Il lessico astronomico-cosmologico del cielo nella Settanta e nel Nuovo Testamento greco

The paper outlines the characteristics of the astronomical and cosmological vocabulary pertaining to the sky as a whole in the Greek Septuagint and New Testament, focusing in particular on the presence, status, and function of technical terms. The exposition is based on a methodical analysis of all the occurrences of the names of the sky, its partitions, and some general phenomena associated to it in the given texts. It also takes into account the relationship between such words and their extra-linguistic referents: the latter are identified on the basis of both lexicological information and contextual and intertextual clues, as well as comparisons with other ancient versions of the Bible if applicable. Indeed, the peculiar nature of the texts, which are mostly the result of a translation process conducted in several stages on the basis of linguistically, chronologically, and thematically heterogeneous sources (not primarily written for the purpose of science) makes a close and dynamic interaction with the information provided by philology necessary. Although the results mainly confirm the preliminary, intuitive notion of a largely asystematic lexical field, they also reveal a few occurrences of technical terms, mostly defunctionalized and selected in order to confer a vaguely scientific or intentionally obscure connotation to the text. On the other hand, by analyzing the evolution of specific lexemes and collocations in a diachronic perspective, the study provides further proof of the linguistic and cultural influence the wording of the Bible exerted on contemporaries and posterity, both in learned and popular milieux.