Hellenistic

[Dave Wilton]

"Hellenistic" refers to the period after Alexander and is applied to Greek
culture as influenced by foreign elements from Alexander's empire, the
Greeks of Alexandria, etc. As opposed to "Hellenic," which refers to the
culture of ancient Greece, pre-Alexander.

The Septuagint dates from this same period and reflects the absorption of
Eastern (in this case Hebrew) ideas into Greek culture. The Septuagint was
also translated in Alexandria. So there is a connection in that the
Septuagint is emblematic of Hellenistic culture, but not an etymological
connection.


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Alice Faber
Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2007 10:51 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Hellenistic

Baker, John wrote:
>         In a review of The Hellenistic Age, by Peter Green, in The Wall
> Street Journal today, Peter Stothard asserts that the word Hellenistic
> itself came from the French name for the Septuagint.  I was a bit
> surprised by this, having always supposed that the word had something to
> do with the Hellenes (from Hellen, the mythical ancestor of the Greeks).
> Is there any basis at all for Stothard's assertion, or is it just
> another Wall Street Journalism?
>

Nope. Scholarly treatments of the Septuagint in French refer to it as la
septante: <http://orthodoxie.club.fr/ecrits/70/indexx.htm>,
<http://perso.orange.fr/andre.canessa/Esdras/index.htm>.

--
 ===========================================================================
==
Alice Faber                                    faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                           tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
New Haven, CT 06511 USA                        fax (203) 865-8963

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