'Christian' Greek

Abstract

The debate about whether the Christians wrote Greek in some distinctive way that was identifiably 'Christian' has a centuries-long history, and arises partly from views about the Jewish use of Greek in the three centuries BCE (Jewish Greek). The Septuagint (LXX), the first great translation in the world of any major set of texts, undoubtedly has several features in syntax and lexicon which look unusual as Greek - if the comparison is made with Classical Greek syntax and semantic usage. The reasons for these differences vary: in some cases diachronic change (Language Change) is the driver; further, the translators were not attempting to produce 'high' literature; bilingual interference with Hebrew idioms was also a factor in some translation decisions (Greek and Hebrew). Nor should sheer experiment be ignored, or idiolectal differences between one translator and another, giving rise to apparent inconsistency in the translation when the LXX is seen as a whole (Translation of Greek Texts in Late Antiquity).