Septuagint, Septuagint

It is not altogether clear which was translated when, or where; some may even have been translated twice, into different versions, and then revised. Joel Kalvesmaki, The Septuagint The quality and style of the different translators also varied considerably from book to book, from the literal to paraphrasing to interpretative. According to one assessment "the Pentateuch is reasonably well translated, but the rest of the books, especially the poetical books, are often very poorly done and even contain sheer absurdities". Sir Godfrey Driver, Introduction to the Old Testament of the New English Bible (1970) As the work of translation progressed gradually, and new books were added to the collection, the compass of the Greek Bible came to be somewhat indefinite. The Pentateuch always maintained its pre-eminence as the basis of the canon; but the prophetic collection changed its aspect by having various hagiographa incorporated into it. Some of the newer works, those called anagignoskomena in Greek, are not included in the Jewish canon. Among these books are Maccabees and the Wisdom of Ben Sira. Also, the Septuagint version of some works, like Daniel and Esther, are longer than those in the Masoretic Text. Rick Grant Jones, Various Religious Topics, " Books of the Septuagint ," (Accessed 2006.9.5).

See Books of the Bible The authority of the larger group of writings, out of which the ketuvim were selected, had not yet been determined, although some sort of selective process must have been employed because the Septuagint did not include other well-known Jewish documents such as Enoch or Jubilees or other writings that are now part of the Pseudepigrapha. It is not known what principles were used to determine the contents of the Septuagint beyond the "Law and the Prophets", a phrase used several times in the New Testament.

In the first column was the contemporary Hebrew, in the second a Greek transliteration of it, then the newer Greek versions each in their own columns. Origen also kept a column for the Old Greek (the Septuagint) and next to it was a critical apparatus combining readings from all the Greek versions with diacritical marks indicating to which version each line (Gr. ) belonged.

Ancient scholars, however, did not suspect this. Early Christianswho were largely unfamiliar with Hebrew texts, and were thus only made aware of the differences through the newer Greek versionstended to dismiss the differences as a product of uninspired translation of the Hebrew in these new versions. Following the Renaissance, a common opinion among some humanists was that the LXX translators bungled the translation from the Hebrew and that the LXX became more corrupt with time. The discovery of many fragments in the Dead Sea scrolls that agree with the Septuagint rather than the Masoretic Text proved that many of the variants in Greek were also present in early Semitic manuscripts. Jones, Table: Dead Sea Scrolls-Septuagint Alignments Against the Masoretic Text.

Alexandria is thus likely the site of LXX authorship, a notion supported by the legend of Ptolemy and the 72 scholars. There is some debate, however, regarding the location of the translations of the non-Pentateuch books. See Dines. One theory, that even the Pentateuch reflects variant "local" forms, is criticized in Emmanuel Tov, The Text Critical Use of The Septuagint in Biblical Research, 2nd edn., Jerusalem: Simor, 1997.

He came to believe that the Hebrew text better testified to Christ than the Septuagint.

But with the passage of time, acceptance of Jerome's version gradually increased until it displaced the Old Latin translations of the Septuagint.

The Septuagint order for the Old Testament is evident in the earliest Christian Bibles (5th century).

For example the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings are in the LXX one book in four parts called ("Of Reigns"); scholars believe that this is the original arrangement before the book was divided for readability. In LXX, the Books of Chronicles supplement Reigns and it is called Paraleipomnon (—things left out). The Septuagint organizes the minor prophets as twelve parts of one Book of Twelve.

The books are Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Jesus Sirach, Baruch, Epistle of Jeremy (which later became chapter 6 of Baruch in the Vulgate), 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, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Odes, including the Prayer of Manasses, and Psalm 151. The canonical acceptance of these books varies among different Christian traditions, and there are canonical books not derived from the Septuagint; for a discussion see the article on Biblical apocrypha.

Its two critical apparatuses present variant Septuagint readings and variants from other Greek versions.

A. Muses in 1954. The translation of Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton, published in 1851, is a long-time standard. For most of the time since its publication it has been the only one readily available, and has continually been in print. It is based primarily upon the Codex Vaticanus and contains the Greek and English texts in parallel columns. There also is a revision of the Brenton Septuagint available through Stauros Ministries, called The Apostles' Bible , released in January 2008.

There is at least one highly unreliable nearly complete text of the LXX, Codex Alexandrinus. Nearly complete texts of the Septuagint are also found in the Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, which do not perfectly coincide. But the LXX is a particularly excellent text when compared to other ancient works with textual variants. It has been argued that it is unjustified to reject the existence of a Septuagint merely on the basis of variation due to editorial recension and typographical error.

Source: Wikipedia > Septuagint