Post-Classical Greek and the Septuagint Pentateuch: The Alternation of the Dative?

This paper offers an alternate orientation from which future scholars may direct their work on the Septuagint. The Septuagint has often been illuminated through the application of post-Classical data in the papyri. Yet, the Septuagint also has much to offer as a source with a vast array of linguistic data for our understanding of post-Classical Greek. Dative alternation with πρός and εἰς in the post-Classical period is multidimensional and culminates in the morphological dative’s absence from Modern Greek. Joanne Stolk’s research of the documentary papyri has demonstrated that this complexity is attributable to various factors related to animacy and the author’s conceptualization of the event. Within Greek Exodus, the semantic overlap of the dative with πρός caused J.W. Wevers to suggest that the translator used each “indiscriminately.” Such explanations regarding variation not only are inaccurate but may serve as the impetus for further incomplete explanations within Septuagint scholarship. Rather than looking to internal Greek grammatical standards, some authors go as far to state that various decisions must have been made on a theological basis. By looking first to internal Greek features, removed from notions of indiscrimination or theological promulgation, a clearer understanding of the linguistic nature of the text becomes available. In this paper, I will evaluate dative alternation patterns in the Greek Pentateuch by comparing evidence to those patterns identified by Stolk in the papyri. This comparison may elucidate a nuanced familiarity with standard Greek semantics and syntax on the part of the translators.