the case that Hebrew personal names in literary Jewish Greek writers are regularly adapted to the morphology of Greek, and that non-nativization is a mark of low-level Greek. However, this view is only partly true: in fact most personal names are left unadapted also in the literary writers Philo of Alexandria and Ezekiel the Tragedian. Among writers of literary Greek, Flavius Josephus stands out by adapting in most cases. This treatment of personal names is not limited to literary registers: in documentary and epigraphic sources the norm before late antiquity is morphologically to adapt names of this kind. After surveying the various strategies employed for rendering Hebrew names in all these sources, the present study assesses the sociolinguistic reasons for the observed distribution. It is argued that the morphological adaptation of Hebrew names locates their referents in a Hebrew- or Semitic-speaking linguistic world, which has the effect of transporting the hearer/reader into the narrative and cultural world of the Bible. By the same token, Josephus’ decision to adapt personal names locates his characters in Greco-Roman society, an approach that can be understood as part of his broader strategy of transferring the Bible into a Greco-Roman context. Both are suggested to form part of a broader strategy of constructing Jewish identity in the Greco-Roman world, and of advancing particular identities beyond their initial boundaries. This has the secondary effect of creating a community of speakers who consciously choose to deviate from normal Greek inflection in the matter of Biblical Hebrew names, thereby generating a linguistic signature for themselves.
Abstract
It has traditionally been taken to be the case that Hebrew personal names in literary Jewish Greek writers are regularly adapted to the morphology of Greek, and that non-nativization is a mark of low-level Greek. However, this view is only partly true: in fact most personal names are left unadapted also in the literary writers Philo of Alexandria and Ezekiel the Tragedian. Among writers of literary Greek, Flavius Josephus stands out by adapting in most cases. This treatment of personal names is not limited to literary registers: in documentary and epigraphic sources the norm before late antiquity is morphologically to adapt names of this kind. After surveying the various strategies employed for rendering Hebrew names in all these sources, the present study assesses the sociolinguistic reasons for the observed distribution. It is argued that the morphological adaptation of Hebrew names locates their referents in a Hebrew- or Semitic-speaking linguistic world, which has the effect of transporting the hearer/reader into the narrative and cultural world of the Bible. By the same token, Josephus’ decision to adapt personal names locates his characters in Greco-Roman society, an approach that can be understood as part of his broader strategy of transferring the Bible into a Greco-Roman context. Both are suggested to form part of a broader strategy of constructing Jewish identity in the Greco-Roman world, and of advancing particular identities beyond their initial boundaries. This has the secondary effect of creating a community of speakers who consciously choose to deviate from normal Greek inflection in the matter of Biblical Hebrew names, thereby generating a linguistic signature for themselves.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements V
- Contents VII
- Postclassical Greek. An Overview 1
-
Section I: Grammatical Categories
- Purpose and Result Clauses: ἵνα-hína and ὥστε-hōʹste in the Greek Documentary Papyri of the Roman Period 19
- Syntactic Factors in the Greek Genitive- Dative Syncretism: The Contribution of New Testament Greek 39
- Future Periphrases in John Malalas 71
- Combining Linguistics, Paleography and Papyrology: The Use of the Prepositions eis, prós and epí in Greek Papyri 97
- Future Forms inPostclassical Greek. Some Remarks on the Septuagint and the New Testament 111
- Greek Infinitive-Retreat versus Grammaticalization: An Assessment 145
- Postclassical Greek and Treebanks for a Diachronic Analysis 163
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Section II: Sociolinguistic Aspects and Variation
- The Perfect Paradigm in Theodosius’ Κανόνες: Diathetically Indifferent and Diathetically Non-Indifferent Forms 205
- Forms of the Directive Speech Act: Evidence from Early Ptolemaic Papyri 221
- What’s in a (personal) Name? Morphology and Identity in Jewish Greek Literature in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods 245
- Confusion of Mood or Phoneme? The Impact of L1 Phonology on Verb Semantics 283
- Change in Grammatical and Lexical Structures inPostclassical Greek: Local Dialects and Supradialectal Tendencies 303
- Index 337
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements V
- Contents VII
- Postclassical Greek. An Overview 1
-
Section I: Grammatical Categories
- Purpose and Result Clauses: ἵνα-hína and ὥστε-hōʹste in the Greek Documentary Papyri of the Roman Period 19
- Syntactic Factors in the Greek Genitive- Dative Syncretism: The Contribution of New Testament Greek 39
- Future Periphrases in John Malalas 71
- Combining Linguistics, Paleography and Papyrology: The Use of the Prepositions eis, prós and epí in Greek Papyri 97
- Future Forms inPostclassical Greek. Some Remarks on the Septuagint and the New Testament 111
- Greek Infinitive-Retreat versus Grammaticalization: An Assessment 145
- Postclassical Greek and Treebanks for a Diachronic Analysis 163
-
Section II: Sociolinguistic Aspects and Variation
- The Perfect Paradigm in Theodosius’ Κανόνες: Diathetically Indifferent and Diathetically Non-Indifferent Forms 205
- Forms of the Directive Speech Act: Evidence from Early Ptolemaic Papyri 221
- What’s in a (personal) Name? Morphology and Identity in Jewish Greek Literature in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods 245
- Confusion of Mood or Phoneme? The Impact of L1 Phonology on Verb Semantics 283
- Change in Grammatical and Lexical Structures inPostclassical Greek: Local Dialects and Supradialectal Tendencies 303
- Index 337
