A Hearing God: ἐπακούω Reinvented in the LXX
(2024) SBL Annual Meeting — Location: San Diego, California (22.November.2024)
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- The translation of anthropomorphisms has been recently revisited in the context of the so-called “Septuagint-theology”. Ongoing discussion suggests that the question of LXX’s stance towards anthropomorphisms entails further questions regarding the language, cultural identity and ideology of the translator. Yet, a priori prescriptive ideas often transpire research about LXX’s presumed anti-anthropomorphism. In this optics, every deviance is considered exegesis, every anthropomorphism translated non-literally an anti-anthropomorphism. Being closely associated to the body, the divine senses offer an outlook on how God interacts and perceives in a bodily, say, anthropomorphic manner. I address God’s hearing in LXX-Pentateuch. One detail stands out in the translation of God’s senses in LXX-Pentateuch: many of the verbs are prefixed (ἐφοράω, ἐπακούω, ἔπειμι). I focus on ἐπακούω and show, firstly, how the translators draw on Classical Greek imagery, where the verb is used of deities attending to prayers directed at them, transpiring in its use in 3rd century BCE papyri with prayer formularies or the technical term ἐπήκοος used in inscriptions of the wider Mediterranean area. Secondly, I wish to show how the LXX-translators reinvent this highly technical term, by insisting on the prefix ἐπ-. Rhodes (2022) remarked: “prepositions reflect the way we profile our perceptions” – can the prefix of this sensory verb reveal how the translators perceived God’s anthropomorphic, sensory hearing? Should the prefixed ἐπί be understood as “malefactive/destructive” (Luraghi, 2003; Horn, 2016)? Does it imply a specific spatial orientation of God (Somolinos, 2013)? This paper has three scopes: (1) To interact with recent scholarship on LXX-theology, focusing on God’s senses as an instance of anthropomorphisms; (2) To situate the use of ἐπακούω in LXX-Pentateuch within the broader history of Greek; (3) To contribute to the recent exploration of the role of prefixes/prepositions in Koinè Greek (Ross & Rudge, 2022), examining how the prefixed sensory verb ἐπακούω might express certain perceptions of the translator(s).
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De Doncker, E. (2024). A Hearing God: ἐπακούω Reinvented in the LXX. SBL Annual Meeting, San Diego, California. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/235540