For anyone interested in linguistics and the Septuagint (and even a bit of Neo-Aramaic), this article was just published in Tyndale Bulletin. And it’s open access! Here’s the abstract:

This article argues that at least one case of literalism in the Septuagint is actually an epiphenomenon of crosslinguistic symmetry between biblical Hebrew and postclassical Greek. I examine translation of the Left Dislocation construction in the Greek Pentateuch and demonstrate that the translators were aware of its discourse-pragmatic meaning. I argue the best explanation for its distribution in the Pentateuch is that the translators licensed crosslinguistic symmetry in order to produce a direct translation that interpretively resembled the source.

The example I use in (3) was an inside joke with my supervisor, James Aitken. One of Jim’s first students came to Cambridge and began a PhD in numismatics, but announced shortly thereafter that he was leaving to sail the world. Rest assured: he promised to return and complete the PhD. Sadly, Jim never heard from him again. I used to update Jim on my thesis by claiming the delay was because I was ‘at sea.’

I was extremely impressed by the professionalism and editorial attention of Tyndale Bulletin during the review process. Tyndale Bulletin has an excellent process, and it was an outstanding experience. Highly recommend.