ἀλλόφυλος and Psalm 151
PSALM 151 |
||
LXX |
NETS |
NRSV |
1 οὗτος ὁ ψαλμὸς ἰδιόγραφος εἰς Δαυιδ μικρὸς ἤμην ἐν τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς μου 2 αἱ χεῖρές μου ἐποίησαν ὄργανον 3 καὶ τίς ἀναγγελεῖ τῷ κυρίῳ μου 4 αὐτὸς ἐξαπέστειλεν τὸν ἄγγελον αὐτοῦ 5 οἱ ἀδελφοί μου καλοὶ καὶ μεγάλοι 6 ἐξῆλθον εἰς συνάντησιν τῷ ἀλλοφύλῳ 7 ἐγὼ δὲ σπασάμενος τὴν παρ᾿ αὐτοῦ μάχαιραν |
1 This Psalm is autographical. I was small among my brothers 2 My hands made an instrument; 3 And who will report to my lord? 4 It was he who sent his messengerd 5 My brothers were handsome and tall, 6 I went out to meet the allophyle, 7 But I, having drawn the dagger from him, |
1 I was small among my brothers, and the youngest in my father’s house; I tended my father’s sheep. 2 My hands made a harp; 3 And who will tell my Lord? 4 It was he who sent his messenger 5 My brothers were handsome and tall, 6 I went out to meet the Philistine, 7 But I drew his own sword; |
Our Bible study at church last Sunday came from 2 Samuel 5-7. The curriculum we use drew upon a theme, “When Assessing One’s Work.” With that theme in mind, and because the chief figure in 2 Samuel is David, I thought that I might introduce my Bible study class to Psalm 151. As I suspected almost everyone in my class was unfamiliar with this Psalm as it is not accepted by Jews, Protestants or Catholics, but is considered canon by the Orthodox Church. Traces of this Psalm, found in the Septuagint, have been discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls, so its origin is probably Hebrew after all.
Unfortunately, my bright idea to use Psalm 151 was practically an afterthought to my preparation of the lesson from 2 Samuel. In fact, as I was walking out the door, I grabbed by copy of the New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS) and added it to the stack of volumes I was already carrying. I had not looked at Psalm 151 recently, but was merely drawing off my memory of its theme and content.
At our church we have our worship service before our time of Bible study. After getting a bit settled, I opened up my copy of the NETS that I had grabbed as I was leaving the house to take a look at its rendering of Psalm 151. The NETS, released only last year, is the most current English translation of the LXX. Everything seemed fine until I got to v. 6:
I went out to meet the allophyle, and he cursed me by his idols.
Allophyle? What’s an allophyle? I had not read Psalm 151 in a while, but I knew I didn’t remember seeing this particular word in other translations. Now, if you look above at my chart containing the Greek text, you’re better off than I was Sunday morning. I didn’t have a copy of the Greek text with me. And I couldn’t figure out what an allophyle was immediately from the context.
I pulled my iPhone from my pocket, and tried looking up the word in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary app. No dice. The word allophyle was not to be found. I nudged Kathy and pointed to the word, asking if she knew what it meant. She asked for the reference, and I told her “Psalm 151:6.” She picked up her Bible, but then rolled her eyes, put her Bible back down and ignored me, realizing that Psalm 151 was not going to be in her copy of the New Living Translation.
I tried to figure out meaning based on the derivation of the word. I assumed it was created from two Greek words, and correctly guessed that allo- came from ἄλλος/allos, meaning “other” or “another.” But I went in the wrong direction with -phyle. I incorrectly guessed that perhaps somehow it came from φίλος/philos, meaning “beloved” or “dear.” We get words like bibliophile (lover of books) from this word.
But this made no sense. David went out to meet his other lover? And then cut off his head? Well, I knew from both memory and context that the individual in question was Goliath, so I knew something was off from my guess. I ran a search on my iPhone for Psalm 151 on the internet and found the NRSV translation of “Philistine.” That didn’t explain my immediate question, but it did give me another way to read the verse during our Bible study.
Once I was home and able to look up the passage in the Greek of the LXX, I realized that in using allophyle, the NETS essentially transliterates ἀλλόφυλος/allophulos, a word often translated Philistine or foreigner based on the context. I freely admit that I was not familiar with the word as it only occurs once in the New Testament:
“And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner (ἀλλόφυλος/allophulos) or to visit him; and yet God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean.” (Acts 10:28, NASB)
How does one get foreigner, Philistine or even Gentile (as some translations render it) from the word? Well, as I said, I was wrong about my guess regarding -phyle. It didn’t mean “beloved” but rather came from the Greek word φυλή/phule (from which we get words like phylum), meaning “race” or “tribe.” So ἀλλόφυλος/allophulos literally means “other race” and thus foreigner.
On p. 246 of the NETS, there is passing reference to peculiar habit of the Old Greek to translate “פלשתים ‘Philistine’ as (ὁ/οἱ) ἀλλόφυλος/-οι ‘allophyle(s),’ first seen in the book of Judges (3.3, 31; for a total of 20x), rather than the transliteration φυλιστιμ (‘Phylistim’ ) found already in Genesis (8x), Exodus (2x), Iesous (Joshua) (1x), Judges (6x) and Sirach (3x).” However, there’s no explanation why the NETS chooses to transliterate the word in question as allophyle. My only guess is that this is done to designate when the the LXX is doing the same, although the word occurs many other times in contexts simply meaning “foreigner” and the NETS does not transliterate it in these instances.
So now there’s only one other question. How common is the English word allophyle? As mentioned earlier, it wasn’t in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, and even now as I write it on my computer, a red line underscores it. I wondered if perhaps allophyle is used in biblical or historical studies so I ran a search for it in literally thousands of reference books and journals in Accordance. The only hits I received for the word came from the NETS. Even running a Google search, if limited to English hits, results in only 95 websites, and most of these are questionable regarding any solution to my curiosity.
So, help me out. Have you come across the word allophyle anywhere in English besides the NETS? If you have, please list the source in the comments.
Quote for the Day #10: Peaceful Living
There are three sights which warm my heart
and are beautiful in the eyes of the Lord and of men:
concord among brothers,
amity among neighbours,
and a man and wife who are inseparable.
(Ecclesiasticus 25:1, REB)
[ἐν τρισὶν ὡραΐσθην καὶ ἀνέστην ὡραία ἔναντι κυρίου καὶ ἀνθρώπων ὁμόνοια ἀδελφῶν καὶ φιλία τῶν πλησίον καὶ γυνὴ καὶ ἀνὴρ ἑαυτοῖς συμπεριφερόμενοι]
Bugs or Boats? Isaiah 18:1 in the NLT & the LXX
A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog entry entitled "Romans 14:4 in the NLT." It was in response to a seemingly odd translational choice in the New Living Translation (NLT) discovered by my wife while studying her Sunday School lesson. Upon further examination, I discovered it wasn't as odd as first thought; it was just an example of the dynamic equivalent method of the NLT translators.
Well, it happened again last night. Kathy had her copy of the NLT next to her Sunday School book which includes both the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) text as well as the King James Version (KJV). Again, she made the statement, "Well my Bible reads completely different in this passage."
The passage in question is Isaiah 18:1. Note the original Hebrew below and a selection of a few recent translations:
BHS |
HCSB |
ESV |
TNIV |
| ה֥וֹי אֶ֖רֶץ צִלְצַ֣ל כְּנָפָ֑יִם אֲשֶׁ֥ר מֵעֵ֖בֶר לְנַֽהֲרֵי־כֽוּשׁ׃ |
Ah! The land of buzzing insect wings beyond the rivers of Cush |
Ah, land of whirring wings that is beyond the rivers of Cush | Woe to the land of whirring wings along the rivers of Cush |
Geoffrey Grogan notes in the Expositor's Bible Commentary that "The phrase 'the land of whirring wings' (v. 1) is highly evocative for any hearer or reader who has been in the Nile valley, with its swarms of insects." And most, in fact, are agreed that the reference to whirring wings is a reference to bugs. Note that the translators of the HCSB, under their guidelines of "optimal equivalence" felt free to even add the word "insect" to the verse for the sake of clarity.
But there are no bugs in the NLT's rendition of this verse. The NLT (2nd ed.) reads, "Listen, Ethiopia--land of fluttering sails that lies at the headwaters of the Nile... ." The fluttering sails here are undoubtedly referring to the sails of boats as evidenced in 18:2, "that sends ambassadors in swift boats down the river."
Why the boats instead of bugs? Good question. At the very least, the NLT is being consistent in it's roots to the original Living Bible. Compare all three editions together:
The Living Bible (1971) |
New Living Translation (1st ed./1996) |
New Living Translation (2nd ed./2004) |
| Ah land beyond the upper reaches of the Nile, where winged sailboats glide along the river! |
Destruction is certain for the land of Ethiopia, which lies at the headwaters of the Nile. Its winged sailboats glide along the river. | Listen Ethiopia--land of fluttering sails that lies at the headwaters of the Nile, |
Of course, the Living Bible traced its roots to the 1901 American Standard Version (ASV) of which it was a paraphrase. But contrary to the Living Bible/New Living tradition, even the ASV seems to imply bugs (or birds?):
"Ah, the land of the rustling of wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia."
So where do the boats come from? Well, upon further investigation, I found that the boats tradition goes back to the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures from the second century BC. Below is the LXX along with my translation:
LXX |
Translation |
| οὐαὶ γῆς πλοίων πτέρυγες ἐπέκεινα ποταμῶν Αἰθιοπίας |
Woe to the wings of the land of boats beyond the rivers of Ethiopia. |
Undoubtedly, the Living/New Living tradition is based on the LXX and not on the Hebrew text. But the real question is "Why?" Unfortunately I don't know. Perhaps someone does and can offer an explanation in the comments. I might only speculate that perhaps Kenneth Taylor, when working on the original Living Bible consulted a commentary that drew a connection between the buzzing of insect wings and the flapping of sails. Or perhaps he read a source that made a case for the wording of the LXX. Undeniably, there's a connection being made between the insects of v. 1 and the boats of v. 2. That was enough for the translators of the LXX evidently.
Personally, I'd want to stick with the Hebrew tradition.
If you have a definitive answer as to how the LXX tradition found its way into the Living Bible/New Living Translation, please share it in the comments.