Greek Verbal Tenses and Aspects in the Book of Amos

The Greek text of Amos has been studied thus far primarily from the point of view of the textual criticism and of the correspondence of words and expressions between the Hebrew and Greek texts. The present article concentrates on the verbal forms (Greek tenses and aspects) used by the translator. The first reason is to determine his strategy in applying these grammatical tools. The second reason is to use this study to better understand the nature of his translation, since the Greek verbal forms used by the translator mainly pertain to the translation process, and only in a lesser degree to the Vorlage. The author argues that the way the translator uses the Greek tenses reveals his fairly solid understanding of the Hebrew verbal forms in his Vorlage, but also a certain degree of negligence within the context of the entire book, especially in terms of what follows.

Keywords: Amos; Septuagint; Hebrew; Greek; Verbal aspects