From the history of Slavic Bible: Slavic-Hebrew language contacts in medieval Russia (based on Nomina sacra).


2014. №5, 24-55

Boris A. Uspenskij
National Research University «Higher School of Economics», Moscow, 101000, Russia; borisusp@gmail.com

Abstract:

The Slavonic Bible was translated from Greek revealing textual correlations to the Septuagint. However in the majority of East Slavic manuscripts one can also observe indubitable Hebrew infl uences: there are numerous Hebraisms missing in the Septuagint while manifesting direct Slavic- Jewish contacts; they are introduced to correct the traditional Slavonic translation of the biblical text. These Hebraisms are based on the collation of the Slavonic Bible both with the Hebrew Torah and with the Aramaic Targums. The treatment of the Divine names (preserved in the Targums in their original, Hebrew form) allows us to demonstrate that borrowings from the Torah could be translated in the Slavonic Bible, whereas borrowings from Targums were reproduced in the Slavonic text in the original (Hebrew) form. The revision of the Slavonic Bible had several stages and was a long process. The author attempts to defi ne a chronological stratifi cation of different data related to this process.