They made “a mistake” in Job, 4, 11; why not also in Prov, 30, 30? Implicitly, about limits in philology and the necessity of accepting them
They made “a mistake” in Job, 4, 11; why not also in Prov, 30, 30? Implicitly, about limits in philology and the necessity of accepting them

Summary/Abstract: The existence of the Greek term μυρμηκολέων in Job, 4, 11, in the biblical text of Orthodox tradition, on the steadfast line of the Septuagint, has seemed—time and again—bizarre, and has intrigued enough as to be approached as a textological problem in several articles and studies, some of them extended and well documented, during the last hundred years; it seems that we face an ordinary translation mistake: the Hellenised Hebrew translator of the Septuagint has missed the equivalent of the Heb. ַׁל ֭י ִש (layish [lah’-yish]) ‘a lion’ from the original story of Job, and has produced, consequently, what appears to be a hapax legomenon in the sacred text, an odd and obscure term. Reopening the case, the present study argues in favour of a different reading of the word μυρμηκολέων, which precludes the translator’s presumed mistake. Moreover, it reminds the researcher of the necessity to question, in a lucid manner, the arguments that seem to support a certain conclusion.

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