The psalms of the Septuagint as an example of a theological translation

This article analyzes the preconditions for considering the translation of the Septuagint as a theological translation of the Old Testament into Greek. Analyzing the methodological aspects of the translation technique of the creators of the Septuagint, Mikhail Seleznev (2016) suggested that this type of translation reflects the culture and collective consciousness of the society of its era. He cites examples where the “theological motivation” of the translators of the Septuagint, in his opinion, could be due not to theological intent, but to the translation technique, i.e. those cases where it is difficult or even erroneous to assert about an exclusively “theological” trend in translation. Without disagreeing, but continuing the research topic started by Seleznev, the author of this article shows, with examples from the Psalter, those cases when, on the contrary, the selection of analogs to Hebrew words could not have been done by chance. From the field of semantic meanings, translators could choose those equivalents that most corresponded to their ideas about faith in God. And this means that the process of translating a sacred text in some cases may be conditioned not only by the translation technique, the creative work of the philologist, but also by those intentions that were laid down in the text by its authors, identifying themselves with the religion whose sacred texts they translated. Consequently, both in the era of the appearance of the Greek Psalter, and now we can talk about a special “theological method” that cannot be reduced to technical or literary translation.