A comparative discourse analysis of the Masoretic and Septuagint versions of Jonah

The Hebrew book of Jonah has gained the attention of Old Testament scholars throughout its interpretive history. Many recent studies have even applied the principles of Discourse Analysis to aid in the book's interpretation. Such studies include Longacre and Hwang's "A Textlinguistic Approach to the Biblical Hebrew Narrative of Jonah,"1 Kevin Youngblood's commentary Jonah: God's Scandalous Mercy,2 and Ernst Wendland's "Textual Analysis and the Genre of Jonah."3 However, there are no current studies that interact with the Septuagint version of Jonah at the discourse level.;Many studies that engage with Septuagint Jonah do so at the level of textual criticism, using the Greek version as a means of establishing the original text. Larry Perkins,4 John Beck,5 and La Bible d'Alexandria: Les Douze Prophetes,6 however, engage with Septuagint Jonah beyond the text critical level. Perkins and Beck's study is.;limited in scope and La Bible d'Alexandria focuses on how the text was read by later Jewish and Christian interpreters instead of how the principles of Discourse Analysis shed light on the meaning of the Septuagint text.;This study seeks to fill this gap in the research of Septuagint Jonah. Analysis of Septuagint Jonah begins by establishing the genetic relationship between the Masoretic and Septuagint versions of the book. If one cannot establish the relationship between the two texts, any comparison between them and the differences that are discovered cannot be explained by the translator's technique or his interpretive decisions but to a different Vorlage.;Having established the relationship between these texts, the study utilizes the principles of Descriptive Translation Studies. Since the Masoretic Text functioned as the parent text of the Septuagint version of Jonah, understanding it is essential for making observations about how the translator has allowed the parent language to interfere with the target language, where the target language takes priority over the structure or idiosyncrasies of the parent language, and how the resulting translation accords with the literary expectations of the target language.;Finally, the principles of Discourse Analysis are applied to both the Hebrew and the Greek texts of Jonah. Using Discourse Analysis allows the interpreter to perceive the structure and the meaning of each version. This also facilitates the interpreter's comparison of the two texts, observing where the translator has strengthened, weakened, or shifted the meaning of his parent text.;The thesis of this study is that changes---regardless of how intentional the translator is in representing his parent text---inevitably happen within translation. Even when a translator does not intend to alter the meaning of the parent text, shifts do in fact occur. This comparative study of the discourse of the Masoretic and Septuagint texts of Jonah observes and charts the various changes that take place within the Septuagint as well as the lasting effects those changes have on the overall meaning of the text.;In order to make this thesis as accessible as possible, I have provided translations for all Greek, Hebrew, Latin, German, and French quotations. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations provided within this study are my own. I have also laid out the Masoretic and Septuagint texts, with their respective translations, within tables for ease of comparison. The Appendices in this work both functioned as the basis of many of the observations throughout the study as well as provide readers with tools for future analysis that goes beyond the scope of this study.;1 Robert Longacre and Shin Jo J. Hwang, "A Textlinguistic Approach to the Biblical Hebrew Narrative of Jonah" in Biblical Hebrew and Discourse Linguistics, ed. Robert D. Bergen (Dallas: SIL International, 1994): 336-358. 2 Kevin J. Youngblood, Jonah: God's Scandalous Mercy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014). 3 Ernst R. Wendland, "Text Analysis and the Genre of Jonah (Part 1)," JETS 39:2 (June 1996): 191-206; "Text Analysis and the Genre of Jonah (Part 2)," JETS 39:3 (September 1996): 373-395. 4 Larry Perkins, "The Septuagint of Jonah: Aspects of Literary Analysis Applied to Biblical Translation" BIOSCS 20 (Fall: 1987): 43-53. 5 John A. Beck, Translators as Storytellers: A Study in Septuagint Translation Technique, Studies in Biblical Literature 25 (New York: Peter Lang, 2000). 6 Marguerite Harl, Cecile Dogniez, Laurence Brottier, et al., La Bible D 'Alexandrie: Les Douze Prophetes: Joel, Abdiou, Jonas, Naoum, Ambakoum, Sophonie, (Paris: Les Editions Du Cerf, 1999).