Septuagint

The Septuagint (or the "LXX") is the name commonly given in the West to the ancient, Koine Greek version of the Old Testament translated some time between the 3rd to 1st century BC in Alexandria. The name means "seventy" and derives from a tradition that seventy-two scholars (LXX being the nearest round number) translated it guided by divine inspiration. The version was held with great respect in ancient times; Philo and Josephus afforded it special adoration. It formed the basis of the Old Latin Vulgate and is still used within Eastern Orthodoxy. Besides the Old Latin Vulgate, the LXX is also the basis for Gothic, Slavonic, Peshitta, Armenian, and Coptic versions of the Old Testament used by Christians. Recent scholarship has brought renewed attention to the LXX, in part because in some verses the Dead Sea scrolls agree with it against the Masoretic Text, and in part because it is quoted by the Christian New Testament and by the Apostolic Fathers. Renewed attention has occurred within the Jewish community, but yet its use remains exclusively Christian.

As the work of translation went on gradually, and new books were always added to the collection, the compass of the Greek Bible came to be somewhat indefinite. The law always maintained its pre-eminence as the basis of the canon; but the prophetic collection changed its aspect by having various Hagiographa incorporated with it. The newer works are called in Greek anginoskomena, such as the first books of the Maccabees, and the LXX holds a longer Book of Daniel as well.[1]. Many of the later books were composed in Greek. The oldest surviving codices of LXX date to the fourth century AD.

Naming and designation

The Septuagint derives its name (derived from Latin septuaginta, seventy, hence the abbreviation LXX) from a legendary account in the spurious Letter of Aristeas of how seventy-two Jewish scholars were asked by the Greek King of Egypt Ptolemy II Philadelphus in the 3rd century BC to translate the Torah for inclusion in the Library of Alexandria. In a later version of that legend narrated by Philo of Alexandria, although the translators were kept in separate chambers, they all produced identical versions of the text in seventy-two days. Although this story is widely viewed as implausible today, it underlines the fact that some ancient Jews wished to present the translation as authoritative. A version of this legend is found in the Tractate Megillah of the Babylonian Talmud (pages 9a-9b), which identifies fifteen specific unusual translations made by the scholars. Only two of these translations are found in the extant LXX.

Dating and critical scholarship

Modern scholarship holds that the LXX was translated and composed over the course of the 3rd through 1st centuries BC, beginning with the Torah.

The oldest manuscripts of the LXX include 2nd century BC fragments of Leviticus and Deuteronomy (Rahlfs nos. 801, 819, and 957), and 1st century BC fragments of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and the Minor Prophets (Rahlfs nos. 802, 803, 805, 848, 942, and 943). Relatively complete manuscripts of the LXX include the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus of the 4th century and the Codex Alexandrinus of the 5th century. These are indeed the oldest surviving nearly-complete manuscripts of the Old Testament in any language; the oldest extant complete Hebrew texts date over 700 years later, from around 1000.

The sources of the many differences between the Septuagint and the Masoretic text have long been discussed by scholars. The most widely accepted view today is that the Septuagint provides a reasonably accurate record of an early Semitic textual variant, now lost, that differs from ancestors of the Masoretic text. The view favored in early Christian circles was that the differences are primarily due to intentional or accidental corruption of Masoretic text in Medieval times. Following the Renaissance, a common opinion among some humansists was that Septuagint translators bungled the translation from the Hebrew and that their text became corrupt. The discovery of many fragments in the Dead Sea scrolls that agree with the Septuagint rather than the Masoretic proved that many of the variants in Greek were also present in early Semitic editions.

Jewish revisions and recensions in both Greek and Semitic dialects is well attested, the most famous of which include those by Aquila (128), Symmachus and Theodotion. Origen (235), and other early Church fathers discussed the differences and attempted to preserve the original reading of the Greek. A Christian scholast in Alexandria, he completed a comprehensive synopsis of each ancient version side-by-side, but his work is now almost completely lost.

These issues notwithstanding, the text of the LXX is in general close to that of the Masoretic. For example, Genesis 4:1-6 is identical in both the LXX and Masoretic texts. Likewise, Genesis 4:8 to the end of the chapter is the same. There is only one noticeable difference in that chapter, at 4:7, to wit:

Genesis 4:7, LXX (Brenton)	Genesis 4:7, Masoretic (Artscroll)
Hast thou not sinned if thou hast brought it rightly, but not rightly divided it? Be still, to thee shall be his submission, and thou shalt rule over him.	Surely, if you improve yourself, you will be forgiven. But if you do not improve yourself, sin rests at the door. Its desire is toward you, yet you can conquer it.

Some quotations of the Old Testament in the New Testament favor the Septuagint over the Masoretic text.

Use of the Septuagint

Jewish use

Jewish attitudes toward translations of their scriptures developed with time. For Babylonian Jewry, by the 2nd century BC, it was often necessary for the readings in the synagogues to be interpreted in Babylonian Aramaic, producing the need for the targumim. The Septuagint maintained widespread use in the Hellenistic world, including in Jerusalem, which had become a rather cosmopolitan town associated with many vibrant Jewish communities. Both Philo and Josephus show the reliance of the Septuagint in their citations of ancient Jewish scripture.

Several factors finally led most Jews to abandon the Greek, including the fact that Christians favoured the LXX and the gradual decline of the Greek language among Jews after most of them fled from the Greek-speaking Roman Empire into the Aramaic-speaking Persian Empire when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. Instead, Hebrew/Aramaic manuscripts compiled by the Masoretes, or authoritative Aramaic translations such as that of Onkelos, of Rabbi Yonathan ben Uziel, and Targum Yerushalmi, were preferred. The ancient LXX translation began to lose official sanction after differences between it and the Hebrew scriptures were discovered. This contributed to the growing renunciation of Hellenization among Jews. All these factors combined and the Jewish people adopted the Masoretic text, except for works such as the Maccabees and Theodotion's editions to the Book of Esther.

Christian use

The Early Christian Church, of course, continued to use the Greek texts, since Greek was the lingua franca used throughout the Roman Empire at the time. Greek had always been the language of the Church and because the some prophetic passages seemed to clearly point to Jesus as the Christ in the Septuagint version, whereas the same passages were more ambiguous or absent in the Hebrew.

When Jerome started preparation of a new Vulgate translation of the Bible into Latin, he started with the Septuagint, checking it against the Hebrew Tanakh. He discovered many significant differences. Encouraged by his Jewish friends who provided him their rescensions and insisted on their relative accuracy, Jerome at last broke with all church tradition to translate the Old Testament not from the age-old Greek but from his new find. In his prologues he defends his choice by stating that, in some verses, the Hebrew text honors Christ more clearly than the corresponding Greek. The Psalms in Jerome's latest translation differ particularly from the Septuagint, although his Vulgate Psalms were translated from the Hexaplar revision of the Septuagint. Indeed, all the other early Christian translations of the Old Testament were done from the ancient Septuagint, and Church fathers such as Origen remarked on how Jews differed in the interpretation of the Old Testament and how over time the Hebrew text grew different from the Greek.

The writers of the New Testament, which was also written in Greek, usually, but not always, chose to quote the Septuagint when referring to the Old Testament. This is significant since the Hebrew text diverges in some of the more prominent passages which prophesy Christ. Thus even when Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian and other translations from the Greek appeared, Greek versions continued to be used by the Greek-speaking portion of the Christian Church. The Eastern Orthodox Church still prefers to use the LXX as the basis for translating the Old Testament into other languages, and the Greek Orthodox Church (which has no need for translation) continues to use it in its liturgy even today. Many modern critical translations of the Old Testament, while using the Masoretic text as their basis, consult the Septuagint as well as other versions in an attempt to reconstruct the original meaning of the Hebrew text whenever the latter is unclear, undeniably corrupt, or ambiguous.

Some Aramaic verses among the Dead Sea Scrolls agree better with the LXX than with the Masoretic text. For example Deuteronomy 32:8-9, both the LXX and the Aramaic agree that the patron of the people of Jacob is lower in status than the Most High. This suggests that in some verses the older LXX may be more accurate than the newer Hebrew texts used by Jerome. However, most of the verses of the Dead Sea Scrolls agree better with the Masoretic Text than with the Septuagint, where those two diverge.

Of the fuller quotations in the New Testament of the Old, nearly one hundred agree with the Septuagint against the Masoretic[2] and six agree with the Masoretic.[3]

Language of the Septuagint

A few parts the Septuagint may show Semiticisms, or idioms and phrases based on Semitic dialects. However, other sections show an ignorance of Hebrew idiom, suggesting that they may have been originally composed in Greek. Some other books, such as the book of Daniel and Proverbs show Greek influence more strongly. The book of Daniel that is found in almost all Greek bibles is the one from Theodotian's translation, not from the Septuagint.

The LXX is also useful for better understanding Classical Hebrew in that many Hebrew names are spelled with vowels which the ancient Hebrew lacked.Hoffman, 2004.

Books of the Septuagint

All the major books the Septuagint correspond to the canon of the West, although the order does not always coincide with the modern ordering of the books. The order of books in the Septuagint may be indicative of a consensus on the order of books before the 1st century AD.

Some books are differently named. For example the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings were originally one book in four parts called Βασιλειῶν; the Books of Chronicles supplement this book and are called Paraleipomenon (Παραλειπομένων—things left out). The Septuagint maintains ancient tradition by keeping the minor prophets as twelve parts of one Book of Twelve.

See Table of correspondence below.

More significant are the shorter, additional books of ancient origin which were part of the ancient canon, although not present in Hebrew scriptures. Catholics use seven of these books and the additions to Daniel and Esther. Protestants, following Medieval Jewish rescissions, regard them as apocryphal. Catholics call most of them deuterocanonical, reflecting their later composition. Orthodox churches call them the Anaginoskomena. (See Books of the Bible for a comparison of canons.)

The New Testament makes a number of allusions to and perhaps quotations of the additional books (as Orthodox Christians aver) and are part of surviving codices. The books are Tobias, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Jesus Seirach, Baruch, Epistle of Jeremy (sometimes considered part of Baruch), additions to Daniel (The Prayer of Azarias, the Song of the Three Children, Sosanna and Bel and the Dragon), additions to Esther, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, and 1 Esdras. (The canonical acceptance varies among different Christian faiths, and there are canonical books not derived from the Septuagint; for a discussion see the article on Biblical apocrypha.

Printed Editions

All the printed editions of the Septuagint are derived from the three recensions mentioned above.

The editio princeps is the Complutensian Polyglot. It was from Origen's hexaplar text; printed in 1514-18, it was not published till it appeared in the Polyglot of Cardinal Ximenes in 1520.
The Aldine edition (begun by Aldus Manutius) appeared at Venice in 1518. The text is purer than that of the Complutensian edition, and is closer to Codex B. The editor says he collated ancient manuscripts but does not specify them. It has been reprinted several times.
The most important edition is the Roman or Sixtine, which reproduces the "Codex Vaticanus" almost exclusively. It was published under the direction of Cardinal Caraffa, with the help of various savants, in 1586, by the authority of Sixtus V, to assist the revisers who were preparing the Latin Vulgate edition ordered by the Council of Trent. It has become the textus receptus of the Greek Old Testament and has had many new editions, such as that of Holmes and Pearsons (Oxford, 1798-1827), the seven editions of Tischendorf, which appeared at Leipzig between 1850 and 1887, the last two, published after the death of the author and revised by Nestle, the four editions of Swete (Cambridge, 1887-95, 1901, 1909), etc.
Grabe's edition was published at Oxford, from 1707 to 1720, and reproduced, but imperfectly, the "Codex Alexandrinus" of London. For partial editions, see Vigouroux, "Dict. de la Bible", 1643 sqq.

Translations of the Septuagint

The Septuagint has been translated into English. Most notable is Brenton's English Translation of the Septuagint, said to be based upon Codex Vaticanus. More recently, Brenton's translation has been used as the inspiration for a modern-language version, by Paul Esposito, The Apostles' Bible.

Further, Peter A. Papoutsis has translated a substantial amount of the Septuagint into English in his translation called The Holy Orthodox Bible. This translation is based on Greek Orthodox Biblical and Liturgical texts of the Septuagint as used in The Holy Orthodox Church.

Questioning the Septuagint

Although the integrity of the Septuagint over the Masoretic is upheld by both the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian New Testament, it too shows signs of age. It is found in at least one highly unreliable text (Codex Alexandrinus). The Septuagint is also found in the Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus. The title "Septuagint" is of course not to be confused with the seven or more other Greek versions of the Old Testament, most of which do not survive except as fragments. These other Greek versions were once in side-by-side columns of Origen's Hexapla, now almost wholly lost.

The original Old Greek text of the Book of Daniel has been recently rediscovered and work is ongoing in reconstructing a more ancient form of the Septuagint as a whole.

Like the New Testament, the LXX is a particularly excellent text when compared to other ancient works with textual variants. To reject the existence of a Septuagint on the grounds of typographical error and other variants is a questionable opinion. Moreover, in many of the places where the LXX differs from the Masoretic Text, the same variants exist in the Dead Sea Scrolls, showing the antiquity of some of these variants and the reliability of the LXX. Link 1, Link 2

References

"Artscroll" Tanach.
Brenton, Lancelot C. L. 2001. The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English Hendrickson Publishers. (Originally published 1851.)
Hoffman, Joel M. 2004. In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language New York: NYU Press.

External links

General

The Septuagint Online - Comprehensive site with scholarly discussion and links to texts and translations
Jewish Encyclopedia: Bible Translations
Catholic Encyclopedia: Septuagint Version
Catholic Encyclopedia: Versions of the Bible
A thorough analysis of the Septuagint with resources
Comparison of names in the LXX and Hebrew Bible (PDF)

Texts and translations

Septuagint and New Testament - Greek Text of the Septuagint and NT with parsing (no diacritics).
Greek text - Complete Greek text hyperlinked to Strong's concordance.
The Septuagint in classical Greek as a MS Word document
A recent interlinear edition of the Septuagint and Greek New Testament
The original LXX Book of Daniel in Greek
Sir Lancelot C.L. Brenton's translation
The Septuagint LXX: Greek and English partial version of Brenton's edition
The New English Translation of the Septuagint, preliminary edition
Project to produce an Orthodox Study Bible whose Old Testament is based entirely on the Septuagint.
The Holy Orthodox Bible, another English translation project of the Septuagint using Greek Orthodox texts of the Septuagint
Bible Resource Pages - contains Septuagint texts (with diacritics) side-by-side with English translations

The LXX and the NT

Septuagint references in NT by John Salza
The New Testament and the Septuagint - Instances where the New Testament quotes the LXX against the Masoretic Hebrew
The New Testament and the Hebrew OT - Instances where the New Testament quote agrees with the Masoretic Hebrew meaning
A defense of the quoting of the LXX by the writers of the New Testament.

Table of books

LXX	LXX Anglicized	MT Anglicized

Law
Γένεσις	Genesis	Genesis
Έξοδος	Exodus	Exodus
Λευιτικόν	Leviticus	Leviticus
Αριϑμοί	Numbers	Numbers
Δευτερονόμιον	Deuteronomy	Deuteronomy

History
Ιεσοῦϛ Nαυῆ	Jesus Nauë	Joshua
Κριταί	Judges	Judges
Ῥουϑ	Ruth	Ruth
Βασίλειων	Kingdoms
Α'	I	I Samuel
Β'	II	II Samuel
Γ'	III	I Kings
Δ'	IV	II Kings
Παραλειπομένων	Things Left Out
Α'	I	I Chronicles
Β'	II	II Chronicles
Εσδράς	Esdras
Α'	I	—
Β'	II	Ezra & Nehemiah
Εσθήρ	Es·th·er	Esther+
Ιουδίθ	Judith	—
Τωβίας	Toby	—

Wisdom
Ψαλμοί	Psalms	Psalms
Ιώβ	Iōb	Job
Παροιμίαι	Proverbs	Proverbs
Εκκλῆσιαστής	Ecclesiastes	Ecclesiastes
Άσμα	Song	Song of Solomon
Σοφία Σαλωμών	Wisdom of Salomon	—
Σοφία Ιεσοῦϛ Σειράχ	Wisdom of Jesus Seirach	—

Prophets
Δώδεκα	The Twelve
Οσηέ Α'	I. Osëe	Hosea
Αμώς Β'	II. Amōs	Amos
Μιχαίαϛ Γ'	III. Michai	Micah
Ιοέλ Δ'	IV. Ioel	Joel
Οβδίου Ε'	V. Obdiu	Obadiah
Ιωνάϛ Ϛ'	VI. Ionas	Jonah
Ναούμ Ζ'	VII. Naum	Nahum
Αμβακούμ Η'	VIII. Ambakum	Habakkuk
Σοφονίας Θ'	IX. Sophony	Zephaniah
Αγγαίοϛ Ι'	X. Angai	Haggai
Ζαχαρίαϛ ΙΑ'	XI. Zachary	Zachariah
Αγγέλος ΙΒ'	XII. Messenger	Malachi
Ἑσαΐαϛ	Hesai	Isaiah
Ἱερεμίας	Hieremy	Jeremiah
Βαρούχ	Baruch	—
Θρήνοι	Lamentations	Lamentations
Ιεζεκιέλ	Iezekiel	Ezekiel
Δανιέλ	Daniel	Daniel+
NOTE: LXX=Septuagint, MT=Masoretic Text. To these books of the old Greek LXX were added the Anaginoskomena before the time of Christ. This table does not attempt a verse-mapping of texts. In the Old Latin Vulgate, translated from the oldest LXX, "Tobias" is written in place of "Tobit."