GEORGIAN AND ARMENIAN READINGS OF TOPONYMS AND ETHNONYMS IN THE BOOKS OF EZRA

Abstract

The Old Testament contains the names of toponyms of numerous regions. Under the influence of Hebrew, these toponyms initially appeared in the Greek translation of the Bible and, later, in other translations based on the Greek text of the Bible, including the Georgian and Armenian translations. It is important to study toponyms and ethnonyms in regarding the origin of each text of verious books of the Geogian Old Testament.

In the paper, are studied the toponyms transferred into Georgian based on different methods by means of a comparative approach, taking into account the history of the texts of Ezra’s books, as far as the Georgian texts of the Old Testament, that have survived to us, are ancient translations made from different languages and revised with different goals. Epizods in which a number of geografical names are transliterated are discused.

Most of the toponyms of Georgian Bible are derived from the Greek translation of the Bible, but in the books of Ezra (I Ezra and II Ezra) there are toponyms of Ancient Near East region transliterated from Armenian translation. Armenian readings itself do not match to the Greek original, but Geogrian readings of some toponyms of the Ezra’s books are transliterated from Armenian versions. So, Georgian text of Ezma’s books give us opinion about Armenian readings and rarely, it is posible to recover lost Armenian readings by observing to the Georgian readings.

The research shows, that Armenian translators found it deficult to identify Greek geografical names found in the Old testament, because they did not know region of the Ancient Near East. Thus, in the epizods derived from Armenian translation, Georgians were forced to transliterate toponyms, even mistaken readings.

Key words: Toponyms; Old Testament; Georgian translation; Armenian translation; Textological relationship.