Pastyr' (what is the Hebrew original?

[Frank McLellan]

>From: Loren Billings <billings at mailer.fsu.edu>
>
>I apologize for not writing directly to Frank; I can't reach bitnet
>addresses from this one (or so I'm told).  The following summarizes the
>discussion so far:

Actually, you can reach brownvm through the internet by replacing
@brownvm.bitnet with @brownvm.brown.edu.  FYI.  For some reason the
mechanism that redistributes listserv list postings for Brown addresses
subscribed to SEELANGS at cunyvm.bitnet.  That is why postings from
here will appear with only bitnet addresses.

>I posted a comment that in the Russian psalm for "the Lord is my Shepherd"
>the word _pastyr'_ is used instead of _pastux_.  Frank then added the
>following:

OK, it was a Russian translation.  Russian translations are not used
liturgically in Orthodox churches (at this point, at least), so the
ChSl version is likely to be more familiar than the Russian to most
Russian speakers.  Unless they read the Bible in Russian translation
on their own on a regular basis, that is.

>I was unaware that OCS uses the verb (_paset"_).  Would anyone know the
>original Hebrew?  It seems that the verb (Russian _paset_) is a convenient
>way around the thorny choice between solely spriritual _pastyr'_ and solely
>secular _pastux_.

Actually, I'm not sure *what* OCS uses.  I would want to look at the
Bologna or Sinai Psalter to be sure.  My citation of _Gospod' paset" mja_
is the version I know from Russian recension ChSl only.  The OCS and the
Russian ChSl are likely to be similar, though, because the development of
the text of the Psalter from OCS to ChSl was on the whole very conservative.

For purposes of determining what underlies the OCS and later ChSl trans-
lations, it would be more useful to ask what the Greek Septuagint reads,
as that is the translation at the basis of most of the ChSl translations
of the Old Testament (some parts were translated very late from the Latin
Vulgate).  I don't have a Septuagint handy, but no doubt someone does.

>I tell my translation students not to become bound to the same part of
>speech in translation.  The OCS solution seems to be a nice example of what
>to do.  --LAB

Very good advice.

Frank McLellan (st403231 at brownvm.brown.edu OR st403231 at brownvm.bitnet)