[Due north.B. This blog has many kinds of readers, some of whom are interested in the academic side of patristics, others of whom are non. Occasionally we'll make forays into Greek and Latin or other technical topics, but these are a sidelight to our main purpose.]

In our readings from Justin in the past and coming weeks, Justin makes a spirited example for Christianity on the basis of the Erstwhile Attestation. Though Justin had access to the "memoirs of the apostles," which probable included the Gospel of John, the Scriptures that became the New Testament had not even so been canonized and collected, so information technology is not surprising that Justin relies on the Sometime Testament. Since he was writing in Greek, Justin did non read the Old Testament in Hebrew, just in Greek. In ii notable passages, which nosotros'll accept up in a moment, Justin describes how the Old Testament was translated into Greek and the deviation that made for Christian theology.

In all our reading then far, you might take noticed that when the fathers quote from the Old Testament, the wording does not quite match the text of your English language Bible. Sometimes the male parent is only alluding to a passage, every bit yous might in a conversation, or sometimes the father seems to be quoting from memory. But oftentimes the quotation differs because the fathers were using a Greek Onetime Attestation, just your English Bible is a translation of the Hebrew Sometime Testament. Of form you demand non look to the fathers to find these differences, because the New Testament writers also ofttimes quoted from a Greek rather than a Hebrew text. Both the apostles and the fathers were using a version of the Old Testament chosen the Septuagint.

In hisCommencement Apology (ch. 31), Justin describes how the Hebrew Scriptures came to be translated into Greek at Alexandria, a story given at greater length in theLetter of the alphabet of Aristeas. The fable of the Septuagint is that the Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the Hellenistic king of Arab republic of egypt from 283 to 246 BC, requested a translation of the Pentateuch into Greek for the library at Alexandria. On the island of Pharos in the harbor of Alexandria, which was the site of a lighthouse that was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, seventy-two Jewish elders from Jerusalem met and translated the Pentateuch into Greek in seventy-two days.

This story is just a legend, of course, but quondam in the third-century BC the Pentateuch and later the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek at Alexandria. These collection of Greek texts came to be known equally the Septuagint (significant "lxx" and abbreviated Lxx). The Septuagint was only the oldest of several Greek versions of the Scriptures in the two or 3 centuries earlier Christ. The church father Origen (184–254), whom nosotros'll read starting side by side September, was famous for his Hexapla, a six-cavalcade collection of a Hebrew and several Greek versions of the Onetime Testament, and Jerome also identified other Greek translations. Only the Septuagint bears the distinction of having been the version used most often by the apostles and the fathers.

Virtually modern English language versions of the Old Testament are translated from the Masoretic Text, a text type of the Hebrew Bible passed down with slap-up precision past Jewish scribes. The oldest extant manuscripts of the Masoretic Text date to the ninth century A.D., though the text preserved is older. The Septuagint is not a translation of the Masoretic Text; rather, it is a translation of Hebrew manuscripts that predate the Masoretic Text. Thus the Hebrew Masoretic Text and Greek Septuagint are independent witnesses to the original Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament.1

The differences between the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint are not always easy to spot. Many English translations, particularly older translations like the Authorized Version, endeavor to reconcile the Hebrew Old Attestation with the New Testament's quotations in Greek, and thus with the Septuagint. Fifty-fifty modern English translations, like the NRSV or ESV, which are translated from the Masoretic Text rather than from the Septuagint, are translated in lite of a Christological interpretation originally based on the Seventy.

Comparing of the Septuagint and Masoretic Text

The most obvious difference betwixt the Septuagint and the Hebrew Bible is the list of books that comprises each. The Septuagint contains all the books that are part of the Hebrew Bible, albeit in a different combination and lodge, simply the Septuagint also includes other books, such as Judith, Tobit, the books of the Maccabees, the Wisdom of Sirach (as well called Ecclesiasticus). In addition, some of the books included in the Hebrew canon have longer versions in the Septuagint, including Daniel and Esther.

The various churches of Christendom disagree nigh the authority of these additional books. In the most general of terms: All Christians have all of what comprises the Hebrew canon. The Eastern Orthodox churches accept all of the books in the Hebrew canon as translated in the Septuagint, and they accept all of the books in the Septuagint. The Roman Cosmic church accepts near of the books in the Apocrypha (the so-called deuterocanon). Since Luther, Protestants accept simply the Hebrew canon. (Luther not but denied the potency of the Apocrypha, he also doubted the canonicity of several New Testament books, most famously James, and some Erstwhile Testament books, such as Esther.) But many Protestant churches make utilise of the Apocrypha in liturgical readings (in the words of the Xxx-Nine Articles, "the Church doth read [those books] for example of life and teaching of manners; but notwithstanding doth it non apply them to establish whatsoever doctrine"), and Protestant versions of the Bible such every bit the King James Version and the Revised Standard Version routinely included the Apocrypha.2

The other important difference between the Septuagint and the Hebrew Bible is the wording of specific passages. Two examples will suffice:

  • Hebrews x:5–seven is a quotation from Psalm twoscore:6–viii. The phrase in Hebrews "a torso you have prepared for me" is a quotation from the LXX version of Psalm 40:vi, where the Masoretic text reads, "ears yous fashioned for me."
  • Matthew 1:23 ("the virgin shall conceive") is a quotation from the Seventy version of Isaiah 7:14. The word for "virgin" in both the Septuagint and the gospel is παρθένος, and Christian apologetics both ancient and modernistic have had to demonstrate that the Greek give-and-take is an accurate translation of the underlying Hebrew word.

One related textual variation that is of import for understanding the fathers concerns Psalm 96:10 (=95:10 70). The Hebrew Bible, modernistic disquisitional editions of the Septuagint, and all modernistic English translations render role of that verse as "The Lord reigns." But some of the fathers had a Greek or Latin version that added the words, "ἀπο του ξύλου"—"The Lord reigns from the tree," with obvious Christological implications. In hisDialogue with Trypho, Justin goes then far as to accuse Jews of removing those words from the text (ch. 73), though these words were certainly added by Christians  and not removed by Jews.3 Augustine interpreted the Psalm including those words, though Jerome disagreed that they were office of the text.4

Significance of the Septuagint

I'm not going to try to resolve the theological and apologetic questions that the differences between the Hebrew and Greek Quondam Testaments pose. Those large questions tin can but be answered by detailed investigation into the particulars of New Attestation and patristic use of the Old Testament. Only I do want to suggest several reasons to consult the Septuagint.

First, if you lot want to sympathize the theology and biblical interpretation of the fathers, then information technology tin be helpful to have the same Old Testament text in front of you that was in front of them. This includes the books outside the Hebrew catechism, which are occasionally cited by the fathers and in a few cases alluded to in the New Testament. I'thou not request anyone to reconsider his or her catechism, but it'south worth at least beingness acquainted with all the books that have been deemed Scripture.

2nd, the Septuagint was the first edition of the Old Testament in apply in churches, both in the east and in the w. This heritage deserves laurels. (I realize that this argument, taken to an farthermost could be a fallacy—"It was practiced for the church fathers [3x] … and it'due south good enough for me.")

3rd, using the Septuagint forces us to face up the Scriptures as they are, rather than as we presume they ought to be. In my (narrow) feel, a common error in thinking near the Scriptures is to brand some a deductive claim about how the Scriptures ought to part, then to demonstrate that they exercise in fact office in that way, when instead nosotros ought to get-go see how how God has used the Scriptures and the church has read them, then learn how we can describe them. The Septuagint makes things messier, just that's how things really are. If the Scriptures are the Word of God in a mode that is parallel to Christ beingness the incarnated Discussion of God, and then nosotros have to give full weight to the way the Scriptures take man form, without veering into whatsoever the equivalent of the docetist or gnostic heresies would exist, even if that makes the Scriptures sometimes seem like "an untidy and leaky vehicle."

Fourth, Christians have always interpreted the Septuagint Christologically. We must of course avoid Justin'due south mistake in insisting on versions of the text that are absolutely indefensible. Just information technology was reading the Septuagint which persuaded Christians that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, the Logos of God. It's essential to larn how to read the Old Testament Christologically as the fathers did, and this can be done from the Septuagint.

The Septuagint in English language

If y'all want an English translation of the Septuagint, there is a recent edition titledA New English Translation of the Septuagint.NETS is bachelor for gratis in its entirety online in PDF proofs of the book.NETSis based on the NRSV, meaning that it apology the NRSV translation of the Hebrew Bible where the Septuagint Greek differs from the Hebrew. The reasoning is well explained in the translators' preface "To the Readers" (PDF), which I recommend for further data on the Septuagint. The existent advantage ofNETS is the ability to look upwards Old Testament passages and accept a translation of the edition that the fathers were using.

The Septuagint in Greek

Cover of Rahlfs SeptuagintaSome of our readers may know Greek, and wish to consult a Greek edition. The best consummate disquisitional edition of the Greek text of the Septuagint is Rahlfs and Hanhart'due southSeptuaginta, published past Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft as are the critical editions of the Greek New Attestation.5 This edition includes all of the books that incorporate the Septuagint. An older edition of the Greek text of the Septuagint is Lancelot C. Brenton'sThe Septuagint with Apocrypha, first published in an English translation in 1844, so in a Greek-English diglot in 1870, and still in print by Hendrickson. Brenton'due south edition is the cheapest, and to my noesis it is the simply diglot on the marketplace.half dozen Merely Brenton'southward text is bizarre and unreliable. Besides the progress fabricated in Septuagint scholarship since the nineteenth century, Brenton'southward translation is not really a Septuagint at all. The books are listed in the society of the Hebrew Bible rather than the Septuagint, with the boosted books of the Septuagint in the back as apocrypha. More troubling, Brenton seems to have included merely the verses of the Hebrew Bible, rather than preserving the readings of the Septuagint. Since Brenton's version is but the Hebrew Bible arranged in Greek, I can't imagine what useful scholarly purpose it could serve.7

Farther Reading

If you'd like a fuller introduction to the Septuagint, I highly recommend Karen H. Jobes and Moiesés Silva'southInvitation to the Septuagint, which discusses the history of the Septuagint, an introduction to current editions, and an explanation of some passages in the Septuagint. If you desire help learning to read the Septuagint in Greek, Rodney Decker'sKoine Greek Reader: Selections from the New Attestation, Septuagint, and Early Christian Writersis an introductory text, similar in format to the patristic Greek reader I recommended earlier.