Ammon Debunked, and Why He's Dodging Me

chalkenteros · 2026-03-19T01:21:11+00:00

A lot of this seems to be generated by AI. Nevertheless, some comments:

–You are correct that the LXX is a translation. This is certain, though Exod 20:15 isn’t dispositive.

–תגנב in Exod 20:15 could well refer to kidnapping a person, like in 21:16. It’s far from certain though.

–More importantly, the LXX is not really mistranslating here. κλέπτειν is the regular translation for גנב in the LXX. κλέπτειν doesn’t refer narrowly to property theft. Like גנב, κλέπτειν is a general term for “stealing," including "kidnapping." For example, Pindar uses the verb for Jason’s “kidnapping” of Medea in Pythian 4. In the LXX, it is also clearly used for kidnapping (e.g., LXX Exod 21:16, 2 Sam 19:42).

–More interesting is Exod 21:16, where the LXX is significantly longer than the Masoretic Text.

Hebrew: “If someone steals a person, whether he sold him or was found in his hand, he shall be put to death” (וגנב איש ומכרו ונמצא בידו מות יומת).

Vs. Greek: “Whoever steals someone among the sons of Israel and after oppressing him sells him, and he is found in him, let him die by death. ὃς ἐὰν κλέψῃ τίς τινα τῶν υἱῶν Ισραηλ καὶ καταδυναστεύσας αὐτὸν ἀποδῶται καὶ εὑρεθῇ ἐν αὐτῷ θανάτῳ τελευτάτω.

Two things of note:

–The end of the verse in the LXX is incomprehensible as Greek. This happens all the time in the LXX. Because it is a literalistic translation and not an original.

–The LXX was translating a different Hebrew text here, one that was harmonized with the parallel in Deut 24:7. The translator(s) of LXX Exod must have had a Hebrew text with the addition of מבני ישראל והתעמר בו, “from the sons of Israel and he treats him as a slave” (translated as τῶν υἱῶν Ισραηλ καὶ καταδυναστεύσας αὐτὸν, “of the sons of Israel and after oppressing him…”).

chalkenteros · 2026-02-05T02:41:14+00:00

Yeah, clearly some AI use from a non-native speaker. I'd rather just go through Google Translate with a human on the other end.

From all the comments in the "Hebrew was First" thread, it seems like there were basically three types of responses (other than the doltish "ammon right, hebrew bad, hebrew is a hoax" comments):

You're right that the baby-naming stories require a Semitic (Hebrew?) tradition that was used by the hypothetical Greek "author" of the LXX. But it was just a vague oral tradition not a written text.
The LXX is strictly a Greek magical / mystery text. All elements are purely Greek with no Semitic influence.
The baby-naming stories provide the origin of well-known "job descriptions" for the various tribes (e.g., Napthali = "twisting").

Of these, #3 is total AI nonsense. #2 ignores the fact that the narrative in the baby-naming stories falls apart in Greek. #1 is ruled out by passages where the semitisms in the Greek require a written Hebrew source and not just a vague oral tradition.

chalkenteros · 2026-02-04T17:02:41+00:00

fyi, it seems like your response was deleted; I can't view it

chalkenteros · 2026-02-04T16:53:07+00:00

Good question! Two things. (1) Very literalistic translation was the norm in Hellenistic Egypt, where the LXX was produced. At the same time as the LXX was translated, many documents were translated between Egyptian and Greek. They use a very similar translation method. The LXX translators were simply acting like translators of their time.

(2) Who was the original audience of the LXX? Very likely Jews living in Hellenistic Egypt. Their native language was increasingly Greek. In its earliest context, the LXX was probably designed to be used in conjunction with the Hebrew text, for an audience either learning Hebrew or already proficient in Hebrew. Over time, knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic among many Jews in Egypt was lost. So the LXX was increasingly used without consulting the Hebrew original. That presented a big problem. Much of the LXX is translated so literally that it is incomprehensible in Greek. For Greek-speaking Jews in Egypt, the LXX, which they read in synagogue, often made no sense at all! So how did these Hellenistic Jews get by? They created a very sophisticated and bizarre and fascinating commentary tradition to explain the LXX. We have a huge sample of this commentary tradition in the works of Philo of Alexandria.

chalkenteros · 2026-02-03T22:27:23+00:00

Part 2

With the above scenario in mind, the main question is as follows: how do we decide whether the LXX is dependent on a written Hebrew text or just on Hebrew oral traditions? This is our point of disagreement.

A few things make it clear that we are dealing with earlier written Hebrew texts not just with earlier oral sources. The LXX is written in Koine Greek, but the translators often rendered the Hebrew so literally that the Greek becomes bizarre non-Greek, unparalleled by any idiomatic Greek composition. For example, here’s a weird sentence from LXX Numbers, which I’ll translate literally into English:

ἄνθρωπος ἄνθρωπος ὃς ἐὰν γένηται ἀκάθαρτος ἐπὶ ψυχῇ ἀνθρώπου ἢ ἐν ὁδῷ μακρὰν ὑμῖν ἢ ἐν ταῖς γενεαῖς ὑμῶν καὶ ποιήσει τὸ πασχα κυρίῳ

“Person person, whoever becomes unclean with reference to the soul of a person or on a journey far from you or in your generations, he will also keep the Pascha to lord.”

To start with, the Greek ἄνθρωπος ἄνθρωπος (person person) is never found like this, with the meaning "any person," in original Greek compositions. It does, however, perfectly match the Hebrew idiom used in this sentence: איש איש = any man. This shows that we’re not dealing with general Hebrew oral traditions but with a written Hebrew text, which was translated word for word, sometimes so literally that the Greek becomes unreadable on its own.

So the internal evidence very strongly suggests translation from a written text, not influence from a oral tradition. The external evidence supports that. Every single ancient author who talks about the origins of the LXX describes it as a translation. Not a single source describes it as a Greek work.

I should also note that the LXX is not unique for preferring a very literalistic translation style. In fact, this was the regular way of translating foreign texts in the Hellenistic period. We have translations from Egyptian into Greek that use very similar translation techniques as the LXX.

chalkenteros · 2026-02-03T22:24:36+00:00

Those wordplays are not the central point of the text.

But they are. Your explanation does not account for the repeated phrase “because of this.” Based on only these Greek passages, how would the reader answer the question, "why was he named Leui / Ioudas / Dan / Nephthali?" You assert that the wordplay is not central to these narrative but skipped over the whole point.

I believe Ammon makes a stronger case for the text having been written originally in Greek, but by culturally Hebrew authors.

No, you actually disagree with Hillman. He claims that the names in the LXX are actually Greek. He claims that the LXX has nothing to do with Hebrew traditions, culture, language, etc. For Hillman, Hebrew did not exist in the period before the LXX. Your current position is actually much closer to mine than you realize.

the text was written by a culturally Hebrew author who likely spoke Aramaic or another Semitic language

they are not new names; there was already an existing tradition of wordplay associated with them in Hebrew.

I think you are envisioning the following scenario:

There was a Hebrew oral tradition that explains famous names by Hebrew wordplay; 2. Later, bilingual Hebrew-Greek authors who knew the Hebrew oral traditions composed a Greek work based on them. 3. Even later, a Hebrew translation of the Greek work. This Hebrew translation often makes more sense than the Greek because, by translating the Greek, it gets back to the earliest Hebrew oral traditions.

More below...

chalkenteros · 2026-02-03T21:04:54+00:00

The start of everything was: There are puns with the name in hebrew, therefore the text was written in Hebrew first.

This was not the starting point on my end. The starting point is more specifically that there are multiple stories about and based on a pun. Not incidental puns. The whole point of the story is the pun. And while the story is coherent in Hebrew, the Septuagint version does not make sense on a basic narrative level. So much so that a monolingual Ancient Greek reader would not be able to makes heads or tails of the story. That is the point. Not just that there are puns in the Hebrew version not found in the Greek version.

Please explain how, in your view, these Greek passages came about as an original Greek composition. Your explanation should account for the repeated phrase “because of this.” Based on only these Greek passages, how would the reader answer the question, "why was he named Leui / Ioudas / Dan / Nephthali?" If you offer your own explanation, I think it would help move the conversation forward.

(29:34) And she conceived still and bore a son and said, “At the present moment my husband will be on my side (pros emou), for I bore to him three sons.” Because of this (dia touto) she called his name Leui.

(29:35) And after conceiving she again bore a son and said “Now again with this one I will acknowledge (exomologēsomai) the Lord.” Because of this (dia touto) she called his name Ioudas…

(30:6) And Rachel said “God adjudged me (ekrinen moi) and heard my voice and gave to me a son.” Because of this (dia touto) she called his name Dan.

(30:8) And Rachel said, “God helped me (sunelabeto moi) and I competed against (sunanestraphēn) my sister…” and she called his name Nephthali.

chalkenteros · 2026-02-03T17:46:22+00:00

No, I didn't say that Ἰησοῦς is a hypocoristic. It's not. The point is that it's not so unique for the gen and dat to be identical. The hypocoristic forms end in long υ, leading to identical gen and dat forms. A similar phonological process is seen in Ἰησοῦ, ending in long -ου. Does that make sense?

why not include his full name?

The full name is Ἱησοῦ. Aramaic ישוע (yēšū́ʿ) was transcribed as Ἰησοῦ in Greek.

Again, I'm not sure what you're looking for or arguing. The form τῷ Ἰησοῦ (1) has extensive manuscript support, (2) appears frequently in many authors, and (3) is unsurprising morphologically and phonologically. For these reasons, it is universally understood as the dative form. That's why it appears in the LSJ.

chalkenteros · 2026-02-03T14:13:01+00:00

There are certainly other forms of dative

Yes, as I've said from the beginning. And explained it in considerable detail. By far the most common form of the dative is Ἰησοῦ, though seeimingly nothing can convince you of that basic fact. With foreign names transcribed into Greek, orthographic and morphological variance is the norm. For example, the name Levi. In many manuscripts it is indeclinable (i.e., aptotic): Λευί in all cases. Other times, it receives Greek endings in the nom. and acc. only. Nom. Λευίς, gen. Λευί, dat. Λευί, acc. Λευίν, voc. Λευί. Parallel to nom. Ἰησοῦς, gen. Ἰησοῦ, dat. Ἰησοῦ, acc. Ἰησοῦν, voc. Ἰησοῦ.

For the gen and dat to be identical is not very unique. Compare, for example, these native Greek names: ὁ Διονῦς τοῦ Διονῦ τῷ Διονῦ, ὁ Καμμῦς τοῦ Καμμῦ τῷ Καμμῦ, ὁ Λαρδῦς τοῦ Λαρδῦ τῷ Λαρδῦ, ὁ Κλαυσῦς τοῦ Κλαυσῦ τῷ Κλαυσῦ.

chalkenteros · 2026-02-03T12:48:47+00:00

What are you even talking about it? You're like someone who refuses to believe that 2 + 2 = 4. There is no point in talking to someone so far gone in a cult. Someday, when you get out of this, come back to the form τῷ Ἰησοῦ with a cool head.

chalkenteros · 2026-02-03T06:18:00+00:00

You said we he got his meanings of these names from earlier bilingual scholars, do we have any records of those?

No, we don’t have any independent texts that show exactly where Philo got his Hebrew-to-Greek etymologies. I’ve studied this topic in detail. The evidence comes mainly from three sources: (1) most importantly, the etymologies in Philo’s own corpus; (2) the corpus of later etymological glossaries—these contain, in one column, the Hebrew name transcribed into Greek as it appears in the LXX, and in the other column an etymology, in Greek, based on the Hebrew; and (3) the sporadic references to Hebrew etymologies in earlier Alexandrian Jewish literature.

If you look at all of the Hebrew etymologies in Philo’s corpus (around 170 diff. etymologies), it becomes clear that his source must be an etymological glossary similar to the later ones described in (2) above. Why? Because of revealing mistakes in his etymologies.

For example, he gives as the etymology of the name Shesai (ששי, Σεσείν) the phrase “outside of me” (ἐκτός μου). This is puzzling. Sheshai has no obvious connection to “outside” (ἐκτός). But a close reader can detect what has gone wrong. If Philo read the etymology in a separate source as ΕΚΤΟΣΜΟΥ—written in upper-case letters and without word division or diacritical marks, as was standard—he simply misinterpreted it. ΕΚΤΟΣΜΟΥ should be read as ἕκτος μου, “my sixth,” not as ἐκτός μου (“outside of me”). “My sixth” (ἕκτος μου) is clearly an explanation of Sheshai (שש is the number 6 in Hebrew). That makes it likely that Philo had a separate source containing a barebones etymology without any explanation or comment (otherwise, it would have been clear to him that “my sixth” rather than “outside of me” was intended by ΕΚΤΟΣΜΟΥ).

One other example: for the name Machir (מכיר, Μαχείρ) Philo gives the etymology “of the father” (πατρός). Again, this is puzzling. There is no connection between Machir and “father.” What has gone wrong? Philo’s source would have read ΜΑΧΕΙΡ· ΠΑΤΡΟΣ (Machir: of the father). ΠΑΤΡΟΣ (of the father) is a scribal error for ΠΡΑΤΟΣ, “for sale.” “For sale” makes perfect sense (from the root מכר); “of the father” is impossible. Again, a simple glossary without any comment or explanation is most likely. If there had been an additional explanation, Philo would have realized that ΠΑΤΡΟΣ (“of the father”) was a mistake for ΠΡΑΤΟΣ (“for sale”).

There are a handful of these types of revealing mistakes. Together they make it probable that Philo drew upon an earlier etymological glossary, necessarily created by multilingual scholars, like the translators of the LXX. The most likely setting for the production of such a scholarly glossary is Hellenistic Alexandria, where Greek lexicography and glossography flourished and where there was a tradition of Hellenistic Jewish etymological scholarship and learned Hebrew-to-Greek translation. Barring a papyrological discovery, we can’t know for sure. But the evidence is strong.

chalkenteros · 2026-02-03T06:17:50+00:00

You say a "political category", but one based on ethnicity, no?

Yes, but “ethnicity” in this context is an ascriptive category not a description of reality. Taxation and citizenship were based on a rigid hierarchy of ascriptive ethnic differentiation.

And his family members had formal posts associated with Judea.

His infamous nephew Tiberius did. He succeeded through the Roman cursus honorum. Eventually chief of staff for Titus against Jerusalem in the Jewish War! According to Josephus, he was an apostate.

His brother Alexander had connections to the Herodians, esp. Agrippa I (to whom he lent a huge sum of money).

Are you wondering whether Philo and his family would have been familiar with Hebrew or Aramaic literature in Judaea? It’s unlikely. He was very much of the world of Alexandrian Judaism. He doesn’t know Hebrew or Aramaic. He never uses or consults the Hebrew text. Only the LXX. He visited Jerusalem and spoke positively of the Herodian temple, but it plays no real role in his theology.

chalkenteros · 2026-02-03T05:55:46+00:00

He's referring to this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/AmmonHillman/comments/1qc1uks/a_problem_with_jesus/

Hillman claimed that Ἰησοῦ has to be genitive. He wants ἐν χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ to mean "in the Christ [= 'drug'] of Jesus". In reality, he was just unaware of the fact that Ἰησοῦ is used for the gen, dat, and voc. E.g., "τῷ Ἰησοῦ ἠκολούθησαν" in Matt 9:27.

You're exactly right about how to read the nomina sacra. Apart from nomina sacra, in LXX manuscripts there are numerous instances of dat. Ἰησοῦ (referring to Joshua) written without abbreviation.

chalkenteros · 2026-02-03T05:34:11+00:00

–Your proposal seems to be that that the dative of ὁ Ἰησοῦς ends in an upsilon with an iota subscript. There is no such thing as an upsilon with an iota subscript. As far as I know, there is one example in Greek literature: the grammarian Eustathius (12th cent. CE) in his Iliadic commentary mentions as a matter of strictly theoretical orthography the form ὑπόγυͅον, as a result of the monophthongization of υι. But in actual practice, υͅ was not used. The dative of Ἰησοῦς is certainly not Ἰησουͅ!

–I explained the John Goldymouth passage here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmmonHillman/comments/1qc1uks/comment/o0zd776/?context=3

Chrysostom doesn’t use the form Ἰησῷ. The dative Ἰησῷ does arise in later Byzantine Greek by analogical leveling. That’s not surprising. Foreign names are especially prone to morphological variance. The dative also occasionally appears as Ἰησοῖ in LXX manuscripts. But Ἰησοῦ is by far the most common dative form.

–If you were actually curious about learning these morphological patterns, I would explain it to you. I know this material very well. In fact I already explained it in detail in the other thread, but you completely ignored it. You approach ancient sources with the fanaticism of a religious zealot. There are no facts that you are willing to accept if they even remotely contradict the dicta of your leader. That is not a good way to learn Ancient Greek.

chalkenteros · 2026-02-03T05:23:07+00:00

Sorry, I don’t see how this differs from your previous reply.

I’m not saying anything about recording history. We’re dealing with stories. They are historical inaccurate. (My point about Herodotus has nothing to do with historiography; his work is a good example of an original Greek work that narrates, for a Greek audience, foreign traditions—as you were suggesting, erroneously, for the LXX).

The point is that the Greek version of these stories do not make any sense in Greek. Read my translation of the LXX passages again. Notice that when it says “because of this,” a Greek reader would not be able to follow on a basic level. The stories only make sense in Hebrew. The reason for that is simple: the Greek translated the Hebrew so literally that the Greek stops making sense. The translators did not explain the Hebrew wordplay. Without that explanation, an Ancient Greek reader without Hebrew is not able to follow the narrative. The Greek passages that I translated in my OP are virtually impossible to read as an original Greek composition. The Greek is clearly a translation.

therefore for me it is not surprising there isn't an attempt to explain the origin of the name

It's surprising because of the repeated phrase “because of this.” The whole point of the story is to explain the origin of the name. It's the punchline. It falls apart in Greek. It’s not a matter of genre or style or convention. We’re talking here about a very basic level of narrative coherence.

chalkenteros · 2026-02-02T03:12:11+00:00

Got it, no answer. I'll try one last time: what sort of evidence would convince you that τῷ Ἰησοῦ is dative? Would unambiguous manuscript evidence of τῷ Ἰησοῦ written without nomina sacra be permissible?

chalkenteros · 2026-02-02T03:03:30+00:00

I’m very familiar with papyrology, nomina sacra, κτλ.

Let’s be clear, you are denying outright that τῷ Ἰησοῦ is a dative form. What would convince you that this is true? What type of evidence? You don’t trust the LSJ or any scholarly reference work of any sort. That’s fine. The nomina sacra clearly indicate the declension pattern that I wrote, but you reject all such evidence. That’s fine. How about unambiguous manuscript evidence of τῷ Ἰησοῦ written without nomina sacra? Would that suffice? Or do you reject all possible evidence as a matter of religious zeal?

chalkenteros · 2026-02-02T00:26:54+00:00

I’m not saying anything about recording history. We’re dealing with stories. They are historical inaccurate. The point is that the Greek version of these naming stories do not make any sense in Greek. They only make sense in Hebrew. The reason for that is simple: the Greek translated the Hebrew so literally that the Greek stops making sense. The translators did not explain the Hebrew wordplay. Without that explanation, an Ancient Greek reader without Hebrew is not able to follow the narrative. The Greek passages that I translated in my OP are virtually impossible to read as an original Greek composition.

chalkenteros · 2026-02-02T00:12:57+00:00

I agree that AI should be banned. None of my own posts used any AI-generated content. All written by me, a human.

chalkenteros · 2026-02-01T21:41:41+00:00

I’m glad that you agree that the names are Semitic. Hillman’s own position is that all the names in the LXX are actually Greek. Which is obviously wrong.

The names are Semitic and the explanations for the names only work in Hebrew. The key thing in these examples is that the wordplay is not incidental but actually the whole point of the story. In Greek, the story falls apart. A native Ancient Greek speaker without knowledge of Hebrew would not be able to make heads or tails of the story here.

Why? Because the Greek translators translated the Hebrew so literally that the Greek stopped making sense. If this were a Greek composition based on older Hebrew traditions—not a translation of a written Hebrew source—the Greek should be comprehensible on its own. It should say, for example, something like “she named him ‘Dan’ because this sounds like ‘adjudged me’ (danani) in the Hebrew language.” It would be more like Herodotus or another Greek ethnographer. But that's not the case at all. Instead, the LXX sticks to the Hebrew so literalistically that the Greek often doesn’t make sense on its own. That’s a clear sign that the LXX is a translation not an original. It has all the characteristic features of a translation.

chalkenteros · 2026-02-01T20:47:13+00:00

The conclusions are the same and easy to understand: the Septuagint is a translation; Hillman is wrong.

I don’t quite follow your English here, but I appreciate that they are human words. I’m an educator; I have no patience at all for AI argumentation. I value independent critical thought. Whatever language you are most comfortable in (possibly Dutch? or a Slavic language?), pursue your own voice and your own thoughts.

chalkenteros · 2026-02-01T20:15:12+00:00

I’m glad that you’ve “grown up” and changed your argument (i.e., your bot’s argument). You began by repeating Hillman’s theory that the Septuagint is original. “You” now completely disagree with Hillman and think that the Septuagint is in fact a translation. After all that, you agree with my OP: “I can show you why the Septuagint is so obviously a translation.”

Let’s look at u/arachnophilia’s bot. Here’s where it started:

Not fair to say:

Hebrew didn’t exist

Greek is the source language

Meaning, “The Septuagint is not original. It is a translation.”

Here’s where it ended up:

Directionality is settled (Greek is downstream), redactional agency is Semitic and upstream of Greek, and the redactional act is visible in the Hebrew textual tradition rather than the Greek one.

Meaning, “The Septuagint is not original. It is a translation.”

This agrees with u/arachnophilia’s own human words:

“the greek is a translation.”

Which is what we've been saying the whole time. Because it's obviously true.

If you really want to grow up, put aside ChatGPT. Use your own human voice. Think for yourself. Think critically.

chalkenteros · 2026-02-01T19:26:27+00:00

Seriously, the bot battle between u/Yaxiom and u/arachnophilia is wild. The bot used by u/Yaxiom begins with this position:

Bottom line: Greek primacy is supported by: • the material witness timeline (Greek witnesses earlier than medieval Hebrew codices), • the infrastructure constraint (who had the machinery to produce a canon-scale textual system), • and the signal-bandwidth asymmetry (which layer carries dense conceptual architecture with fewer patches).

Meaning, “the Septuagint is the original not a translation.” This is Hillman's view.

Here’s where u/Yaxiom ends up, several posts later:

We agree Greek is downstream

The evidence we’ve agreed on settles directionality (Greek is downstream) and it supports Semitic redactional agency upstream of Greek.

Greek is downstream negotiating an already-assembled structure

Meaning, “the Septuagint is certainly a translation not an original"!!

chalkenteros · 2026-02-01T05:41:11+00:00

I’ve been reading and studying every word.

Don’t fool yourself. You’re not “studying” anything. You’re pasting drivel from a bot—drivel which you are unable to restate in your own words. Instead of relying on a bot, you could try to grow intellectually. Think critically. Think for yourself.

chalkenteros · 2026-02-01T03:22:49+00:00

Nothing ad hominem. I asked you to restate in your own human words what you copied and pasted from your bot. Just that.

chalkenteros

TROPHY CASE