Septuagint
SEPTUAGINT
The seventy, is the name of the most ancient Greek version of the Old Testament, and is so called because there were said to have been seventy translators.The accounts of its origin disagree, but it should probably be assigned to the third century before Christ. This ancient version contains many errors, and yet as a whole is a faithful one, particularly in the books of Moses; it is of great value in the interpretation of the Old Testament, and is very often quoted by the New Testament writers, who wrote in the same dialect. It was the parent of the first Latin, the Coptic, and many other versions, and was so much quoted and followed by the Greek and Roman fathers as practically to supersede the original Hebrew, until the last few centuries. The chronology of the Septuagint differs materially from that of the Hebrew text, adding, for example, 606 years between the creation and the deluge. See ALEXANDRIA.
Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
SEPTUAGINT
The name given to a Greek version of the books of the Old Testament, from its being supposed to be the work of seventy-two Jews, who are usually called the seventy interpreters, because seventy is a round number. Aristobulus, who was a tutor to Ptolemy Physcon; Philo, who lived in our Saviour’s time, and was contemporary with the apostles; and Josephus, speak of this translation as made by seventy-two interpreters, by the care of Demetrius Phalereus, in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. All the Christian writers, during the first fifteen centuries of the Christian aera, have admitted this account of the Septuagint as an undoubted fact; but, since the reformation, critics have boldly called it in question. But whatever differences of opinion there have been as to the mode of translation, it is universally acknowledged that such a version, whole or in part, existed; and it is pretty evident that most of the books must have been translated before our Saviour’s time, as they are quoted by him. It must also be considered as a wonderful providence in favour of the religion of Jesus. It prepared the way for his coming, and afterwards greatly promoted the setting up of his kingdom in the world; for hitherto the Scriptures had remained locked up from all other nations but the Jews, in the Hebrew tongue, which was understood by no other nation; but now it was translated into the Greek language, which was a language commonly understood by the nations of the world.
It has also been with great propriety observed, “that there are many words and forms of speech in the New Testament, the true import of which cannot be known but by their use in the Septuagint. This version also preserves many important words, some sentences, and several whole verses which originally made a part of the Hebrew text, but have long ago entirely disappeared. This is the version, and this only, which is constantly used and quoted in the Gospels and the apostles, and which has thereby received the highest sanction which any writings can possibly receive.” There have been various editions of the Septuagint; such as Breitenger’s edition, 1730; Boss’s edition, 1709; Daniel’s edition, 1653; Mill’s edition, 12mo. 1725; bishop Pearson’s printed by Field, 12mo. 1665; but Grabe’s edition, published in 1707, is in great repute. Dr. Holmes, canon of Christ Church, was employed for some years on a correct edition of the Septuagint. He had been collating from more than three hundred Greek manuscripts; from twenty or more Coptic, Syriac, Arabic, Sclavonian, and Armenian manuscripts; from eleven editions of the Greek text and versions; and from near thirty Greek fathers, when death prevented him from finishing this valuable work. He printed the whole of the Pentateuch in five parts follo; and lately edited the prophecy of Daniel according to Theodotian and the LXX., departing from his proposed order, as if by a presentiment of his end. This valuable work is now continued by Mr. Parsons, of Cambridge. Those who desire a larger account of this translation, may consult Hody de Bib. Textibus; Prideaux’s Connections; Owen’s Inquiry into the Septuagint Version; Blair’s Lectures on the Canon; and Michaelis’s Introduction to the New Testament; Clarke’s Bibliotheca.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
Septuagint
(Greek: seventy)
The name given to the Greek translation of the Old Testament made from the Hebrew by different authors, between 300 and 130 B.C., at Alexandria for the Jewish colonists of Egypt. It takes its name from a false legend which says that at the request of Ptolemy II (284-247), 72 scholars were sent from Jerusalem to Egypt to translate the Pentatetuch into Greek. The translation is at times liberal and at times free, but, on the whole, faithful. The inferior version of Daniel was later displaced by the revision of that book by Theodotion. The Septuagint contains also the deuterocanonical books. It was used by the Apostles and the early Christians and is still the official text of the Greek Church, both Uniat and Orthodox. This version was revised by Theodotion, a Jewish proselyte, Origen, and others. The Old Latin, Coptic, Ethiopic, and other versions are based on the Septuagint.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Septuagint
is the common title of the earliest and most important version of the Old Testament, namely, into Greek, and is generally held to have derived its title (seventy) from the traditionary number of its translators (see below), rather than (as Eichhorn thought) from the authority of the Alexandrian Sanhedrim as consisting of seventy members. In the following account we shall endeavor to sift the truth out of the traditions on this subject. SEE GREEK VERSIONS.
I. Origin of the Version. This is as great a riddle as the sources of the Nile. The causes which produced the translation, the number and names of the translators, the times at which different portions were translated, are all uncertain.
1. Ancient Testimony on the Subject.
(1.) The oldest writer who makes mention of the Septuagint is Aristobulus, an author referred to by Eusebius (Proepar. Evangel. 13, 12) and Clement of Alexandria (Stromata, 5, 595). According to Eusebius, he was a Jew, who united the Aristotelian with the Jewish philosophy, and composed a commentary on the law of Moses, dedicated to Ptolemy Philometor. He is also mentioned in 2 Maccabees 1, 10. Both Clement and Eusebius make him contemporary with Philometor (2d century B.C.). for the passages in their writings, in which they speak of him under Philadelphus must either have been corrupted by ignorant transcribers or have been so written by mistake (Valckenaer, 10, 11; Dhne, p. 81 sq.). His words relative to the Septuagint are these:
It is manifest that Plato has followed our law, and studied diligently all its particulars; for before Demetrius Phalereus a translation had been made by others of the history of the Hebrews’ going forth out of Egypt, and of all that happened to them, and of the conquest of the land, and of the exposition of the whole law. Hence it is manifest that the aforesaid philosopher borrowed many things, for he was very learned, as was Pythagoras, who also transferred many of our doctrines into his system. But the entire translation of our whole law ( ) was made in the time of the king named Philadelphus, a man of greater zeal, under the direction of Demetrius Phalereus.
The entire passage has occasioned much conjecture and discussion. It is given by Valckenaer (Diatribe, etc.), Thiersch (De Versione Alexandrina), and Frankel (Vorstudien, etc.). It appears that the words of Aristobulus do not speak of any prior Greek translation, as Hody supposes, or indeed of any translation whatever. They rather refer to some brief extracts relative to Jewish history, which had been made from the Pentateuch into a language commonly understood by the Jews in Egypt, before the time of Demetrius. The entire law was first rendered into Greek under Philadelphus. Hody, and after him Eichhorn, conjectured that the fragments of Aristobulus preserved by Eusebius and Clement were written in the 2d century by another Aristobulus, a Christian, and that Aristobulus, the professed Peripatetic, was a heathen. But the quotation of Cyril of Alexandria (Contra Julianum, lib. 6), to which they appeal, was erroneously made by that father, as may be seen by comparing it with Clement. Richard Simon also denied the authenticity of Aristobulus’s remains (Histoire Critique du V.T. p. 189). But Valckenaer has sufficiently established their authenticity.
The testimony of Aristobulus is corroborated by a Latin scholion recently found in a MS. of Plautus at Rome, which has been described and illustrated by Ritschl in a little book entitled Die alexandrinischen Bibliotheken, etc. (Berlin, 1838). From the passage of Aristobulus already quoted, it appears that in the time of Aristobulus, i.e. the beginning of the 2d century B.C., this version was considered to have been made when Demetrius Phalereus lived, or in the reign of Ptolemy Soter. Hody, indeed, has endeavored to show that this account contradicts the voice of certain history, because it places Demetrius in the reign of Philadelphus. But the version may have been begun under Soter and completed under Philadelphus, his successor. In this way may be reconciled the discordant notices of the time when it originated; for it is well known that the Palestinian account, followed by various fathers of the Church, asserts that Ptolemy Soter carried the work into execution, while according to Aristeas, Philo, Josephus, etc., his son Philadelphus was the person. Hody harmonizes the discrepancy by placing the translation of the Pentateuch in the two years during which father and son reigned conjointly (B.C. 286 and 285). The object of Demetrius in advising Soter to have in his library a copy of the Jewish laws in Greek is not stated by Aristobulus, but Aristeas relates that the librarian represented it to the king as a desirable thing that such a book should be deposited in the Alexandrian library. Some think that a literary rather than a religious motive led to the version. So Hvernick. This, however, may be reasonably doubted. Hody, Sturz, Frankel, and others conjecture that the object was religious or ecclesiastical. Eichhorn refers it to private impulse; while Hug takes the object to have been political. It is not probable, however, that the version was intended for the king’s use, or that he wished to obtain from it information respecting the best mode of governing a nation and enacting laws for its economic well-being. The character and language of the version unite to show that an Egyptian king, probably ignorant of Greek, could not have understood the work. Perhaps an ecclesiastical motive prompted the Jews who were originally interested in it, while Demetrius Phalereus and the king may have been actuated by some other design.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain whether Aristobulus’ words imply that all the books of the Old Test. were translated into Greek under Philadelphus, or simply the Pentateuch. Hody contends that , the term used by Aristobulus, meant at that time the Mosaic books alone, although it was afterwards taken in a wider sense so as to embrace all the Old Test. Valckenaer thinks that all the books were comprehended under it, It is certainly more natural to restrict it to the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch, therefore, was completed under Philadelphus.
(2.) The next historical testimony regarding the Septuagint is the prologue of Jesus the son of Sirach, a document containing the judgment of a Palestinian Jew concerning the version before us. His words are these: And not only these things, but the law itself, and the prophets, and the rest of the books, have no small difference when they are spoken in their own language. Frankel has endeavored to throw suspicion on this passage, as if it were unauthentic, but his reasons are extremely slender (p. 21, note w). It appears from it that the law, the prophets, and the other books had been translated into Greek in the time of the son of Sirach, i.e. that of Ptolemy Physcon, B.C. 130.
(3.) The account given by Aristeas comes next before us (see Rosenmller, Handb. d. Lit. d. bibl. Kritik u. Exeg. 2, 413 sq.). This writer pretends to be a Gentile, and a favorite at the court of Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt. In a letter addressed to his brother Philocrates, he relates that Philadelphus, when forming a library at great expense, was advised by Demetrius Phalereus to apply to the Jewish high priest Eleazer for a copy of the book containing the Jewish laws. Having previously purchased the freedom of more than a hundred thousand captive Jews in Egypt, the king sent Aristeas and Aidreas to Jerusalem with a letter requesting of Eleazer seventy-two persons as interpreters, six out of each tribe. They were dispatched accordingly with a magnificent copy of the law, and were received and entertained by the king for several days with great respect and liberality. Demetrius led them to an island, probably Pharos, where they lodged together. The translation was finished in seventy-two days, having been written down by Demetrius piece by piece, as agreed upon after mutual consultation. It was then publicly read by Demetrius to a number of Jews whom he had summoned together. They approved of it, and imprecations were uttered against any one who should presume to alter it. The Jews requested permission to take copies of it for their use, and it was carefully preserved by command of the king. The interpreters were sent home loaded with presents.
The work of Aristeas, which was first published in the original Greek by Simon Schard (Basel, 1561, 8vo), and several times reprinted, was also given by Hody in Greek and Latin, in his book entitled De Bibliorum Textibus Originalibus, Versionibus Groecis, et Latina Vulgata (Oxon. 1705, fol.). The most accurate edition, however, is that by Galland, in the Bibliotheca Vet. Patrum, vol. 2. It was translated into English by Whiston, and published at London in 1727, 8vo. See also Aristeas, Hist. 72 Int. ex Rec. Eld. de Parchum (Francf. 1610; Oxon. 1692).
(4.) In all discussions relative to the name of Septuagint, so universally appropriated to the Greek version of Alexandria, the scholion discovered by Osann and published by Ritschl ought to be considered. The origin of this Latin scholion is curious. The substance of it is stated to have been extracted from Callimachus and Eratosthenes, the Alexandrian librarians, by Tzetzes, and from his Greek note an Italian of the 15th century has formed the Latin scholion in question. The writer has been speaking of the collecting of ancient Greek poems carried on at Alexandria under Ptolemy Philadelphus, and then he thus continues: Nam rex ille philosophis affertissimus [corr. differtissimus, Ritschl; affectissimus, Thiersch] et caeteris omnibus auctoribus claris, disquisitis impensa regiae munificentiae ubique terrarum quantum valuit voluminibus opera Demetrii Phalerei phzxa senum duas bibliothecas fecit, alteram extra regiam alteram autem in regia. The scholion then goes on to speak of books in many languages: Quae summa diligentia rex ille in suam linguam fecit ab optimis interpretibus converti (see Thiersch, De Pentateuchi Versione Alexandrina [Erlang. 1841], p. 8, 9). Bernhardy reads instead of phzxa senum, et lxx senum, and this correction is agreed to by Thiersch, as it well may be: some correction is manifestly needed, and this appears to be right. This gives us seventy elders associated in the formation of the library. The testimony comes to us from Alexandrian authority; and this, if true (or even if believed to be true), would connect the Septuagint with the library a designation which might most easily be applied to a version of the Scriptures there deposited; and, let the translation be once known by such a name, then nothing would be more probable than that the designation should be applied to the translators. This may be regarded as the first step in the formation of the fables. Let the Septuagint be first known as applying to the associates in the collection of the library, then to the library itself, and then to that particular book in the library which to so many had a far greater value than all its other contents. Whether more than the Pentateuch was thus translated and then deposited in the royal library is a separate question.
2. Confirmation by Later Authorities.
(1.) Of Jewish writers, Josephus (Ant. 12, 2) agrees in the main with Aristeas; but Philo’s account (De Vita Mosis, lib. 2) differs in a number of circumstances.
(2.) Among the Greek Church fathers Irenaeus (lib. 3, c. 24) relates that Ptolemy Lagi, wishing to adorn his Alexandrian library with the writings of all nations, requested from the Jews of Jerusalem a Greek version of their Scriptures; that they sent seventy elders well skilled in the Scriptures and in later languages; that the king separated them from one another and bade them all translate the several books. When they came together before Ptolemy and showed their versions, God was glorified, for they all agreed exactly, from beginning to end, in every phrase and word, so that all men may know that the Scriptures are translated by the inspiration of God.
Justin Martyr (Cohort. ad Groecos, p. 34) gives the same account, and adds that he was taken to see the cells in which the interpreters worked.
Epiphanius says that the translators were divided into pairs, in thirty-six cells, each pair being provided with two scribes; and that thirty-six versions agreeing in every point were produced, by the gift of the Holy Spirit (De Pond. et Mens. c. 3-6).
(3.) Among the Latin fathers Augustine adheres to the inspiration of the translators Non autem secundum LXX interpretes, qui etiam ipsi divino Spiritu interpretati, ob hoc aliter videntur nonnulla dixisse, ut ad spiritualem sensum scrutandum magis admoneretur lectoris intentio (De Doctr. Christ. 4, 15).
But Jerome boldly throws aside the whole story of the cells and the inspiration Et nescio quis primus auctor Septuaginta cellulas Alexandriae mendacio suo extruxerit, quibus divisi eadem scriptitarent, cum Aristseus ejusdem Ptolemaei , et multo post tempore Josephus, nihil tale retulerint: sed in una basilica congregatos, contulisse scribant, non prophetasse. Aliud est enim vatem, aliud esse interpretem. Ibi Spiritus ventura praedicit; hic eruditio et verborum copia ea quae intelligit transfert (Proef. ad Pent.).
3. Modern Opinions.
(1.) Until the latter half of the 17th century the origin of the Sept. as given by Aristeas was firmly believed; while the numerous additions that had been made to the original story in the progress of centuries were unhesitatingly received as equally genuine. The story was first reckoned improbable by L. Vives (in a note to Augustine’s De Civitate Dei); then Scaliger asserted that it was written by a Jew; and Richard Simon was too acute a critic not to perceive the truth of Scaliger’s assertion. Hody was the first who demonstrated with great learning, skill, and discrimination that the narrative could not be authentic (De Bibl. Text. Orig. Vers. Groec. et Lat. Vulg. [Oxford, 1705] lib. 4). It is now universally pronounced fabulous.
(2.) But the Pseudo-Aristeas had a basis of fact for his fiction; on three points of his story there is no material difference of opinion and they are confirmed by the study of the version itself: (a.) The version was made at Alexandria. (b.) It was begun in the time of the earlier Ptolemies, about B.C. 280. (c.) The law (i.e. the Pentateuch) alone was translated at first. It is also very possible that there is some truth in the statement that a copy was placed in the royal library. (The emperor Akbar caused the New Test. to be translated into Persian.)
(3.) But by whom was the version made? As Hody justly remarks, It is of little moment whether it was made at the command of the king or spontaneously by the Jews; but it is a question of great importance whether the Hebrew copy of the law and the interpreters (as Pseudo-Aristeas and his followers relate) were summoned from Jerusalem and sent by the high priest to Alexandria. On this question no testimony can be so conclusive as the evidence of the version itself, which bears upon its face the marks of imperfect knowledge of Hebrew, and exhibits the forms and phrases of the Macedonic Greek prevalent in Alexandria, with a plentiful sprinkling of Egyptian words. The forms , betray the fellow-citizens of Lycophron, the Alexandrian poet, who closes his iambic line with . Hotldy (2, 4) gives several examples of Egyptian renderings of names and coins and measures; among them the hippodrome of Alexandria for the Hebrew Cibrath (Gen 48:7), and the papyrus of the Nile for the rush of Job (Job 8:11). The reader of the Sept. will readily agree with his conclusion, Sive regis jussu, sive sponte a Judaeis, a Judaeis Alexandrinus fuisse factam. The question as to the moving cause which gave birth to the version is one which cannot be so decisively answered either by internal evidence or by historical testimony. The balance of probability must be struck between the tradition, so widely and permanently prevalent, of the king’s intervention, and the simpler account suggested by the facts of history and the phenomena of the version itself. It is well known that after the Jews returned from the captivity of Babylon, having lost in great measure the familiar knowledge of the ancient Hebrew, the readings from the books of Moses in the synagogues of Palestine were explained to them in the Chaldaic tongue in Targums or paraphrases; and the same was done with the books of the prophets when, at a later time, they also were read in the synagogues. The Jews of Alexandria had probably still less knowledge of Hebrew; their familiar language was Alexandrian Greek. They had settled in Alexandria in large numbers soon after the time of Alexander and under the earlier Ptolemies. They would naturally follow the same practice as their brethren in Palestine; the law first, and afterwards the prophets, would be explained in Greek, and from this practice would arise in time an entire Greek version. All the phenomena of the version seem to confirm this view; the Pentateuch is the best part of the version; the other books are more defective, betraying probably the increasing degeneracy of the Hebrew MSS. and the decay of Hebrew learning with the lapse of time.
(4.) Nevertheless, the opinion that the Pentateuch was translated a considerable time before the prophets is not warranted by the language of Justin, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Epiphanius, and Hilary of Poitiers; although we are aware that Aristeas, Josephus, Philo, the Talmudists, and Jerome mention the law only as having been interpreted by the seventy-two. Hody thinks that the Jews first resorted to the reading of the prophets in their synagogues when Antiochus Epiphanes forbade the use of the law, and therefore that the prophetic portion was not translated till after the commencement of Philometor’s reign. It is wholly improbable, however, that Antiochus interdicted the Jews merely from reading the Pentateuch (comp. 1Ma 1:41, etc.; and Josephus, Ant. 12, 5; Frankel, p. 48, 49). The interval between the translating of the law and the prophets, of which many speak, was probably very short. Hody’s proof that the book of Joshua was not translated till upwards of twenty years after the death of Ptolemy Lagi, founded upon the word , is perfectly nugatory, although the time assigned cannot be far from the truth. The epilogue to the book of Esther does not state that this part of the Old Test. was translated under Ptolemy Philometor or that it was dedicated to him. On the contrary it refers to a certain epistle containing apocryphal additions to the canonical book of Esther (Valckenaer, p. 33, 63). It is a fruitless task to attempt to ascertain the precise times at which separate portions of the version were made. All that can be known with any degree of probability is that it was begun under Lagi and finished before the thirty-eighth year of Ptolemy Physcon. It is obvious from internal evidence that there were several translators, but certainly not seventy-two. Hody has endeavored to parcel out their version into small portions, assigning each part to a separate person, and affirming that they were put together in one cento without revision; but his notions of rigid uniformity in the translators are such as exclude perspicuity, freedom, variety, and elegance. There is no ground for believing that the Pentateuch proceeded from more than one interpreter, who was unquestionably the most skilful of all. The entire work was made by five or six individuals at least, and must, consequently, be of unequal value. Comp. Amersfoordt, De Variis Lectio. Holmes. Loc. quorund. Pent. Mos. (Lugd. 1815); Thiersch, De Pent. Vers. Al. Libri III (Erlang. 1841); Frankel, Ueber d. Einfluss d. palest. Exeg. auf d. alex. Hermen. (Leips. 1851); Rosenmller, op. cit. p. 435 sq.
(5.) In opposition to the Pseudo-Aristeas, we cannot but maintain that the translators were Alexandrian, not Palestinian, Jews. The internal character of the entire version, particularly of the Pentateuch, sufficiently attests the fact. We find, accordingly, that proper names and terms peculiar to Egypt are rendered in such a manner as must have been unintelligible to a Greek- speaking population other than the Egyptian Jews. That the translators were Egyptians has been proved, to the satisfaction of all, by Hody; although some of his examples are not appropriate or conclusive. Frankel supposes that the version was made not only at different times, but at different places. This is quite arbitrary. There is no reason for believing with him that different books originated after this fashion, the impulse having gone forth from Alexandria and spreading to localities where the Jews had settled, especially Cyrene, Leontopolis, and even Asia Minor.
(6.) The division into verses and chapters is much later than the age of the translators. Our present editions have been printed in conformity with the division into chapters made in the 12th century, though they are not uniform in this particular. Still, however, many MSS. have separations in the text. The Alexandrine Codex is said by Grabe to have 140 divisions, or, as they may be called, chapters, in the book of Numbers alone (Prolegomena, c. 1, 7).
The titles given to the books, such as , etc., could hardly have been affixed by the translators, since often they do not harmonize with the version of the book itself to which they belong.
II. Textual Basis of the Version.
1. It has been inquired whether the translator of the Pentateuch followed a Hebrew or a Samaritan codex. The Sept. and Samaritan harmonize in more than a thousand places, where they differ from the Hebrew. Hence it has been supposed that the Samaritan edition was the basis of the version. Various considerations have been adduced in favor of this opinion; and the names of De Dieu, Selden, Whiston, Hottinger, Hassencamp, and Eichhorn are enlisted on its behalf. But the irreconcilable enmity subsisting between the Jews and the Samaritans, both in Egypt and Palestine, effectually militates against it. Besides, in the prophets and Hagiographa, the number of variations from the Masoretic text is even greater and more remarkable than those in the Pentateuch; whereas the Samaritan extends no further than the Mosaic books. No solution, therefore, can be satisfactory which will not serve to explain at once the cause or causes both of the differences between the Seventy and the Hebrew in the Pentateuch, and those found in the remaining books. The problem can be fully solved only by such a hypothesis as will throw light on the remarkable form of the Sept. in Jeremiah and Esther, where it deviates most from the Masoretic MSS., presenting such transpositions and interpolations as excite the surprise of the most superficial reader. The above solution of the question must be rejected not only for the reasons assigned, but also for the following.
(1.) It must be taken into account that if the discrepancies of the Samaritan and Jewish copies be estimated numerically, the Sept. will be found to agree far more frequently with the latter than the former.
(2.) In the cases of considerable and marked passages occurring in the Samaritan which are not in the Jewish, the Sept. does not contain them.
(3.) In the passages in which slight variations are found, both in the Samaritan and Sept., from the Jewish text, they often differ among themselves, and the amplification of the Sept. is less than that of the Samaritan.
(4.) Some of the small amplifications in which the Samaritan seems to accord with the Sept. are in such incorrect and non-idiomatic Hebrew that it is suggested that these must be translations, and, if so, probably from the Sept.
(5.) The amplifications of the Sept. and Samaritan often resemble each other greatly in character, as if similar false criticism had been applied to the text in each case. But as, in spite of all similarities such as these, the Pentateuch of the Sept. is more Jewish than Samaritan, we need not adopt the notion of translation from a Samaritan codex, which would involve the subject in greater difficulties, and leave more points to be explained. (On some of the supposed agreements of the Sept. with the Samaritan, see bishop Fitzgerald in Kitto’s Journal of Sacred Literature, Oct. 1848, p. 324-332.)
Some suppose that the one was interpolated from the other a conjecture not at all probable. Jahn and Bauer imagine that the Hebrew MS. used by the Egyptian Jews agreed much more closely with the Samaritan in., the text and forms of its letters than the present Masoretic copies. This hypothesis, however, even if it were otherwise correct, would not account for the great harmony existing between the Samaritan and Sept.
Another hypothesis has been put forth by Gesenius (Commentatio de Pent. Samar. Orig. Indole, et Auctor.), viz. that both the Samaritan and Sept. flowed from a common recension () of the Hebrew Scriptures, one older than either, and different in many places from the recension of the Masoretes now in common use. This supposition, says Prof. Stuart, by whom it is adopted, will account for the differences and for the agreements of the Sept. and Samaritan. The following objections have been made to this ingenious and plausible hypothesis.
(a.) It assumes that before the whole of the Old Test. was written there had been a recension or revision of several books. But there is no record or tradition in favor of the idea that inspired men applied a correcting hand in this manner till the close of the canon. To say that others did so is not in unison with right notions of the inspiration of Scripture, unless it be equally affirmed that they corrupted, under the idea of correcting, the holy books.
(b.) This hypothesis implies that a recension took place at a period comparatively early, before any books had been written except the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, and the writings of David and Solomon. If it be improbable that a revised edition was made before the completion of the canon, it is much more improbable that it was undertaken when few books were written.
(c.) It supposes that an older recension was still current after Ezra had revised the whole collection and closed the canon. In making the Sept. version, it is very improbable that the Jews, who were the translators, followed a recension far inferior in their estimation to the copy of the sacred books corrected by Ezra. This objection rests on the assumption that Ezra completed the canon of the Old Test., having been prompted, as well as inspired, to arrange and revise the books of Scripture. Such is the Jewish tradition; and although a majority of the German critics disallow its truth, yet it is held by very able and accomplished men.
Prof. Lee (Prolegomena to Bagster’s Polyglot) accounts for the agreement between the Sept. and Samaritan in another way. He conjectures that the early Christians interspersed their copies with Samaritan glosses, which ignorant transcribers afterwards inserted in the text. But he has not shown that Christians in general were acquainted with the Samaritan Pentateuch and its additions to the Hebrew copy; neither has he taken into account the reverence entertained by the early Christians for the sacred books. We cannot, therefore, attribute the least probability to this hypothesis.
Another hypothesis has been mentioned by Frankel, viz. that the Sept. flowed from a Chaldee version, which was used before and after the time of Ezra a version inexact and paraphrastic, which had undergone many alterations and corruptions. This was first proposed by R. Asaria di Rossi, in the midst of other conjectures. Frankel admits that the assumption of such a version is superfluous, except in relation to the Samaritan Pentateuch, where much is gained by it. This Chaldee version circulated in various transcripts here and there; and as the same care was not applied in preserving its integrity as was exercised with respect to the original Hebrew, the copies of it presented considerable differences among themselves. Both the Greek version and the Samaritan Pentateuch were taken from it. Frankel concedes that this hypothesis is not satisfactory with regard to the Sept., because the mistakes found in that version must have frequently originated in misunderstanding the Hebrew text. There is no evidence, however, that any Targum or Chaldee version had been made before Ezra’s time, or soon after. Explanations of the lessons publicly read by the Jews were given in Chaldee, not regularly perhaps, or uniformly; but it can scarcely be assumed that a Chaldee version had been made out in writing, and circulated in different copies. Glosses, or short expositions of words and sentences, were furnished by the public readers for the benefit of the people; and it is by no means improbable that several of these traditional comments were incorporated with the version by the Jewish translators, to Whom they were familiar.
In short, no hypothesis yet proposed commends itself to general reception, although the Vorstudien of Frankel have probably opened up the way towards a correct solution. The great source from which the striking peculiarities in the Sept. and the Samaritan flowed appears to us to have been early traditional interpretations current among the Jews, targums, or paraphrases not written, perhaps, but orally circulated. Such glossarial versions, which must have circulated chiefly in Palestine. require to be traced back to an early epoch to the period of the second Temple. They existed, in substance at least, in ancient times, at once indicating and modifying the Jewish mode of interpretation. The Alexandrian mode of interpretation stood in close connection with the Palestinian; for the Jews of Egypt looked upon Jerusalem as their chief city, and the Sanhedrim of Jerusalem as their ecclesiastical rulers. If, therefore, we can ascertain the traditional paraphrases of the one. those of the other must have been substantially the same (see Gieseler’s Eccles. Hist., transl. by Cunningham, 1, 30).
Tychsen (Tentamen de Variis Codd. Heb. V.T. MSS. Gener.) thought that the Sept. was made from the Hebrew transcribed into Hebrew-Greek characters. It is almost unnecessary to refer to such a notion. It never obtained general currency, having been examined and refuted by Dathe, Michaelis, and Hassencamp.
2. Evidence as to the Verbal Condition of the Original. Here we naturally inquire as, to two obvious points:
(1.) Was the version made from Hebrew MSS. with the vowel-points now used? A few examples will indicate the answer.
A. PROPER NAMES.
Hebrew.Septuagint.
Exo 6:17, , Libni..
Exo 6:19, , Machli..
Exo 13:20, , Etham.
Deu 3:10, , Salchah..
Deu 34:1, , Pisgah..
B. OTHER WORDS.
Hebrew.Septuagint.
Gen 1:9, , place. ().
Gen 15:11,
and he drove them away.( ).
Exo 12:17, ,
unleavened bread.).
Num 16:5, , in the
morning.().
Deu 15:18, , double., ().
Isa 9:8, , a word. ( ).
Examples of these two kinds are innumerable. Plainly the Greek translators had not Hebrew MSS. pointed as at present. In many cases (e.g. Exo 2:25; Nah 3:8) the Sept. has possibly preserved the true pronunciation and sense where the Masoretic pointing has gone wrong.
(2.) Were the Hebrew words divided from one another, and were the final letters , , , ,, in use when the Sept. was made? Take a few out of many examples:
Hebrew.Septuagint.
(1) Deu 26:5, ,
a perishing Syrian.( ).
(2) 2Ki 2:14, ,
he also.[it joins the two words in one].
(3) 2Ki 22:20,
therefore.()
(4) 1Ch 17:10, ,
and I told thee.(),
(5) Hos 6:5,
and thy judgmentsThe Sept. reads:
[are as] the light [that] goeth forth
(6) Zec 11:7,
even you, O poor of the flock.[it joins the first two words].
Here we find three cases (2, 4, 6) where the Sept. reads as one word what makes two in the present Hebrew text; one case (3) where one Hebrew word is made into two by the Sept.; two cases (1, 5) where the Sept. transfers a letter from the end of one word to the beginning of the next. By inspection of the Hebrew in these cases it will be easily seen that the Hebrew MSS. must have been written without intervals between the words, and that the present final forms were not then in use. In three of the above examples (4, 5, 6), the Sept. has perhaps preserved the true division and sense. In the study of these minute particulars, which enable us to examine closely the work of the translators, great help is afforded by Cappelli Critica Sacra, and by the Vorstudien of Frankel, who has most diligently anatomized the text of the Sept. His projected work on the whole of the version has not been completed, but he has published a part of it in his treatise Ueber den Einfluss der palstinischen Exegese auf die alexandrinische Hermeneutik, in which he reviews minutely the Sept. version of the Pentateuch.
III. Ecclesiastical Authority and Influence. The Sept. does not appear to have obtained general authority among the Jews so long as Hebrew was understood at Alexandria. It is remarkable that Aristobulus quotes the original, even where it departs from the text of the Sept. The version was indeed spread abroad in Egypt, Northern. Africa, and Asia Minor. It seems to have been so highly esteemed by the Jews as to be publicly read in some of their synagogues. From the 146th Novella of Justinian, it would seem that some Jews wished the public interpreter, who read the lessons out of the law and the prophets in Hebrew, to give his explanations of them in Greek, while others desired to have them in Chaldee. The reader, therefore, employed this translation as, explanatory of the sections recited in the original, yet, although they highly esteemed the Greek, they did not regard it as equal to the Hebrew. Even the Talmudists make honorable mention of its origin. It is true that the Talmud also speaks of it as an abomination to the Jews in Palestine; but this refers to the 2d century and the time following, not to the period immediately after the appearance of Christ. When controversies arose between Christians and Jews, and the former appealed with irresistible force of argument to this version, the latter denied that it agreed with the Hebrew original. Thus by degrees it became odious to the Jews as much execrated as it had before been commended. They had recourse to the translation of Aquila, who is supposed to have undertaken a new work from the Hebrew, with the express object of supplanting the Sept. and favoring the sentiments of his brethren,
Among the Christians the ancient text, called , was current before the time of Origen. We find it quoted by the early Christian fathers in Greek by Clemens Romanus, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus; in Latin versions by Tertullian and Cyprian. We find it questioned as inaccurate by the Jews (Just. Martyr, Apol.), and provoking them to obtain a better version (hence the versions of Aquila, etc.). We find it quoted by Josephus and Philo; and thus we are brought to the time of the apostles and evangelists, whose writings are full of citations and references, and imbued with the phraseology of the Sept. From all this we are justified in the following conclusions on this head:
1. This version was highly esteemed by the Hellenistic Jews before the coming of Christ. An annual festival was held at Alexandria in remembrance of the completion of the work (Philo, De Vita Mosis, lib. 2). The manner in which it is quoted by the writers of the New Test. proves that it had long been in general use. Wherever, by the conquests of Alexander or by colonization, the Greek language prevailed; wherever Jews were settled, and the attention of the neighboring Gentiles was drawn to their wondrous history and law, there was found the Sept., which thus became, by Divine Providence, the means of spreading widely the knowledge of the One True God and his promises of a Savior to come throughout the nations; it was indeed ostium gentibus ad Christum. To the wide dispersion of this version we may ascribe, in great measure, that general persuasion which prevailed over the whole East (percrebuerat Oriente toto) of the near approach of the Redeemer, and which led the magi to recognize the star that proclaimed the birth of the King of the Jews.
2. Not less wide was the influence of the Sept. in the spread of the Gospel. Many of those Jews who were assembled at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, from Asia Minor, from Africa, from Crete and Rome, used the Greek language; the testimonies to Christ from the law and the prophets came to them in the words of the Sept.; St. Stephen probably quoted from it in his address to the Jews; the Ethiopian eunuch was reading the Sept. version of Isaiah in his chariot ( ); they who were scattered abroad went forth into many lands, speaking of Christ in Greek, and pointing to the things written of him in the Greek version of Moses and the prophets; from Antioch and Alexandria in the East to Rome and Massilia in the West, the voice of the Gospel sounded forth in Greek; Clemens of Rome, Ignatius at Antioch, Justin Martyr in Palestine, Irenaeus at Lyons, and many more, taught and wrote in the words of the Greek Scriptures; and a still wider range was given to the Sept. by the Latin version (or versions) made from it for the use of the Latin churches in Italy and Africa; and in later times by the numerous other versions into the tongues of Egypt, Ethiopia, Armenia, Arabia, and Georgia. For a long period the Sept. was the Old Test. of the far larger part of the Christian Church (see the Hulsean Prize Essay, by W.R. Churton, On the Influence of the Sept. on the Progress of Christianity [Camb. 1861J; and an art. in the Zeitschr. f. wissensch. Theol. 1862, vol. 3).
A number of other versions have been founded on the Sept.
1. Various early Latin translations, the chief of which was the Vetus Itala;
2. The Coptic and Sahidic, belonging to the James , 2 d centuries;
3. The Ethiopic, belonging to the 4th century;
4. The Armenian, of the 5th century;
5. The Georgian, of the 6th century;
6. Various Syriac versions, of the 6th and 8th centuries;
7. Some Arabic versions, SEE ARABIC VERSIONS;
8. The Slavonic, belonging to the 9th century.
IV. Liturgical Origin of Portions of the Version. This is a subject for inquiry which has received but little attention; not so much, probably, as its importance deserves. It was noticed by Tregelles many years ago that the headings of certain psalms in the Sept. coincide with the liturgical directions in the Jewish Prayer book. The results were at a later period communicated in Kitto’s Journal of Sacred Literature, April 1852, p. 207- 209. The results may be briefly stated: The 23d Psalm, Sept. (Heb. 24th), is headed in the Sept. ; so, too, in Heb. in De Sola’s Prayers of the Sephardim, : Psalms 47, Sept. (Hebrews 48), : Psalms 93, Sept. (Hebrews 94), , : Psalms 92, Sept. (Hebrews 93), , ; There appear to be no Greek copies extant which contain similar headings for Psalms 81, 30 (Hebrews 82 and 81), which the Jewish Prayer book appropriates to the third and fifth days; but that such once existed in the case of the latter psalm seems to be shown from the Latin Psalterium Vetus having the prefixed quinta sabbati, . Delitzsch, in his Commentary on the Psalms, has recently pointed out that the notation of these psalms in the Sept. is in accordance with certain passages in the Talmud.
It is worthy of inquiry whether variations in other passages of the Sept. from the Hebrew text cannot at times be connected with liturgical use, and whether they do not originate in part from rubrical directions. It seems to be at least plain that the Psalms were translated from a copy prepared for synagogue worship.
V. Character of the Version. Under this head we have to consider several special questions relating to its internal character as a translation:
1. Is the Sept. Faithful in Substance? Here we cannot answer by citing a few examples; the question refers to the general texture, and any opinion we express must be verified by continuous reading. For a purely philological examination, SEE SEPTUAGINT, LINGUISTIC CHARACTER OF.
(1.) It has been clearly shown by Hody, Frankel, and others that the several. books were translated by different persons, without any comprehensive revision to harmonize the several parts. Names and words are rendered differently in different books; e.g. , the Passover, in the Pentateuch is rendered ; in 2Ch 35:6,. . , Urim, Exo 28:26, ; Deu 33:8, ; Ezr 2:63, (; Neh 7:65, . , Thummim, Exo 28:26, ; Ezr 2:63, . The Philistines in the Pentateuch and Joshua are ; in the other books .
The books of Judges, Ruth, Samuel, and Kings are distinguished by the use of instead of .
These are a few put of many like variations.
(2.) Thus the character of the version varies much in the several books; those of the Pentateuch are the best, as Jerome says (Confitemur plus quam caeteris cum Hebraicis consonare), and this agrees well with the external evidence that the law was translated first, when Hebrew MSS. were more correct and Hebrew better known. Perhaps the simplicity of the style in these early books facilitated the fidelity of the version.
(3.) The poetical parts are, generally speaking, inferior to the historical, the original abounding with rarer words and expressions. In these parts the reader of the Sept. must be continually on the watch lest an imperfect rendering of a difficult word mar the whole sentence. The Psalms and Proverbs are perhaps the best.
(4.) In the major prophets some of the most important prophecies are sadly obscured e.g. Isa 9:1, , , . . .; and in Isa 9:6, .
Ezekiel and the minor prophets (speaking generally) seem to be better rendered. The Sept. version of Daniel was not used, that of Theodotion being substituted for it.
(5.) Supposing the numerous glosses and duplicate renderings which have evidently crept from the margin into the text to be removed (e.g. Isa 7:16; Hab 3:2; Joe 1:8) for these are blemishes not of the version itself, but of the copies and forming a rough estimate of what the Sept. was in its earliest state, we may perhaps say of it, in the words of the well known simile, that it was, in many parts, the wrong side of the Hebrew tapestry, exhibiting the general outlines of the pattern, but confused in the more delicate lines, and with many ends of threads visible; or, to use a more dignified illustration, the Sept. is the image of the original seen through a glass not adjusted to the proper focus the larger features are shown, but the sharpness of definition is lost. On Judges, see Grabii Ep. ad J. Millium qua Ostend. L. Judd. Gen. LXX Ves,. eam esse quam MS. Alex. Exhibet, etc. (Oxf. 1705); Ziegler, Theol. Abhandl. (Gtt. 1791), vol. 1. On Samuel and Kings, Thenius, Kurzgef. exeg. Hdb. z. A.T. 4, 24 sq.; 9, 13 sq. On Chronicles, Movers, Krit. Unters. (Bonn, 1834). On Esther, Fritsche’s ed. (Zr. 1848). See Jeremiah s.v. Jud. Alex. ac Relig. init. Groec., em. Notisque Crit. ill. G.L. Spohn (Lips. 1794; 2d ed. 1824, by F.A.G. Spohn).
2. Is the Version Minutely Accurate in Details? We have anticipated the answer to this question, but will give a few examples:
(1.) The same word in the same chapter is often rendered by differing words Exo 12:13, , I will pass over, Sept. , but 23, , will pass over, Sept. .
(2.) Differing words by the same word Exo 12:23, , pass through, and , pass over, both by ; Num 15:4-5, , offering, and , sacrifice, both by .
(3.) The divine names are frequently interchanged; is put for , God, and for , Jehovah; and the two are often wrongly combined or wrongly separated.
(4.) Proper names are sometimes translated, sometimes not. In Genesis 23 : by translating the name Machpelah ( ), the version is made to speak first of the cave being in the field (ver.9), and then of the field being in the cave (Gen 23:17), , , the last word not warranted by the Hebrew. Zec 6:14 is a curious example of four names of persons being translated e.g. , to Tobijah, Sept. ; Pisgah in Deu 34:1, is , but in Deu 3:27, .
(5.) The translators are often misled by the similarity of Hebrew words e.g. Num 3:26, , the cords of it, Sept. . and 4:26, . In other places , and Isa 54:2, , both rightly. Exo 4:31, , they heard, Sept. (); Num 16:15, I have not taken one ass (), Sept. ,( ) ; Deu 32:10,
, he found him, Sept. ; 1Sa 12:2, .
, I am gray headed, Sept. ();Gen 3:17,
for thy sake, Sept. ( for).
In very similar cases the error may be thus traced to the similarity of some of the Hebrew letters, and , and , and 5, etc.; in some it is difficult to see any connection between the original and the version e.g. Deu 32:8, , the sons of Israel, Sept. . Aquila and Symmachus, .
Isa 21:11-12.Septuagint.
Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?
The watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night: v .
If ye will inquire, inquire ye. ,
Return, come. .
(6.) Besides the above deviations and many like them, which are probably due to accidental causes the change of a letter, or doubtful writing in the Hebrew there are some passages which seem to exhibit a studied variation in the Sept. from the Hebrew, e.g. Gen 2:2, on the seventh () day God ended his work; Sept. .. The addition in Exo 12:40, , appears to be of this kind, inserted to solve a difficulty.
Frequently the strong expressions of the Hebrew are softened down; where human parts are ascribed to God for hand the Sept. substitutes power; for mouth, word, etc. Exo 4:16, Thou shalt be to him instead of God (), Sept. (see Exo 4:15). These and many more savor of design rather than of accident or error.
The version is, therefore, not minutely accurate in details; and it may be laid down as a principle, never to build any argument on words or phrases of the Sept. without comparing them with the Hebrew. The Greek may be right; but very often its variations are wrong.
3. We shall now be prepared to weigh the tradition of the fathers, that the version was made by inspiration ( , Irenaeus; Divino Spiritu interpretati, Augustine). Even Jerome himself seems to think that the Sept. may have sometimes added words to the original ob Spiritus Sancti auctoritatem, licet in Hebraeis voluminibus non legatur (Proefat. in Paralip. tom. 1, col. 1419).
Let us try to form some conception of what is meant by the inspiration of translators. It cannot mean what Jerome here seems to allow, that the translators were divinely moved to add to the original, for this would be the inspiration of prophets, as he himself says in another passage (Prolog. in Genesin), Aliud est enim vertere, aliud esse interpretem. Every such addition would be, in fact, a new revelation. Nor can it be, as some have thought, that the deviations of the Sept. from the original were divinely directed, whether in order to adapt the Scriptures to the mind of the heathen or for other purposes. This would be, pro tanto, a new revelation, and it is difficult to conceive of such a revelation; for, be it observed, the discrepancy between the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures would tend to separate the Jews of Palestine from those of Alexandria, and of other places where the Greek Scriptures were used; there would be two different copies of the same books dispersed throughout the world, each claiming divine authority; the appeal to Moses and the prophets would lose much of its force; the standard of divine truth would be rendered doubtful; the trumpet would give an uncertain sound. No! If there be such a thing as an inspiration of translators, it must be an effect of the Holy Spirit on their minds, enabling them to do their work of translation more perfectly than by their own abilities and acquirements; to overcome the difficulties arising from defective knowledge, from imperfect MSS., from similarity of letters, from human infirmity and weariness; and so to produce a copy of the Scriptures, setting forth the Word of God and the history of his people, in its original truth and purity. This is the kind of inspiration claimed for the translators by Philo (Vit. Mosis, lib. 2): We look upon the persons who made this version not merely as translators, but as persons chosen and set apart by divine appointment, to whom it was given to comprehend and express the sense and meaning of Moses in the fullest and clearest manner.
The reader will be able to judge from the foregoing examples whether the Sept. version satisfies this test. If it does, it will be found not only substantially faithful, but minutely accurate in details: it will enable us to correct the Hebrew in every place where an error has crept in; it will give evidence of that faculty of intuition in its highest form which enables our great critics to divine from the faulty text the true reading; it will be, in short, a republication of the original text, purified from the errors of human hands and eyes stamped with fresh authority from heaven. This is a question to be decided by facts, by the phenomena of the version itself. We will simply declare our own conviction that, instead of such a divine republication of the original, we find a marked distinction between the original and the Sept. a distinction which is well expressed in the words of Jerome (Prolog. in Genesin): Ibi Spiritus ventura praedicit; hic eruditio et verborum copia ea quae intelligit transfert. It will be remembered that this agrees with the ancient narrative of the version, known by the name of Aristeas, which represents the interpreters as meeting in one house, forming One council, conferring together, and agreeing on the sense (see Hody, lib. 2, c. 6).
There are some, perhaps, who will deem this estimate of the Sept. too low; who think that the use of this version in the New Test. stamps it with an authority above that of a mere translation. But as the apostles and evangelists do not invariably cite the Old Test. according to this version, we are left to judge by the light of facts and evidence. Students of Holy Scripture, as well as students of the natural world, should bear in mind the maxim of Bacon, Sola spes est in vera inductione.
VI. Benefits to be Derived from the Study of the Septuagint. After all the notices of imperfection above given, it may seem strange to say, but we believe it to be the truth, that the student of Scripture can scarcely read a chapter without some benefit, especially if he be a student of Hebrew, and able, even in a very humble way, to compare the version with the original.
1. We have seen above that the Sept. gives evidence of the character and condition of the Hebrew MSS. from which it was made with respect to vowel points and the mode of writing. This evidence often renders very material help in the correction and establishment of the Hebrew text. Being made from MSS. far older than the Masoretic recension, the Sept. often indicates readings more ancient and more correct than those of our present Hebrew MSS. and editions, and often speaks decisively between the conflicting readings of the present MSS. The following are instances: Psa 22:17 (in the Sept. 21:16). The printed Hebrew text is ; but several MSS. have a verb in the third person plural, : the Sept. steps in to decide the doubt, , confirmed by Aquila, V. Psa 16:10. The printed text is , in the plural; but near two hundred MSS. have the singular, , which is clearly confirmed by the evidence of the Sept., .
In passages like these, which touch on the cardinal truths of the Gospel, it is of great importance to have the testimony of an unsuspected witness in the Sept. long before the controversy between Christians and Jews.
In Hos 6:5, the context clearly requires that the first person should be maintained throughout the verse; the Sept. corrects the present Hebrew text, without a change except in the position of one letter, , rendering unnecessary the addition of words in italics in our English version.
Other examples might be given, but we must content ourselves with one signal instance of a clause omitted in the Hebrew (probably by what is called ) and preserved in the Sept. In Gen 4:8 is a passage which in the Hebrew and in our English version is evidently incomplete: And Cain talked () with Abel his brother; and it came to pass when they were in the field, etc. Here the Hebrew word is the word constantly used as the introduction to words spoken, Cain said unto Abel; but, as the text stands, there are no words spoken, and the following words … when they were in the field come in abruptly. The Sept. fills up the lacuna Hebroeorum codicum (Pearson), , ( ). The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Syriac version agree with the Sept., and the passage is thus cited by Clemens Romanus (Ephesians 1, 4). The Hebrew transcriber’s eye was probably misled by the word terminating both the clauses.
In all the foregoing cases we do not attribute any paramount authority to the Sept. on account of its superior antiquity to the extant Hebrew MSS., but we take it as an evidence of a more ancient Hebrew text, as an eyewitness of the texts, 280 or 180 years B.C. The decision as to any particular reading must be made by weighing this evidence, together with that of other ancient versions, with the arguments from the context, the rules of grammar, the genius of the language, and the comparison of parallel passages. Thus the Hebrew will sometimes correct the Greek, and sometimes the Greek the Hebrew; both liable to err through the infirmity of human eyes and hands, but each checking the other’s errors.
2. The close connection between the Old and the New Test. makes the study of the Sept. extremely valuable, and almost indispensable to the theological student. Pearson quotes from Irenaeus and Jerome as to the citation of the words of prophecy from the Sept. The former, as Pearson observes, speaks too universally when he says that the apostles prophetica omnia ita enunciaverunt quemadmodum Seniorum interpretatio continet. But it was manifestly the chief storehouse from which they drew their proofs and precepts. Grinfield says that the number of direct quotations from the Old Test. in the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles may be estimated at 350, of which not more than fifty materially differ from the Sept. But the indirect verbal allusions would swell the number to a far greater amount (Apol. for LXX, p. 37). The comparison of the citations with the Sept. is much facilitated by Grinfield’s Editio Hellenistica of the New Test., and by Gough’s New Test. Quotations, in which the Hebrew and Greek passages of the Old Test. are placed side by side with the citations in the New. (On this subject see Hody, p. 248, 281; Kennicott, Dissert. Genesis 84; Cappelli Critica Sacra, vol. 2.)
3. Further, the language of the Sept. is the mold in which the thoughts and expressions of the apostles and evangelists are cast. In this version Divine Truth has taken the Greek language as its shrine, and adapted it to the things of God. Here the peculiar idioms of the Hebrew are grafted upon the stock of the Greek tongue; words and phrases take a new sense. The terms of the Mosaic ritual in the Greek version are employed by the apostles to express the great truths of the Gospel, e.g. , , . Hence the Sept. is a treasury of illustration for the Greek Testament. Many examples are given by Pearson (Proef. ad LXX), e.g. , , , ,, Frustra apud veteres Graecos quaeras quid sit vel quid sit , vel , quae toties in Novo Foedere inculcantur, et ex lectione Seniorum facile intelliguntur. Valckenaer also (on Luk 1:51) speaks strongly on this subject: Graecum Novi Testamenti contextum rite intellecturo nihil est utilius, quam diligenter versasse Alexandrinam Antiqui Foederis interpretationem, e qua una plus peti poterit auxilii, quam ex veteribus scriptoribus Graecis simul sumtis. Centena reperientur in N.T. nusquam obvia in scriptis Graecorum veterum, sed frequentata in Alexa. versione. E.g. the sense of in Deu 16:2, including the sacrifices of the Paschal week, throws light on the question as to the day on which our Lord kept his last Passover, arising out of the words in Joh 18:28, .
4. The frequent citations of the Sept. by the Greek fathers, and of the Latin version of the Sept. by the fathers who wrote in Latin, form another strong reason for the study of the Sept. Pearson cites the appellation of Scaraboeus bonus applied to Christ by Ambrose and Augustine, as explained by reference to the Sept. in Hab 2:11, .
5. On the value of the Sept. as a monument of the Greek language in one of its most curious phases, this is not the place to dwell. Our business is with the use of this version as it bears on the criticism and interpretation of the Bible; and we may safely urge the theological student who wishes to be thoroughly furnished to have always at his side the Sept. Let the Hebrew, if possible, be placed before him; and at his right, in the next place of honor, the Alexandrian version. The close and careful study of this version will be more profitable than the most learned inquiry into its origin; it will help him to a better knowledge both of the Old Test. and the New.
VII. Objects to be Attained by the Critical Scholar.
1. Among these a question of much interest, suggested above, still waits for a solution. In many of the passages which show a studied variation from the Hebrew (some of which are above noted), the Sept. and the Samaritan Pentateuch agree e.g. Gen 2:2; Exo 12:40.
They also agree in many of the ages of the post-diluvian patriarchs, adding one hundred years to the age at which the first son of each was born, according to the Hebrew (see Cappelli Critica Sacaa, 3, 20, 7). SEE PATRIARCH.
They agree in the addition of the words (Gen 4:8), which many have seen reason to think rightly added.
Various reasons have been conjectured for this agreement translation into Greek from a Samaritan text, interpolation from the Samaritan into the Greek, or vice versa; but the question does not seem to have found a satisfactory answer (see 2 above).
2. For the critical scholar it would be a worthy object of pursuit to ascertain as nearly as possible the original text of the Sept. as it stood in the time of the apostles and Philo. If this could be accomplished with any tolerable completeness, it would possess a strong interest, as being the first translation of any writing into another tongue, and the first repository of divine truth to the great colony of Hellenistic Jews at Alexandria.
The critic would probably take as his basis the Roman edition from the Codex Vaticanus as representing most nearly the ancient () texts. The collection of fragments of Origen’s Hexapla, by Montfaucon and others, would help him to eliminate the additions which have been made to the Sept. from other sources, and to purge out the glosses and double renderings; the citations in the New Test. and in Philo, in the early Christian fathers, both Greek and Latin, would render assistance of the same kind; and perhaps the most effective aid of all would be found in the fragments of the old Latin version collected by Sabbatier in 3 vols. fol. (Rheims, 1743).
3. Another work of more practical and general interest still remains to be done, viz. to provide a Greek version, accurate and faithful to the Hebrew original, for the use of the Greek Church, and of students reading the Scriptures in that language for purposes of devotion or mental improvement. Field’s edition is as yet the best of this kind. It originated in the desire to supply the Greek Church with such a faithful copy of the Scriptures; but as the editor has followed the text of the Alexandrian MS., only correcting, by the help of other MSS., the evident errors of transcription (e.g. in Gen 15:15, correcting in the Alexandrian MS. to , the reading of the Complut. text), and as we have seen above that the Alexandrian text is far from being the nearest to the Hebrew, it is evident that a more faithful and complete copy of the Old Test. in Greek might yet be provided.
We may here remark, in conclusion, that such an edition might prepare the way for the correction of the blemishes which remain in our authorized English version. Embracing the results of the criticism of the last two hundred and fifty years, it might exhibit several passages in their original purity; and the corrections thus made, being approved by the judgment of the best scholars, would probably, after a time, find their way into the margin at least of our English Bibles. One example only can be here given, in a passage which has caused no small perplexity and loads of commentary. Isa 9:3 is thus rendered in the Sept.: To , , , It is easy to see how the faulty rendering of the first part of this has arisen from the similarity of the Hebrew letters and , , and , and from an ancient error in the Hebrew text. The following translation restores the whole passage to its original clearness and force:
() , .
Thou hast multiplied the gladness,
Thou hast increased the joy;
They rejoice before thee as with the joy of harvest,
As men are glad when they divide the spoil.
Here and , in the first and fourth lines, correspond to and ; and , in the second and third lines, to and . The fourfold introverted parallelism is complete, and the connection with the context of the prophecy perfect.
It is scarcely necessary to remark that in such an edition the apocryphal additions to the book of Esther, and those to the book of Daniel, which are not recognized by the Hebrew canon, would be either omitted or (perhaps more properly, since they appear to have been incorporated with the Sept. at an early date) would be placed separately, as in Field’s edition and our English version. SEE APOCRYPHA; SEE CANON; SEE DANIEL, BOOK OF; SEE ESTHER, BOOK OF; SEE SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH.
VIII. Manuscripts and Early Critical Labors.
1. The various readings given by Holmes and Parsons enable us to judge, in some measure, of the character of the several MSS. and of the degree of their accordance with the Hebrew text. Many other MSS., chiefly fragments, have since been brought to light by Tischendorf, and most of them have been published in his Monum. Sacra Ined. They are distinguished thus by Holmes: the uncial by Roman numerals, the cursive by Arabic figures. Among them may be specially noted, with their probable dates and estimates of value as given by Holmes in his preface to the Pentateuch:
UNCIAL. PROBABLE DATE CENTURY.
(Sinaiticus. Royal Library, St. Petersburg]. 4
1. COTTONIANUS. Brit. Mus. (fragments) 4
2. VATICANUS. Vat. Library, Rome 4
3. ALEXANDRINUS. Brit. Mus 5
7. AMBROSIANUS. Ambros. Lib., Milan 7
10. COISLINIANUS. Bibl. Nat., Paris 7
CURSIVE.
16. Mediceus. Med. Laurentian Lib., Florence 11
19. Chigianus. Similar to Complut. text and 108, 118 10
25. Monachiensis. Munich 10
58. Vaticanus (No. x). Vat. Lib., similar to 72 13
59. Glasguensis 12
61. Bodleianus. Laud. 86, notae optimae 12
64. Parisiensis (11). National Library 10 or 11
72. Venetus. Maximi faciendus 13
75. Oxoniensis. Univ. Coll 12
84. Vaticanus (1901), notae optimae 11
106.
107.} Ferrarienses. These two agree 14
108. {Vaticanus (330). Similar to Complut 14
118. {Parisiensis. Nat. Lib. text and (19) 13
The texts of these MSS. differ considerably from each other, and consequently differ in various degrees from the Hebrew original (see Grabe, De Variis Vitiis LXX, etc. [Oxf. 1710]).
The following are the results of a comparison of the readings in the first eight chapters of Exodus:
(1.) Several of the MSS. agree well with the Hebrew; others differ very much.
(2.) The chief variance from the Hebrew is in the addition, or omission, of words and clauses.
(3.) Taking the Roman text as the basis, there are found eighty places (a) where some of the MSS. differ from the Roman text, either by addition or omission, in agreement with the Hebrew; twenty-six places () where differences of the same kind are not in agreement with the Hebrew. There is therefore a large balance against the Roman text in point of accordance with the Hebrew.
(4.) Those MSS. which have the largest number of differences of class (a) have the smallest number of class (). There is evidently some strong reason for this close accordance with the Hebrew in these MSS.
(5.) The divergence between the extreme points of the series of MSS. may be estimated from the following statement:
72 differs from the Roman text in 40 places, with Hebrew, in 4 places against Hebrew
59 differs from the Roman text in 40 places with Hebrew, in 9 places against Hebrew
Between these and the Roman text lie many shades of variety. The Alexandrine text falls about half-way between the two extremes:
Differing from Roman text { in 25 places, with Hebrew. in 16 places against Hebrew.
2. But whence these varieties of text? Was the version at first more in accordance with the Hebrew, as in (72) and (59), and did it afterwards degenerate into the less accurate state of the Codex Vaticanus? Or was the version at first less accurate, like the Vatican text, and afterwards brought, by critical labors, into the more accurate form of the MSS. which stand highest in the scale?
History supplies the answer. Jerome (Ep. ad Suniam et Fretelam, 2, 627) speaks of two copies, one older and less accurate, , fragments of which are believed to be represented by the still extant remains of the old Latin version; the other more faithful to the Hebrew, which he took as the basis of his own new Latin version. In another place (Proefat. in Paralip. vol. 1, col. 1022) he speaks of the corruption of the ancient translation, and the great variety of copies used in different countries:
Cum germana illa antiquaque translatio corrupta sit… Alexaudriat et AEgyptus in Sept. suis Hesychium laudant auctorem; Constantinopolis usque Antiochiam Luciani Martyris exemplaria probat; mediae inter has provinciae Palaestinos codices legunt: quos ab Origene elaboratos Eusebius et Pamphilus vulgaverunt: totusque orbis hac inter se contraria varietate compugnat.
The labors of Origen, designed to remedy the conflict of discordant copies, are best described in his own words (Comment. in Matthew 1, 381, ed. Huet.): Now there is plainly a great difference in the copies, either from the carelessness of scribes, or the rash and mischievous correction of the text by others, or from the additions or omissions made by others at their own discretion. This discrepance in the copies of the Old Covenant we have found means to remedy, by the help of God, using as our criterion the other versions. In all passages of the Sept. rendered doubtful by the discordance of the copies, forming a judgment from the other versions, we have preserved what agreed with them; and some words we have marked with an obelos as not found in the Hebrew, not venturing to omit them entirely; and some we have added with asterisks affixed, to show that they are not found in the Sept., but added by us from the other versions, in accordance with the Hebrew.
The other , or versions, are those of Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus. Origen (Comm. in Joann. 2, 131, ed. Huet.) says, The same errors in names may frequently be observed in the law and the prophets, as we have learned by diligent inquiry of the Hebrews, and by comparing our copies with their copies, as represent in the still uncorrupted versions of Aquila, Theodotji, and Symmachus. It appears from these and other passages that Origen, finding great discordance in the several copies of the Sept., laid this version side by side with the other three translations, and, taking their accordance with each other as the test of their agreement with the Hebrew, marked the copy of the Sept. with an obelos, , where he found superfluous words, and supplied the deficiencies of the Sept. by words taken from the other versions with an asterisk, *, prefixed. The additions to the Sept. were chiefly made from Theodotion (Jerome, Prolog. in Genesin, vol. 1; see also Proef. in Job, p. 795). From Eusebius, as quoted below, we learn that this work of Origen was called , the fourfold Bible. The following specimen is given by Montfaucon: Gen 1:1
But this was only the earlier and the smaller portion of Origen’s labors: he rested not till he had acquired the knowledge of Hebrew, and compared the Sept. directly with the Hebrew copies. Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. 6, 16, p. 217, ed. Vales.) thus describes the labors which led to the greater work, the Hexapla; the last clause of the passage refers to the Tetrapla:
So careful was Origen’s investigation of the sacred oracles that he learned the Hebrew tongue, and made himself master of the original Scriptures received among the Jews in the Hebrew letters; and reviewed the versions of the other interpreters of the Sacred Scriptures, besides the Sept.; and discovered some translations varying from the well-known versions of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, which he searched out, and brought to light from their long concealment in neglected corners;… and in his Hexapla, after the four principal versions of the Psalms, added a fifth, yea, a sixth and seventh translation, stating that one of these was found in a cask at Jericho, in the time of Antoninus, son of Severus: and bringing these all into one view, and dividing them in columns over against one another, together with the Hebrew text, he left to us the work called Hexapla; having arranged separately, in the Tetrapla, the versions of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, together with the version of the Seventy.
So Jerome (in Catal. Script. Eccl. vol. 4, pt. 2, p. 116):
Quis ignorat, quod tantum in Scripturis divilis habuerit studii, ut etiam hebraeam linguam contra aetatis gentisque suae naturam edisceret; et acceptis LXX interpretibus, alias quoque editiones in unum volumen congregaret: Aquilae scilicet Pontici proselyti, et Theodotionis Ebionaei, et Symmachi ejusdem dogmatis…. Praeterea quintam et sextam et septimam editiouem, quas etiam nos de ejus bibliotheca habemus, miro labore reperit, et cum caeteris editionibus comparavit.
From another passage of Jerome (in Epist. ad Titum, vol. 4, pt. 1, p. 437) we learn that in the Hexapla the Hebrew text was placed in one column in Hebrew letters, in the next column in Greek letters:
HEXAPLA Hos 11:1
It should here be mentioned that some take the Tetrapla as denoting, not a separate work, but only that portion of the Hexapla which contains the four columns filled by the four principal Greek versions. Valesius (Notes on Eusebius, p. 106) thinks that the Tetrapla was formed by taking those four columns out of the Hexapla, and making them into a separate book. But. the testimony of Origen himself (2, 381; 2, 131), above cited, is clear that he formed one corrected text of the Sept. by comparison of the three other Greek versions (., ., .), using them as his criterion. If he had known Hebrew at this time, would he have confined himself to the Greek versions? Would he have appealed to the Hebrew, as represented by Aquila, etc.? It seems very evident that he must have learned Hebrew at a later time, and therefore that the Hexapla, which rests on q comparison with the Hebrew, must have followed the Tetrapla, which was formed by the help of Greek versions only. The words of Eusebius also (Hist. Eccl. 6, 16) appear to distinguish very clearly between the Hexapla and Tetrapla as separate works, and to imply that the Tetrapla preceded the Hexapla. The order of precedence is not a mere literary question; the view above stated, which is supported by Montfaucon, Usher, etc., strengthens the force of Origen’s example as a diligent student of Scripture, showing his increasing desire integros accedere fontes.
The labors of Origen, pursued through a long course of years, first in procuring by personal travel the materials for his great work, and then in comparing and arranging them, made him worthy of the name Adamantius. But what was the result of all this toil? Where is now his great work, the Hexapla, prepared with so much care, and written by so many skilful hands? Too large for transcription, too early by centuries for printing (which alone could have saved it), it was destined to a short existence. It was brought from Tyre and laid up in the library at Caesarea, and there probably perished by the flames, A.D. 653. One copy, however, had been made, by Pamphilus and Eusebius, of the column containing the corrected text of the Sept., with Origen’s asterisks and obeli, and the letters denoting from which of the other translators each addition was taken. This copy is probably the ancestor of those codices which now approach most nearly to the Hebrew, and are entitled Hexaplar; but in the course of transcription the distinguishing marks have disappeared or become confused; and we have thus a text composed partly of the old Sept. text, partly of insertions from the three other chief Greek versions, especially that of Theodotion.
The facts above related agree well with the phenomena of the MSS. before stated. As we have codices derived from the Hexaplar text (e.g. 72, 59, 58), and at the other extreme the Codex Vaticanus (II), probably representing nearly the ancient uncorrected text, ; so between these we find texts of intermediate character in the Codex Alexandrinus (III), and others, which may perhaps be derived from the text of the Tetrapla.
To these main sources of our existing MSS. must be added the recensions of the Sept. mentioned by Jerome and others, viz. those of Lucian of Antioch and Hesychius of Egypt, not long after the time of Origen. We have seen above that each of these had a wide range that of Lucian (supposed to be corrected by the Hebrew) in the churches from Constantinople to Antioch; that of Hesychius in Alexandria and Egypt; while the churches lying between these two regions used the Hexaplar text copied by Eusebius and Pamphilus (Jerome, vol. 1, col. 1022). The great variety of text in the existing MSS. is thus accounted for by the variety of sources from which they have descended.
IX. Modern Editions.
1. This version appears at the present day in five principal editions:
1. Biblia Polyglotta Complutensis (1514-17).
2. The Aldine edition (Venice, 1518).
3. The Roman edition, edited under pope Sixtus V (1587).
4. Facsimile edition of the Codex Alexandrinus, by Baber (1816).
5. Facsimile edition of the Codex Sinaiticus, by Tischendorf (St. Petersburg, 1862, 4 vols. fol.).
The texts of (1) and (2) were probably formed by collation of several MSS. The Roman edition (3) is printed from the venerable Codex Vaticanus, but not without many errors. This text has been followed in most of the modern editions. A transcript of the Codex Vaticanus, prepared by cardinal Mai, was lately published at Rome by Vercelloni It is much to be regretted that this edition is not so accurate as to preclude the necessity of consulting the MS. The text of the codex, and the parts added by a later hand, to complete the codex (among them nearly all of Genesis), are printed in the same Greek type, with distinguishing notes. The facsimile edition by Baber (4) is, printed with types made after the form of the letters in the Codex Alexandrinus (British Museum Library) for the facsimile edition of the New Test. by Woide in 1786. Great care was bestowed upon the sheets as they passed through the press. The Codex Sinaiticus (5) was published in facsimile type at the expense of the emperor of Russia, and a very limited edition was printed. SEE SINAITIC MS.
2. Other important editions are the following: The Septuagint in Walton’s Polyglot (1657) is the Roman text, with the various readings of the Codex Alexandrinus. The Cambridge edition (1665) (Roman text) is only valuable for the preface by Pearson. An edition of the Codex Alexandrinus was published by Grabe (Oxford, 1707-20), but its critical value is far below that of Baber’s. It is printed in common type, and the editor has exercised his judgment on the text, putting some words of the codex in the margin,: and replacing them by what he thought better readings, distinguished by a smaller type. This edition was reproduced by Breitinger (Zurich, 1730-32, 4 vols. 4to), with the various readings of the Vatican text. The edition of Bos (Franeq. 1709) follows the Roman texts with its scholia, and the various readings given in Walton’s Polyglot, especially those of the Codex Alexandrinus. This has often been reprinted, and is now the commonest text. The valuable critical edition of Holmes, continued by Parsons, is similar in plan to the Hebrew Bible of Kennicott; it has the Roman text, with a large body of various readings from numerous MSS. and editions (Oxford, 1798-1827). The Oxford edition by Gaisford (1848) has the Roman text, with the various readings of the Codex Alexandrinus below. Tischendorf’s editions (the 5th, 1875) are on the same plan; he has added readings from some other MSS. discovered by himself, with very useful Prolegomena. Some convenient editions have been published by Bagster, one in 8vo, others of smaller size, forming part of his Polyglot series of Bibles. His text is the Roman. The latest edition, by Field (1859), differs from any of the preceding. He takes as his basis the Codex Alexandrinus, but corrects all the manifest errors of transcription by the help of other MSS., and brings the dislocated portions of the Septuagint into agreement with the order of the Hebrew Bible. The text in Stier and Theile’s Polyglotten Bibel (Bielefeld, 1854) is revised arbitrarily, and without the aid of the Codex Sinaiticus. Scrivener has promised a new critical edition.
3. Editions of particular books, more or less critically prepared, have occasionally been issued: Genesis, by Lagarde (Lips. 1868); Esther, by Fritzsche (Turici, 1848); Ruth, by the same (ibid. 1867); Jeremiah, by Spohn (Lips. 1794-1828); Ezekiel, by Vincent (Romans 1840); Jonah, by Hohner (Lips. 1787-88). The genuine text of Daniel (which was long supposed to be lost, the translation of Theodotion having been substituted for it in the common MSS.) was first published separately by Simon de Magistris in 1772, from the Codex Chigianus; and it was reprinted by J.D. Michaelis (1773-74), Segaar (1775), and more critically by Hahn (1845), from the Codex Ambrosianus.
The best Lexicon to the Septuagint is that of Schleusner, published at Leipsic (1820-21, 5 pts.), and reprinted at Glasgow (1822, 3 vols. 8vo).. An earlier one is that of Biel (Hag. 1779-80, 3 vols.). The best for the Apocrypha is Wahl’s Clavis (Lips. 1863). The best Concordance is that of Trommius (Amst. 1718, 2 vols. fol.). An earlier one is that of Kircher (1607). Winer’s V.T. Grammar serves an excellent purpose for philological comparison. The student may also consult Sturz, De Dialecto Macedonica (Lips. 1808); Maltby, Two Sermons before the University of Durham (1843). SEE GREEK LANGUAGE.
X. Literature. In addition to the works named by Walch, Bibl. Theol. 4, 31 sq., 156 sq.; Rosenmller, Handb. d. Literatur, 2, 279 sq.; and Danz; Wrterb. d. Theol. s.v. Alex. Vers., the following are important: Cappelli Critica Sacra (Par. 1650); Waltoni Proleg. ad Bibl. Polyglott. (Lond. 1657); Pearsoni [Bp.] Pref. Paroenetica ad LXX (ibid. 1655); Vossius, De LXX Interp. (Hag. 1661; app. 1663); Montfaucon, Hexaplorum Origenis quoe Supersunt (Par. 1710; Lips. 1740); Hody, De Bibl. Text. Original. Vers. Grecis, et Latina Vulgata (Oxf. 1704); Hottinger, Thesaurus (Zur. 1649); Owen, Inquiry into the Sept. (Lond. 1769); Brief Account, etc. (ibid. 1787); Kennicott. Dissertationes to his Vet. Test. (Oxon. 1776-80); Wornier, De LXX Interpretibus (Hamb. 1617, 8vo); Knapp, De Versione Alex. (Hal. 1775-76, 4to); Hasenkamp, De Pentat. LXX Interp. (Marb. 1765, 4to); Stroth, Symboloe Criticoe (Lips. 1778-83); Sulzner, De LXX Interp. (Hal. 1700, 4to ); Weyhenmeyer, De Fersione LXX (Ulm. 1719, 4to); Reineke, De Dissensu Vers. Alex. ab Archetypo (Magd. 1771, 4to); Holmes, Prolegg. ad LXX (Oxf. 1798-1827); Valckenaer, Diatribe de Aristobulo Judoeo (L.B. 1806); Schleusner, Opusc. Crit. ad Verss. Gr. V.T. (Lips. 1812); Dhne, Jdisch-alexandrinische Philosophie (Hal. 183134); Tpler, De Pentat. Interp. Alex. Indole Crit. et Hermen. (Hal. Sax. 1830); Gfrrer, Urchristenthum (Stuttg. 1831, 8vo); Fabricii Bibliotheca Sacra, ed. Harless, vol. 3; Studer, De Versionis Alexandrinoe Origine, Historia, Usu, et Abusu Critico (Bernie, 1823, 8vo); Credner, Beitrge zur Einleitung, etc. (Halle, 1838, 2 vols. 8vo); Amersfoordt, Dissertatio de Variis Lectionibus Holmesianis (Lugd. Bat. 1815, 4to); Plschke, Lectiones Alex. et Hebr. (Bonn, 1837); Thiersch, De Pent. Fers. Alex. (Erlang. 1841); Frankel, Vorstudien zu der Septuaginta (Leips. 1841); Ueber den Einfluss der palstinischen Exegese, auf die alex. Hermeneutik (ibid. 1851); Grinfield, N.T. Editio Hellenistica (ibid. 1848), and Apology for the Septuagint (ibid. 1850); Selwyn, Notoe Criticoe in Exodus 1-24, Numeros, Deuteronomium (ibid. 1856-58); also Hor. Hebr. on Isaiah 9 (ibid. 1848); Churton, Hulsean Essay (ibid. 1861); Pearson [G.], Papers, in the Journal of Sacred Lit. 1, 4, 7, 3d series.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Septuagint
See VERSIONS.
Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary
Septuagint
Designated Septuagint. The Greek version of Old Testament, made for the Greek speaking (Hellenistic) Jews at Alexandria. The oldest manuscripts in capitals (“uncials”) are the Cottonian (“fragments”) in British Museum; Vatican (representing especially the oldest text) at Rome; Alexandrian in British Museum, of which Baber in 1816 published a facsimile; Sinaitic at Petersburgh. Alexandrian is of the fifth century, the others are of the fourth. The ancient text current before Origen was called “the common one”; he compared this with the versions of Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus, and marked the Septuagint with an obelos mark where he found superfluous words, and supplied deficiencies of Septuagint from those three, prefixing an asterisk.* Its wide circulation among Hellenistic Jews before Christ providentially prepared the way for the gospel. Its completion was commemorated by a yearly feast at Alexandria (Philo, Vit. Mos. 2). Its general use is proved by the manner of its quotation in New Testament. The Jews in Justin Martyr’s Apology questioned its accuracy.
A letter of Aristeas to his brother Philocrates (Hody, Bibl. Text. Orig., 1705) describes the origin of Septuagint; King Ptolemy (Philadelphus), by the advice of his librarian Demetrius Phalereus, obtained from the high priest at Jerusalem 72 interpreters, six from each tribe; by conference and comparison in 72 days they completed the work. Aristobulus (second century B.C., in Clemens Alex. Strom.) says that, before Demetrius, others had made a translation of the Pentateuch and Joshua (the history of the going forth from Egypt, etc.). Aristeas’ letter is probably a forgery of an Alexandrian Jew; nevertheless the story gave its title to the Septuagint (70, the round number for 72). The composition at Alexandria begun under the earlier Ptolemies, 280 B.C.; the Pentateuch alone at first; these are the main facts well established. The Alexandrian Macedonic Greek forms in the Septuagint disprove the coming of 72 interpreters from Jerusalem, and show that the translators were Alexandrian Jews.
The Pentateuch is the best part of the version, being the first translated; the other books betray increasing degeneracy of the Hebrew manuscripts, with decay of Hebrew learning. The Septuagint translators did not have Hebrew manuscripts pointed as ours; nor were their words divided as ours. Different persons translated different books, and no general revision harmonized the whole. Names are differently rendered in different books. The poetical parts (except Psalms and Proverbs) are inferior to the historical. In the greater prophets important passages are misunderstood, as Isa 9:1; Isa 9:6; Jer 23:6; Ezekiel and the lesser prophets are better. Theodotion’s version of Daniel was substituted for Septuagint, which was not used.
The delicate details of the Hebrew are sacrificed in Septuagint, the same word in the same chapter being often rendered by differing words, and differing words by the same word, the names of God (Yahweh, Kurios, and ‘Elohim, Theos) being confounded; and proper names at times being translated, and Hebrew words mistaken for words like in form but altogether different in sense (sh being mistaken for s, Shin ( ) (pronounced “sheen”) for Sin ( ) (pronounced “seen”) [the same letter (with a different “point”) pronounced different], r for d, Resh ( ) for Daleth ( )). Some of the changes are designed; Gen 2:2, “sixth” for “seventh.” Strong Hebrew expressions are softened, “God’s power” for “hand,” “word” for “mouth”; so no stress can be laid on the Septuagint words to prove a point. (See OLD TESTAMENT.)
Use of Septuagint. Being made from manuscripts older far than our Masoretic text (from 280 to 180 B.C.), it helps towards arriving at the true text in doubtful passages; so Psa 22:16, where Septuagint “they pierced” gives the true reading instead of “as a lion,” Aquila a Jew (A.D. 133) so translated “they disfigured”; (Psa 16:10) “Thy Holy One” singular, instead of our Masoretic “Thy holy ones.” The Septuagint is an impartial witness, being ages before the controversy between Jews and Christians. In Gen 4:8 Septuagint has “and Cain said to Abel his brother, Let us go into the plain” or “field” (so Samaritan Pentateuch); but Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, and the Targum of Onkelos agree with our Hebrew.
Of 350 quotations of the Old Testament in the New Testament only 50 differ materially from Septuagint Its language molded the conceptions of the New Testament writers and preachers. The Hebrew ideas and modes of thought are transfused into its Greek, which is wholly distinct from classic Greek in this. Expressions unknown to the latter are intelligible from Septuagint, as “believe in God,” “faith toward God,” “flesh,” “spirit,” “justify,” “fleshly mindedness.” “The Passover” includes the after feast and sacrifices (Deu 16:2), illustrating the question on what day Christ kept it (Joh 18:28).
Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary
SEPTUAGINT
After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC, the Greek language spread throughout Alexanders empire and within a short time was the most commonly spoken language. In Alexandria in Egypt, the large Jewish population was almost entirely Greek-speaking, and for their sake the Hebrew Bible (our Old Testament) was translated into Greek. According to stories handed down by the Jews, the number of translators was about seventy. The translation was therefore called the Septuagint, meaning seventy and abbreviated as LXX. The work was done some time during the third and second centuries BC. The quality of the translation varied, being good in some parts but poor in others.
Though the Septuagint was originally prepared for orthodox Jews of the pre-Christian era, the people who benefited most from it were the early Christians. In fact, the Septuagints popularity with the Christians was one reason why it lost favour with the Jews. In New Testament times most of the Christians were Greek-speaking, even those of Jewish background, and the Septuagint provided them with a ready-made translation of the Old Testament in their own language. New Testament writers, in quoting from the Old Testament, usually used the Septuagint rather than translate from the Hebrew (see QUOTATIONS).
In matters concerning God and religion, the Septuagint was particularly helpful to preachers and writers of New Testament times. Greek religious words usually had meanings that related to pagan religious practices of the Greek world, and because of this the Septuagint translators chose their words carefully. Often they gave words new meaning or significance in the context of Hebrew Old Testament ideas.
This is important for present-day readers of the New Testament. In their consideration of teaching concerning God and Christian belief, they should understand Greek words in relation to the Hebrew words they represent, rather than in relation to the pagan ideas of the Greeks.
Fuente: Bridgeway Bible Dictionary
Septuagint
SEPTUAGINT.The Version according to the Seventy. 1. This name for the Greek translation of the OT has its origin in the legend that Ptolemy ii. Philadelphus was advised by his librarian Demetrius Phalereus to procure from Jerusalem copies of the Hebrew Scriptures, and men learned in the Hebrew and Greek languages to translate them. Ptolemy accordingly sent ambassadors to Eleazar the high priest, who sent back to Alexandria seventy-two elders, six from each tribe, with magnificent copies of the Hebrew Scriptures. They were treated with the highest honour; they were assigned a quiet and convenient building on the island of Pharos, removed from the distractions of the city; and there, in seventy-two days, they translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek, for the enrichment of Ptolemys library; and the translation was received with delight by king and people.
This legend is related in a pseudonymous letter purporting to be written by Aristeas (an Alexandrian, and one of Ptolemys ambassadors to Jerusalem) to his brother Philocrates. The text, edited by St. J. Thackeray, is printed at the end of Swetes Introduction to the OT in Greek, and a translation by Mr. Thackeray appeared in the JQR [Note: QR Jewish Quarterly Review.] , April 1903. Other forms of the tradition are given by the Alexandrian writers Aristobulus and Philo, and by Josephus. And the early Fathers or the Christian Church from the 2nd century onwards received the story without suspicion, and amplified it. What amount of truth underlies the legend it is difficult to decide; but the following facts are probable: (1) that the translation was begun at Alexandria; (2) that it was not undertaken officially, by order of the king (though he probably encouraged it), but resulted from the needs of the Alexandrian Jews, who knew no Hebrew and probably little or no Aramaic; (3) it may be true that Hebrew rolls were brought from Jerusalem; (4) the translation was, as might be expected, cordially received by Hellenistic Jews, who would be glad to have a Greek account of the origins of the Hebrew people.
The Alexandrian version embraced only the Pentateuch; and the letter of Aristeas professes no more. Josephus and Jerome recognized this, but Christian writers, generally, failed to notice the limitation. It could not, indeed, have embraced more in the reign of Ptolemy ii., for the Torah alone was complete by that time, secure in its position as a collection of sacred books and ready for translation (Ryle, Canon of the OT, p. 113). But other books would be translated from time to time when they reached Egypt with Palestinian recognition of their canonicity. And before the Christian era Alexandria probably possessed the whole of the Hebrew Bible in a Greek translation, with the possible exception of Ecclesiastes.
2. The importance of the LXX Septuagint version to the student of Hebrew literature and philology can scarcely be overestimated (see Swete, Introduction, Pt. iii. c. 4). And it is hardly less essential to the student of early Christian writings. Patristic writers for the most part accepted it not merely as the best version of the Hebrew OT, but as no less inspired than the original. Even Augustine could say: Spiritus qui in prophetis erat quando illa dixerunt, idem ipse erat in LXX Septuagint viris quando illa interpretati sunt (de Civ. Dei, xviii. 43). Being entirely dependent on it, and unable to appeal to or form comparisons with any other version, they adopted without suspicion and with tenacity its least defensible renderings, and pressed them into the service of controversy, dogma, and devotion. It was argued that the errors of the Greek text were due to accidents of transmission, or that they were not actual errors, but Divine adaptations of the original to the use of the future Church (Swete, Pt. iii. c. 5).
But the present article is concerned with that which is the chiefest importance of the LXX Septuagint its relation to (a) the beginnings and the growth of Christianity, (b) the expression of Christian doctrines and ideas.
(a) The LXX Septuagint was an important factor in preparing the way for the reception of the Christian religion. In our Lords time the Jews were scattered throughout the known world. And though they preserved their religious connexion with Jerusalem by payments of money and by frequent attendance at the three annual festivals (see art. Dispersion), yet one and all had lost the knowledge of the classical Hebrew of the Scriptures, with the exception of the learnedthe priests and Rabbisof whom the original language of the OT was almost the exclusive property. It may be realized, therefore, what a blessing was conferred upon the Jewish race by Alexandria when she gave them their own Scriptures in the universal language of the day. They were provided with a valuable controversial weapon, whereby they could prove to their heathen neighbours the real importance and the hoary antiquity of the Hebrew nation. An army of apologists was raised up, of whom Josephus and Philo are, for us, the chief, because so much of their work is extant; but they must have been well-nigh equalled in weight and influence by such writers as the historians Alexander Cornelius (Polyhistor), Demetrius, Eupolemus, Artapanus, and Aristeas, the poets Philo, Theodotus, and Ezekiel, the philosopher Aristobulus, and Cleodemus or Malchas, small fragments of whose writings are preserved in Clem. Alex. [Note: Alexandrian.] Stromateis, i. 22, 141, 153 ff., and Euseb. Praep. Evang. viii. 10, ix. 6, 1734, 37, 39, xiii. 12.
But though she knew it not, Alexandria provided them with something greater. Christianity, by the power of God and by the coming of Christ, sprang out of Judaism. Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet; Vetus in Novo patet (Aug.). By enabling Jews and Gentiles to read the OT Scriptures, the Greek version, in spite of all its mistakes and grotesque mistranslations, revealed the guiding providence of God in Hebrew history, and the gradual development of religious ideas of which the OT is the record; and above all it gave a lasting impetus to the growth of Messianic expectations. A train was laid which only needed the Divine spark to burst into flame. Christ came to send fire upon the earth, and the LXX Septuagint had been instrumental in supplying fuel.
The quotations from the OT in the NT are seldom mere literary adornments, such as a modern writer might introduce from Shakespeare or other classical authors; they are for the most part used as a definite foundation for Christian teaching, or at least weighty illustrations of the writers statements and arguments. Our Lords teaching struck His hearers with amazement, because it did not blindly follow the footsteps of the scribes. Against the Jews He used their own Scriptures with conclusive force; and with His loving but fainthearted and ignorant disciples He adopted the same course; beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself (Luk 24:27). And His disciples afterwards followed His example both in their speeches and in their writings (Act 8:35).
(b) The LXX Septuagint played a large part in the moulding of Christian terminology. It is difficult to gauge the extent to which religious conceptions were affected by the results which ensued from the wedding of the Greek language to Hebrew thought. Their offspring the LXX Septuagint was the parent of a yet nobler heir. There are few more interesting lines of study than to trace the debt which Christianity owed to the LXX Septuagint in the matter of words and terms, and to see how the borrowed terminology was consecrated and adapted to higher uses.
3. The LXX Septuagint must now be studied in two aspects, so far as it affected the four Gospels and the Apostolic conceptions of Christs Person and work.
A. Direct quotations.It will be convenient to give a list of the direct quotations from the OT in the Gospels, taken from Swetes Introduction, pp. 386 ff.
Mt.Mk.Lk.OT
Mat 1:23Isa 7:14*
Luk 2:23Exo 13:12
Mat 2:6Mic 5:2*
Matthew 2; Matthew 15Hos 11:1*
Mat 2:18Jer 38:15
Mat 3:3Mar 1:3Luk 3:4-6Isa 40:3-5*
Mat 4:4Luk 4:4Deu 8:3
Mat 4:6Luk 4:10 f.Psa 90:11 f.
Mat 4:7Luk 4:12Deu 6:16
Mat 4:10Luk 4:8 13
Mat 4:15 f.Isa 9:1 f.*
Mat 5:21Exo 20:13
Mat 5:2714
Mat 5:31Deu 24:1
Mat 5:31Num 30:3 (cf. Deu 23:21)
Mat 5:38Exo 21:24
Mat 5:43Lev 19:18
Mat 8:17Isa 53:4*
Mat 9:13 (Mat 12:7)Hos 6:6
Mat 11:10Mar 1:2Luk 7:27Mal 3:1*
Mat 12:7Hos 6:6
Mat 12:18-21Isa 42:1*
Mat 13:14 f.Isa 6:9 f.
Mat 13:35Psa 77:2*
Luk 4:18 f.Isa 61:1 ff. + Isa 58:6*
Mat 15:4Mar 7:10Exo 20:12; Exo 21:17
Mat 15:8 f.Mar 7:6Isa 29:13
Mar 9:48Isa 66:24
Mat 19:5 f.Mar 10:6-8Gen 1:27 + Gen 2:24
Mat 19:18 f.Mar 10:19Luk 18:20 f.Exo 20:12-17
Mat 21:5Zec 9:9 + Isa 62:11*
Mat 21:13Mar 11:17Luk 19:46Isa 56:7 + Jer 7:11
Mat 21:16Psa 8:2
Mat 21:42Mar 12:10Luk 20:17Psa 118:22 f.
Mat 22:24Mar 12:19Luk 20:28Deu 25:5 (cf. Gen 38:8)
Mat 22:32Mar 12:26Luk 20:37Exo 3:6
Mat 22:37Mar 12:29 f.Luk 10:27 aDeu 6:4 f.
Mat 22:39Mar 12:31Luk 10:27 bLev 19:18
Mat 22:44Mar 12:36Luk 20:42 f.Psa 109:1*
Mar 12:32 f.Deu 4:35
Mat 24:15Mar 13:14Dan 12:11
Luk 22:37Isa 53:12*
Mat 26:31Mar 14:27Zec 13:7*
Mat 27:9 f.Zec 11:13*
Mat 27:46Mar 15:34Psa 21:1*
Joh 1:23Isa 40:3
Joh 2:17Psa 68:10*
Joh 6:31Exo 16:4; Exo 16:15 (Ps 77:24 f.)
Joh 6:45Isa 54:13
Joh 10:34Psa 81:6
Joh 12:15Zec 9:9*
Joh 12:38Isa 53:1*
Joh 12:40Isa 6:10
Joh 13:18Psa 40:10 (Psa 41:10)
Joh 15:25Psa 34:19 (Psa 68:5)*
Joh 19:34Psa 21:19*
Joh 19:36Exo 12:46 (Num 9:12, Psa 33:21)*
Joh 19:37Zec 12:10*
(i.) As regards the matter and purpose of these quotations, it is noticeable that of the 46 in the Synoptic Gospels 17 (marked with*) are Messianic, i.e. they are quoted as being predictions of facts connected with the life and work of Christ; and of these, 6 (Mat 21:42; Mat 22:44; Mat 26:31; Mat 27:46, Luk 4:18 f., Luk 22:37) are cited by our Lord Himself. With these may be reckoned Mat 22:32, quoted as a proof of the resurrection of the dead. 6 (Mat 2:18; Mat 13:14 f., Mat 15:8 f., Mat 21:13; Mat 21:16, Mat 24:15) are quoted as predictions which have foundor, in the last passage, will findfulfilment in the lives and characters of persons other than Christ, all except the first occurring in His own discourses. 19 of the remainder are quoted by our Lord (except Mar 12:32 f.), and consist of legal and moral precepts, mostly from the Pentateuch, which should guide mens actions (with the exception of those in Matthew 5, which He quotes in order to contrast with them His own higher moral law). 3 which come under none of these heads are Luk 2:23, Mat 4:6; Mat 22:24. Of the 13 in the Fourth Gospel, 7 (marked with*) are Messianic, all being quoted by the writer (except Joh 15:25, which is by our Lord). In the rest of the NT, Messianic quotations occur chiefly in the Apostolic speeches in the Acts (Act 2:17-21; Act 2:25-28; Act 2:34 f., Act 3:22 f. (= Act 7:37), Act 4:25 f., Act 8:32 f., Act 13:33-35), and in Hebrews (Heb 1:5, (= Heb 5:5) Heb 1:6; Heb 1:8 f., Heb 1:10-13, Heb 2:6-8; Heb 2:12-13, Heb 5:6 (= Heb 7:17; Heb 7:21) Heb 9:20, Heb 10:5-9), in the other Epistles see Rom 9:33; Rom 10:11; Rom 15:3, 1Co 15:45, Gal 3:13, Eph 4:8, 1Pe 2:6.
(ii.) As regards the form of the quotations, the dependence upon the LXX Septuagint shown by the NT writers may be seen by the following facts, which are summarized from Swetes Introduction, pp. 391398.
Every part of the NT affords evidence of a knowledge of the LXX Septuagint , and a great majority of the passages cited from the OT are in general agreement with the Greek version. In the Synoptic Gospels there is a marked contrast between () quotations belonging to the common narrative or to the sayings reported by all three or by two of them, and () quotations which are peculiar to one of them. () The former (with the exception of Mat 15:8 f., Mat 26:31) adhere closely to LXX Septuagint . () Of the 16 in Mt. which are not found in Mk. or Luke , 4 (Luk 5:38; Luk 9:13; Luk 13:14 f., Luk 21:16) are in the words of the LXX Septuagint with slight variants; 4 exhibit important variants; and the remaining 7 bear little or no resemblance to the Alexandrian Greek. Neither Mk. nor Lk. has any series of independent quotations; Mar 9:48; Mar 12:32 are from the LXX Septuagint , but show affinities to the text of A; Luk 4:18 f. differs from the LXX Septuagint in important particulars.
The causes which have produced variation are manifold: (1) loose citation, (2) the substitution of a gloss for the precise words which the writer professes to quote, (3) a desire to adapt a prophetic context to the circumstances under which it was thought to have been fulfilled, (4) the fusing together of passages from different contexts. Further, (5) some variations are recensional. The Evangelists appear to have employed a recension of the LXX Septuagint which came nearer to the text of A than to that of our oldest uncial B. In some cases it may be argued that the text of the LXX Septuagint Manuscripts was influenced by the NT; but this objection is greatly minimized by the fact that Josephus, and to a less extent Philo, show the same tendency. And there are occasional signs that NT writers used a recension to which the version of the later translator Theodotion shows some affinities. (6) Some variations are translational, and imply an independent use of the original, whether by the Evangelist or by the author of some collection of excerpts which he employed. Prof. Swete (pp. 396 ff.) prints in full, and annotates, five of these passages from Mt (Mat 2:6; Mat 4:15 f., Mat 8:17; Mat 13:35; Mat 27:9 f.), together with the corresponding passages in the LXX Septuagint ; and he comes to the conclusion that while the compiler of the First Gospel has more or less distinctly thrown off the yoke of the Alexandrian version, and substituted for it a paraphrase, or an independent rendering of the Hebrew, our evidence does not encourage the belief that the Evangelist used or knew another complete Greek version of the OT or of any particular book.
The writer of the Fourth Gospel quotes from the LXX Septuagint , with varying degrees of exactness. The citations in Joh 2:17; Joh 10:34; Joh 12:38; Joh 19:24-36 are verbatim or nearly so; those in Joh 6:31; Joh 6:45, Joh 13:18, Joh 15:25 are freer; in Joh 1:23, Joh 12:15; Joh 12:40 he paraphrased loosely, with a general reminiscence of the LXX Septuagint wording; in Joh 19:37, is a non-Septuagintal rendering of Zec 12:10, which was perhaps current in Palestine, since appears also in Theod. [Note: Theodotion.] (Aq. [Note: Aquila.] , cf. Rev 1:7; Symm. [Note: Symmachus.] ).
The quotations in the Acts are exclusively from the LXX Septuagint , but sometimes they are inclined to be free and paraphrastic.
In St. Pauls quotations the same phenomena appear: the majority are verbally exact, but many contain important variants; sometimes the Apostle appears to quote from memory; in some cases he freely conflates two or more passages. In Hebrews, in which the argument is carried on largely by a catena of quotations from the LXX Septuagint , the text of the quotations agrees in the main with some form of the present text of the LXX Septuagint (Westcott, Hebrews, p. 476). On 1Pe 2:6 see Hort, St. Peter, in loc.
In this short summary of Prof. Swetes results enough has been said to show the large extent to which the Alexandrian Greek version influenced the direct quotations made by the NT writers. But direct citation formed only a fraction of the immense use which they made of the LXX Septuagint . Their writings, and the utterances of our Lord, abound in expressions and phrases from the LXX Septuagint which are not formal quotations, but which were due to their intimate knowledge of the OT. These are conveniently marked by uncial type in WH [Note: H Westcott and Horts text.] s text of the NT. In many cases the force and meaning of the NT passage are multiplied when the OT context is taken into consideration. [N.B.There are no quotations from the Apocryphal books which were included in the Greek Bible. There are, however, in the Epistles some half-dozen reminiscences; see Wis 7:26; Wis 9:15; Wis 13:1; Wis 15:7, Sir 5:11; Sir 7:34; Sir 15:11].
B. Borrowed terminology.It must not be forgotten that the LXX Septuagint was but a very small part of a large Greek literature whose ideas and vocabulary and grammar differed materially from those of the old classical writers. New philosophical and theological conceptions, changes political and social, developments in the arts of life, increased opportunities of intercourse with foreign nations, all combined to alter the language. The or was based on Attic Greek, but embraced elements drawn from all Hellenic dialects. It was the literary language of the cosmopolitan Hellas created by the genius of Alexander (Swete, Intr. p. 294). The language used by the writers of the Greek Diaspora may be regarded as a subsection of an early stage of the (ib.), and of this subsection the LXX Septuagint and the NT are the best representatives in Egypt and Palestine respectively. Though a change began to appear as early as Xenophon, the era of the may be said to have opened in the latter half of the 4th cent. b.c.; and its golden age extends from c. [Note: circa, about.] b.c. 145 (Polybius) to c. [Note: circa, about.] a.d. 160 (Pausanias). The NT vocabulary, then, was derived not only from the LXX Septuagint but from the current language of the day. See the Appendix in Grimm-Thayers Gr.-English Lexicon of the NT (pp. 691696), in which are collected a large number of non-classical words which find parallels in Greek writings (including LXX Septuagint ) from b.c. 322 to a.d. 100.
For our present purpose, however, a supreme interest attaches to the NT words which, though found in classical Greek, have acquired a new moral or theological meaning. Many words as used in the NT are exclusively Christian, and their special significance is not derived from any literary source (e.g. , , , (miracle), , , ). But many others have gained, or at least advanced towards, their new meaning by contact with Hebrew thought. The following are among the more important, and will repay careful investigation with the help of Thayers Lexicon and the NT commentaries. The short notes here attached to each word are not intended to be in any way exhaustive of their meanings or applications, but may be helpful in suggesting lines for study. Words which do not occur in classical Greek are marked with*.
. Classical meaning messenger. Early Heb. thought conceived of the Angel of Jahweh as a visible or active manifestation of Himself, Gen 22:11, Exo 3:2, Mat 1:20, Luk 2:9. But the more developed angelology of later times is reflected in the NT, e.g. the names of two great angels appearMichael (Dan 10:13; Dan 10:21; Dan 12:1, Jud 1:9, Rev 12:7) and Gabriel (Dan 8:16; Dan 9:21, Luk 1:19; Luk 1:26). See also Mat 18:10.
. Class. sacred (to a god); holy. Note two special uses: (a) , the ideal body of consecrated people, Dan 7:18; Dan 7:22, 1Es 8:57 (58); freq. in St. Pauls writings of Christians. Not in Gospp., but see Joh 17:14-19. (b) , the holiest part of the Tent; in NT typical of Heaven where Christ our High Priest intercedes for us, Hebrews 9, Hebrews 10.
. Class. brother; near kinsman. LXX Septuagint and NT a member of the same privileged race, Deu 18:15, Rom 9:3. Hence in NT a fellow-Christian, Mat 23:8 and freq. in Acts and Epistles.
. Class. blood; bloodshed; always emphasizes the fact of death. In the Jewish sacrificial system the blood is the life, Gen 9:4, Lev 17:11; Lev 17:14, Deu 12:23. On the Christian use of this thought see Westcott, Add. note on 1Jn 1:7 and on Heb 9:12.
. Class. human life-time; eternity. (a) In LXX Septuagint freq. in plur., denoting the sum-total of the fixed periods (each being an ) into which eternity is divisible, Psa 77:8 (Psa 76:8), Luk 1:33. (b) The NT adopts the Rabbinic conception of two ages, ( ) and or ( ) the age before, and after, the advent of the Messiah, Mat 22:32, Mar 10:30.
. Class. a rising up (e.g. from a seat); a making to rise; a removal. LXX Septuagint resurrection, 2Ma 7:14; 2Ma 12:43; cf. Dan 12:2, Mat 22:23 and freq. (See aesch. Eum. 617 f.).
. Class. bring up; undertake; refer; restore. LXX Septuagint freq. offer up (as a sacrifice) = . Heb 7:27 bis, 1Pe 2:5; 1Pe 2:24 al.
(*). Class. reveal. In LXX Septuagint and NT freq. Divine revelation of things which man of himself could not know.
(*-). Class. release on payment of ransom. In the OT the word is applied (with little or no idea of ransom) to the action of God for His people, in delivering them ( or ) from trouble or death. This, with the thought of ransom partially restored, appeared in the NT as the Christian redemption from sin. See Westcott, Hebrews, pp. 295 ff.
. Class. a setting free (of a captive); discharge (from the obligations of a bond). In LXX Septuagint mostly the periodical release of Hebrew slaves. But the Messianic interpretation of such passages as Isa 61:1 (cf. Luk 4:18) was a step towards the NT meaning of release from the chain and the guilt of sin. In Isa 22:14 is used in connexion with . See Mat 26:28, Mar 1:4; Mar 3:29, Luk 1:77; Luk 3:3; Luk 24:47.
Class. metaph. to be soaked (with wine); to be drowned (with questions). LXX Septuagint 2 (4) 2Ki 5:14 uses the word in connexion with miraculous cleansing; Sirach 34 (31):30 with cleansing from ceremonial pollution. Both are partial types of Christian baptism.
. Class. confirm (a statement); secure (a person in ones own interests). In LXX Septuagint Psa 41:13; Psa 119:28 the word is used of God establishing or strengthening man. Hence in NT of Jesus Christ strengthening the soul and character, 1Co 1:8.
. Class. deity; divinity; also an inferior divine being, between divine and mortal (Plat. Symp.). It needed the OT monotheism to condemn the thought of divine beings other than Jehovah, Deu 32:17, Psa 96:5. Hence in NT evil spirit. [ (Mat 8:31), which is very similar, is not found in the LXX Septuagint ? Isa 65:11].
. Class. of one who accuses maliciously or slanderously. LXX Septuagint (= or ) an adversary, used of a superhuman agent of evil, Job 1:6-7 etc. Zec 3:1-2, 1Ch 21:1. Hence in NT the devil, used by every NT writer except St. Mark.
, , etc. Class. mainly just, justice. See Sanday-Headlam, Add. note on Rom 1:17, The word and its compounds.
, . Class. opinion; credit or renown. LXX Septuagint Exo 24:17 al. (= , New Heb. ) the glory of God, the visible manifestation of His presence. Hence in NT (a) the manifestation of Gods character, Joh 1:14, (b) the spiritual participation of it by men, Joh 17:22. See 2Co 3:7-18.
(*). Class. nation. LXX Septuagint , NT of nations other than the chosen people; Gentiles.
. Class. phantom; reflected image; fancy. LXX Septuagint , NT the image of a god; idol.
. Class. assembly of citizens. LXX Septuagint (= ) an assembly of Israelites, the chosen people. Hence in NT the body of Christians spiritually called out from the rest of mankind by God; the Church.
. Class. selected. LXX Septuagint the elect people of God, Isa 65:9; Isa 65:15; Isa 65:22, (Isa 65:23), 1Ch 16:13, Wis 3:9; Wis 4:15. Hence in NT of Christians, Mat 24:31 al.
, – (*-). Class, vb. inspect, examine, visit; subst. overseer, guardian. The use of the words in the LXX Septuagint (esp. ) of the action of God, either for help or punishment, gave rise to the spiritual force acquired in the NT, Luk 19:44, 1Pe 2:12; 1Pe 2:25.
(*-), . Class. vb. bring good tidings; subst. reward for good tidings. In the OT such Messianic passages as Isa 40:9 al. led to the Christian use of the terms. [Sing. not in LXX Septuagint , which always has plur.].
, -. Class. praise. (a) LXX Septuagint (= ) bless; and so in NT of the action of either God or man. (b) Consecrate with prayer, 1Sa 9:13, Luk 9:16, 1Co 10:16. (c) is a concrete blessing or benefit, Deu 11:26 al., Eph 1:3, Heb 12:17 al. (not in Gospp.).
. Class. life; existence. In the LXX Septuagint (= ) it is freq. used of a happy life, blessed by God. Hence in NT of spiritual life (Joh 5:24) gained by union with Christ, the source and principle of life (Joh 10:10; Joh 14:6, 1Jn 5:12).
, . Class. breed animals, or germs. LXX Septuagint give life to, Neh 9:6; preserve alive, Exo 1:17, Psa 71:20. Hence in NT endue with spiritual life, Joh 6:63; restore to life, Joh 5:21.
. Class. day. In LXX Septuagint freq. of the Day of Jahweh, a future time of judgment (Am., Is., Zeph. etc.). Hence in NT of the coming of Christ to judgment, Mat 7:22 al. (The thought of judgment was so closely attached to the word that St. Paul could use the expression , 1Co 4:3).
. Class. death of the body. From the OT teaching that death is the punishment of sin is derived the NT use of the word for spiritual death, either as a present, unregenerate state (Joh 5:24, 1Jn 3:14), or as a future penalty (Wis 1:12; Wis 2:24, Rom 1:32).
. Class. a god. OT monotheism led to the use of for the One God in LXX Septuagint and NT. (Gods representatives are called , Psa 82:6, quoted in Joh 10:34).
. Class. propitiate, appease. (a) LXX Septuagint pass. be propitiated, Psa 78:38; Psa 79:9. So NT Luk 18:13. (b) LXX Septuagint (not in NT) make propitiation for, expiate. So in NT , Heb 2:17.
* a means of propitiating, Eze 44:27, 1Jn 2:2; 1Jn 4:10.
* the place of propitiation, the mercy-seat. LXX Septuagint and Heb 9:5. [In Rom 3:25 masc. adj. of Christ].
. Class. badness, depravity; cowardice. LXX Septuagint , NT evil, trouble, Amo 6:3, Mat 6:34.
. Class. a putting to rest; a causing to cease. LXX Septuagint (= ) rest, cessation, Psa 95:11. NT Heb 3:11; Heb 3:18; Heb 4:1; Heb 4:3; Heb 4:5 etc.
. Class, horn. LXX Septuagint , NT symbol of strength, 1Sa 2:10, Psa 89:18, Luk 1:69.
, -, -. Class. inherit. In OT the words are frequently used for the occupation of Canaan by the gift of God. So in NT they are used spiritually for the gaining of the privileges involved in Divine sonship in union with Christ, Mat 5:5; Mat 25:34.
. Class. an object used in casting lots. LXX Septuagint an allotted portion, a possession or privilege assigned by God to His people, Wis 5:5. NT in Mat 27:35 ||, Act 26:18, Col 1:12.
, -. Class to make common, to communicate (opp. ). LXX Septuagint to make unhallowed, profane, defile (= , -), 4Ma 7:6, 1Ma 1:47; 1Ma 1:62. NT Mat 15:11; Mat 15:18; Mat 15:20, Mar 7:2; Mar 7:5, Act 10:14; Act 10:28.
. Class. order; ornament; the Universe (as a system of order). LXX Septuagint the inhabitants of the world, Wis 2:24; Wis 10:1; Wis 14:6; Wis 14:14. NT in Mat 13:38 and frequently. Hence in NT the ungodly masses of men, Joh 7:7 and freq.; also things of the world, desires, pleasures, etc., Mat 16:26 and frequently.
, . Class. vb. to found (city, colony, etc.); subst. the act of founding. LXX Septuagint vb. create (= ), Deu 4:32, Psa 51:11, Isa 45:7; subst. the sum of created things, Jdt 9:12; Jdt 16:14, Wis 5:17, (18), Wis 16:24 al. NT vb. Mar 13:19 al, subst. Mar 10:6 al.
. Class. lord, master, owner. LXX Septuagint passim for Jehovah. NT both with and without the article (a) for Jehovah, (b) for Christ.
. Class. nation, people. In LXX Septuagint specially of the chosen people. Hence in NT applied to Christians, Luk 1:17, Act 15:14, Heb 4:9 al.
, -. Class. render a service to the state at ones own expense. LXX Septuagint (vb. , subst. ), the service of the priests in the Tent and the Temple. So NT Luk 1:23, Heb 8:6; Heb 9:21; Heb 10:11. [The classical idea is adopted in 2Co 9:12, Php 2:30.]
. Class, release on payment of ransom; deliver by payment of ransom. In LXX Septuagint of the action of God, deliverance from evils, Deu 13:5, 2Sa 7:23, Psa 49:9 al. So in NT Luk 24:21 (cf. Act 7:35). (*). Class. the price paid for ransom. In LXX Septuagint (= atonement) Num 35:31, Pro 13:8, and coupled with , Psa 130:7 f., show that the later writers of the OT were approaching the spiritual use of the words. Hence in NT Tit 2:14, 1Pe 1:18, – Mat 20:28, Mar 10:45, – Heb 9:12.
. Class. a secret, a mystery known only to the initiated. LXX Septuagint hidden purpose, or counsel; of men, Tob 12:7; Tob 12:11, Jdt 2:2; of God, Wis 2:22; Wis 6:22. In NT of Gods plan of salvation which was not known until revealed to the Apostles, Mat 13:11 (= Mar 4:11, Luk 8:10), Rom 11:25 al.
. Class. usage, custom; law. LXX Septuagint the Mosaic law. NT (a) the volume of the Law, Mat 12:5, or its contents as binding upon Jews, Mat 5:17 f; (b) a burdensome and ineffectual system of commands and prohibitions from which Christ has freed us, Rom 3:21 and frequently.
(*-). Class, build. LXX Septuagint metaph. grant prosperity to, Psa 28:5, Jer 33:7. In NT help and prosper spiritually, edify (this use of the word was rendered easier by the thought of Christians as being the building and temple of God, Act 20:32 al.).
. Class. name; fame; pretext. LXX Septuagint , all that a persons name implies, his personality and attributes, 1 Kings 21 (3 K 20):8, Son 1:3. Very freq. of the Name of God. So in NT, of men Mat 10:41, Joh 5:43 b; of God Mat 6:9, Joh 12:28, and frequently.
. Class. heaven, sky. LXX Septuagint , a periphrasis used by late Jews for the Divine Name (Dan 4:23 a, 1Ma 3:18 f. and freq.). NT in Luk 15:18; Luk 15:21 (see Dalman, The Words of Jesus, English translation 217220, and 91 ff.).
. Class. child; slave. In LXX Septuagint the word acquired a special force as representing a servant of Jehovah; of men, Psa 113:1, Wis 2:13 al.; of the Messianic Figure in Isaiah 41, 42 etc. So in NT of men who devoutly serve God, Luk 1:54; Luk 1:69; of the Messiah, Mat 12:18, Act 3:13; Act 3:26; Act 4:27; Act 4:30.
. Class. park, pleasure-garden. From the story of the garden of Eden (Genesis 2, 3) the word came to be used figuratively in the OT for Divinely given peace and prosperity, Eze 28:13. In Jewish apocryphal writings it acquired the meaning of an upper region in the third heaven; cf. 2Co 12:2; 2Co 12:4. Hence it was used of the abode of the pious after death, Luk 23:43, Rev 2:7.
(*-). Class, test, try. LXX Septuagint (= ) (a) of men trying God, Exo 17:2, Deu 6:16, Isa 7:12; (b) of God testing men, Gen 22:1. So in NT (a) Mat 4:7, Act 15:10; (b) 1Co 10:9. Hence freq. of temptation by the Devil.
. The LXX Septuagint use of [] to express or a sin-offering, Lev 6:18 (25), Lev 14:19 al., Psa 40:7, led to the use of in the NT with a sacrificial force, to expiate or atone for (sins) (Heb 10:6), Rom 8:3, Heb 5:3; Heb 10:18; Heb 10:26 al.
(*-). Class. cut round; curtail; intercept. LXX Septuagint freq. circumcise, NT (a) circumcise (physically); (b) separate from lust and spiritual impurity, Col 2:11, Rom 2:29 (cf. Exo 6:13; Exo 6:30; Lev 26:41, Eze 44:7, Act 7:51).
, . The broad distinction between the classical and the Biblical use is that in the former belief is intellectual, in the latter it is spiritual. (See Hatch, Hibbert Lectures 1888, Lect. xi., and Essays in Biblical Greek, pp. 8387; Sanday-Headlam on Rom 1:17, The meaning of Faith).
. Class. wind, air; spirit, the life principle of all created things; also inspiration, afflatus; later the all-pervading Soul of the Stoics. In the OT a moral force is added to the word, a power derived from God, Psa 51:12-13, Job 32:8, Isa 48:16; Isa 61:1. Hence in NT (a) the spirit of man, the highest part of his trichotomy; (b) the Holy Spirit.
, -, -. Class. commit fornication. LXX Septuagint metaph. of the worshipping of idols by Israel, Gods bride, Hos 1:2; Hos 9:1, Psa 73:27, Jer 3:6 al. Hence freq. in Apocalypse, Apocalyptic and at least with the underlying thought in Joh 8:41.
, – (*). Class. interpret an oracle, foretell. In LXX Septuagint and NT the words gain a higher meaning than that of interpreting the frenzied utterances of a . A prophet is one inspired with a Divine intuition to declare Gods will both in historical events and in things spiritual.
. Class. flesh (physical). LXX Septuagint and NT (a) physical origin, relationship, Gen 37:27, Jdg 9:2, 2Sa 5:1; 2Sa 19:13, Joh 3:6, Rom 1:3; Rom 11:14, Gal 4:23; Gal 4:29 (b) man, considered as weak and mortal, Psa 56:5; Psa 78:39, al., Joh 1:14, Mat 16:17, Joh 8:15, 1Pe 1:24. Hence in NT (c) the lowest part of human nature (opp. ) with its tendency to sin, Mat 26:41, 1Jn 2:16; and (d) an unspiritual, unregenerate state, only in St. Paul, Rom 8:4-13 al.
(*). Class. darkness, obscurity. LXX Septuagint attaches to it a moral significance, Job 30:26, Psa 112:4, Isa 5:26; Isa 9:2. So in NT, Mat 6:23, Luk 1:79; Luk 11:35, Joh 1:5; Joh 3:19; Joh 12:35 al.
, , -, -. Class. save (from injury, death, etc.). LXX Septuagint to deliver from the penalties of the Messianic judgment, Joe 2:32 (Joe 3:5), Isa 45:17; Isa 49:8 al. Hence in NT save from sin, Mat 1:21, Luk 2:11; Luk 1:69; Luk 2:30 and frequently.
, (*-). Class. subst. light; vb. shine, give light. In LXX Septuagint the subst. acquires a moral force (opp. ), Psa 27:1; Psa 119:105, Isa 5:20 and freq.; and the vb. is used transitively to teach, Psa 119:130, Sir 45:17. Hence both in NT freq. of spiritual enlightenment and freedom.
. Class. kind feeling; a kindness done; gratitude and thanks; enjoyment. In LXX Septuagint (= ) freq. in the expression find favour before God. In NT this kindness of God becomes a twofold theological conception: (a) the undeserved kindness by which man is saved from sin, (b) the state of heart kept alive by the Holy Spirit in one who has received Gods grace.
. Class. to be rubbed on, used as ointment. LXX Septuagint a person who is anointedking, priest, or prophetfor . Hence the Messianic conception which gave rise to the NT title .
Literature.Swete, Introd. to the OT in Greek; art. Septuagint (Nestle) in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible ; Speakers Commentary, Apocrypha, vol. i. pp. xi.xxiii.; art. Apocrypha (Ryle) in Smiths DB [Note: Dictionary of the Bible.] 2; Toy, New Testament Quotations; Hawkins, Horae Synopticae; Hatch, Essays in Biblical Greek; Grimm-Thayer, Greek.English Lexicon of the NT; H. A. A. Kennedy, Sources of NT Greek; Dittmar, Vet. Test. in Novo; Hhn, AT [Note: T Altes Testament.] Citate u. Reminisc. im NT; Commentaries on the NT. A very full Bibliography will be found at the end of Nestles art. Bibelbersetzungen (Griechische) in PRE [Note: RE Real-Encyklopdie fur protest. Theologic und Kirche.] 3 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] .
A. H. MNeile.
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
Septuagint
SEPTUAGINT.See Greek Versions of OT, 1.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Septuagint
septu-a-jint:
I.IMPORTANCE
II.NAME
III.TRADITIONAL ORIGIN
1.Letter of Aristeas
2.Evidence of Aristobulus and Philo
3.Later Accretions
4.Criticism of the Aristeas Story
5.Date
6.Credibility
IV.EVIDENCE OF PROLOGUE TO SIRACH
V.TRANSMISSION OF THE SEPTUAGINT TEXT
1.Early Corruption of the Text
2.Official Revision of Hebrew Text circa 100 AD
3.Adoption of Septuagint by Christians
4.Alternative 2nd-Century Greek Versions
5.Aquila
6.Theodotion
7.Symmachus and Others
8.Origen and the Hexapla
9.Hexaplaric Manuscripts
10.Recensions Known to Jerome
11.Hesychian Recension
12.Lucianic Recension
VI.RECONSTRUCTION OF SEPTUAGINT TEXT; VERSIONS, MANUSCRIPTS AND PRINTED EDITIONS
1.Ancient Versions Made from Septuagint
2.Manuscripts
3.Printed Texts
4.Reconstruction of Original Text
VII. NUMBER, TITLES AND ORDER OF BOOKS
1.Contents
2.Titles
3.Bipartition of Books
4.Grouping and Order of Books
VIII. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE VERSION AND ITS COMPONENT PARTS
1.Grouping of Books on Internal Evidence
(1)The Hexateuch
(2)The Latter Prophets
(3)Partial Version of the Former Prophets
(4)The Writings
(5)The Latest Septuagint Translations
2.General Characteristics
IX.SALIENT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE GREEK AND HEBREW TEXTS
1.Sequence
2.Subject-Matter
LITERATURE
I. Importance.
The Greek version of the Old Testament commonly known as the Septuagint holds a unique place among translations. Its importance is manysided. Its chief value lies in the fact that it is a version of a Hebrew text earlier by about a millennium than the earliest dated Hebrew manuscript extant (916 AD), a version, in particular, prior to the formal rabbinical revision of the Hebrew which took place early in the 2nd century AD. It supplies the materials for the reconstruction of an older form of the Hebrew than the Massoretic Text reproduced in our modern Bibles. It is, moreover, a pioneering work; there was probably no precedent in the world’s history for a series of translations from one language into another on so extensive a scale. It was the first attempt to reproduce the Hebrew Scriptures in another tongue. It is one of the outstanding results of the breaking-down of international barriers by the conquests of Alexander the Great and the dissemination of the Greek language, which were fraught with such vital consequences for the history of religion. The cosmopolitan city which he founded in the Delta witnessed the first attempt to bridge the gulf between Jewish and Greek thought. The Jewish commercial settlers at Alexandria, forced by circumstances to abandon their language, clung tenaciously to their faith; and the translation of the Scriptures into their adopted language, produced to meet their own needs, had the further result of introducing the outside world to a knowledge of their history and religion. Then came the most momentous event in its history, the starting-point of a new life; the translation was taken over from the Jews by the Christian church. It was the Bible of most writers of the New Testament. Not only are the majority of their express citations from Scripture borrowed from it, but their writings contain numerous reminiscences of its language. Its words are household words to them. It laid for them the foundations of a new religious terminology. It was a potent weapon for missionary work, and, when versions of the Scriptures into other languages became necessary, it was in most cases the Septuagint and not the Hebrew from which they were made. Preeminent among these daughter versions was the Old Latin which preceded the Vulgate (Jerome’s Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.), for the most part a direct translation from the Hebrew, was in portions a mere revision of the Old Latin; our Prayer-book version of the Psalter preserves peculiarities of the Septuagint, transmitted through the medium of the Old Latin. The Septuagint was also the Bible of the early Greek Fathers, and helped to mold dogma; it furnished proof-texts to both parties in the Arian controversy. Its language gives it another strong claim to recognition. Uncouth and unclassical as much of it appears, we now know that this is not wholly due to the hampering effects of translation. Biblical Greek, once considered a distinct species, is now a rather discredited term. The hundreds of contemporary papyrus records (letters, business and legal documents, etc.) recently discovered in Egypt illustrate much of the vocabulary and grammar and go to show that many so-called Hebraisms were in truth integral parts of the koine, or common language, i.e. the international form of Greek which, since the time of Alexander, replaced the old dialects, and of which the spoken Greek of today is the lineal descendant. The version was made for the populace and written in large measure in the language of their everyday life.
II. Name.
The name Septuagint is an abbreviation of Interpretatio secundum (or juxta) Septuaginta seniores (or viros), i.e. the Greek translation of the Old Testament of which the first installment was, according to the Alexandrian legend (see III, below), contributed by 70 (or 72) elders sent from Jerusalem to Alexandria for the purpose at the request of Ptolemy II. The legend in its oldest form restricts their labors to the Pentateuch but they were afterward credited with the translation of the whole Bible, and before the 4th century it _ had become customary to apply the title to the whole collection: Aug., De Civ. Dei, xviii. 42, quorum interpretatio ut Septuaginta vocetur iam obtinuit consuetudo (whose translation is now by custom called the Septuagint). The manuscripts refer to them under the abbreviation , hoi o (the seventy), or , hoi ob, (the seventy-two). The Septuagint and the abbreviated form LXX have been the usual designations hitherto, but, as these are based on a now discredited legend, they are coming to be replaced by the Old Testament in Greek, or the Alexandrian version with the abbreviation G.
III. Traditional Origin.
The traditional account of the translation of the Pentateuch is contained in the so-called letter of Aristeas (editions of Greek text, P. Wendland, Teubner series, 1900, and Thackeray in the App. to Swete’s Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, 1900, etc.; Wendland’s sections cited below appear in Swete’s Introduction, edition 2; English translation by Thackeray, Macmillan, 1904, reprinted from JQR, XV, 337, and by H. T. Andrews in Charles’ Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, II, 83-122, Oxford, 1913).
1. Letter of Aristeas:
The writer professes to be a high official at the court of Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 BC), a Greek interested in Jewish antiquities. Addressing his brother Philocrates he describes an embassy to Jerusalem on which he has recently been sent with another courtier Andreas. According to his narrative, Demetrius of Phalerum, a prominent figure in later Athenian history, who here appears as the royal librarian at Alexandria, convinced the king of the importance of securing for his library a translation of the Jewish Law. The king at the same time, to propitiate the nation from whom he was asking a favor, consented, on the suggestion of Aristeas, to liberate all Jewish slaves in Egypt. Copies follow of the letters which passed between Ptolemy and Eleazar, the high priest at Jerusalem. Ptolemy requests Eleazar to select and dispatch to Alexandria 72 elders, proficient in the Law, 6 from each tribe, to undertake the translation the importance of the task requiring the services of a large number to secure an accurate version Eleazar complies with the request and the names of the selected translators are appended to his letter.
There follow: (1) a detailed description of votive offerings sent by Ptolemy for the temple; (2) a sketch of Jerusalem, the temple and its services, and the geography of Palestine, doubtless reflecting in part the impressions of an eyewitness and giving a unique picture of the Jewish capital in the Ptolemaic era; (3) an exposition by Eleazar of portions of the Law.
The translators arrive at Alexandria, bringing a copy of the Law written in letters of gold on rolls of skins, and are honorably received by Ptolemy. A seven days’ banquet follows, at which the king tests the proficiency of each in turn with hard questions. Three days later Demetrius conducts them across the mole known as the Heptastadion to the island of Pharos, where, with all necessaries provided for their convenience, they complete their task, as by a miracle, in 72 days; we are expressly told that their work was the result of collaboration and comparison. The completed version was read by Demetrius to the Jewish community, who received it with enthusiasm and begged that a copy might be entrusted to their leaders; a solemn curse was pronounced on any who should venture to add to or subtract from or make any alteration in the translation. The whole version was then read aloud to the king who expressed his admiration and his surprise that Greek writers had remained in ignorance of its contents; he directed that the books should be preserved with scrupulous care.
2. Evidence of Aristobulus and Philo:
To set beside this account we have two pre-Christian allusions in Jewish writings. Aristobulus, addressing a Ptolemy who has been identified as Philometor (182-146 BC), repeats the statement that the Pentateuch was translated under Philadelphus at the instance of Demetrius Phalereus (Eusebius, Praep. Ev., XIII, 12, 664b); but the genuineness of the passage is doubtful. If it is accepted, it appears that some of the main features of the story were believed at Alexandria within a century of the date assigned by Aristeas to the translation Philo (Vit. Moys, ii. 5 ff) repeats the story of the sending of the translators by Eleazar at the request of Philadelphus, adding that in his day the completion of the undertaking was celebrated by an annual festival on the isle of Pharos. It is improbable that an artificial production like the Aristeas letter should have occasioned such an anniversary; Philo’s evidence seems therefore to rest in part on an independent tradition. His account in one particular paves the way for later accretions; he hints at the inspiration of the translators and the miraculous agreement of their separate VSS: They prophesied like men possessed, not one in one way and one in another, but all producing the same words and phrases as though some unseen prompter were at the ears of each. At the end of the 1st century AD Josephus includes in his Antiquities (XII, ii, 1 ff) large portions of the letter, which he paraphrases, but does not embellish.
3. Later Accretions:
Christian writers accepted the story without suspicion and amplified it. A catena of their evidence is given in an Appendix to Wendland’s edition. The following are their principal additions to the narrative, all clearly baseless fabrications.
(1) The translators worked independently, in separate cells, and produced identical versions, Ptolemy proposing this test of their trustworthiness. So Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Augustine, the Chronicon Paschale and the Cohortatio ad Graecos (wrongly attributed to Justin); the author of the last work asserts that he had seen the cells and heard the tradition on the spot. (2) A modification of this legend says that the translators worked in pairs in 36 cells. So Epiphanius (died 403 AD), and later G. Syncellus, Julius Pollux and Zonaras. Epiphanius’ account is the most detailed. The translators were locked up in sky-lighted cells in pairs with attendants and shorthand writers; each pair was entrusted with one book, the books were then circulated, and 36 identical versions of the whole Bible, canonical and apocryphal books, were produced; Ptolemy wrote two letters, one asking for the original Scriptures, the second for translators. (3) This story of the two embassies appears already in the 2nd century AD, in Justin’s Apology, and (4) the extension of the translators’ work to the Prophets or the whole Bible recurs in the two Cyrils and in Chrysostom. (5) The miraculous agreement of the translators proved them to be no less inspired than the authors (Irenaeus, etc.; compare Philo). (6) As regards date, Clement of Alexandria quotes an alternative tradition referring the version back to the time of the first Ptolemy (322-285 BC); while Chrysostom brings it down to a hundred or more years (elsewhere not many years) before the coming of Christ. Justin absurdly states that Ptolemy’s embassy was sent to King Herod; the Chronicon Paschale calls the high priest of the time Onias Simon, brother of Eleazar.
Jerome was the first to hold these later inventions up to ridicule, contrasting them with the older and more sober narrative. They indicate a growing oral tradition in Jewish circles at Alexandria. The origin of the legend of the miraculous consensus of the 70 translators has been reasonably sought in a passage in Ex 24 Septuagint to which Epiphanius expressly refers. We there read of 70 elders of Israel, not heard of again, who with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu form a link between Moses and the people. After reciting the Book of the Covenant Moses ascends to the top of the mount; the 70, however, ascend but a little way and are bidden to worship from afar: according to the Septuagint text They saw the place where the God of Israel stood … and of the elect of Israel not one perished (Exo 24:11), i.e. they were privileged to escape the usual effect of a vision of the Deity (Exo 33:20). But the verb used for perish (diaphonen) was uncommon in this sense; not one disagreed would be the obvious meaning; hence, apparently the legend of the agreement of the translators, the later intermediaries between Moses and Israel of the Dispersion. When the translations were recited, no difference was discoverable, says Epiphanius, using the same verb, cave-dwellings in the island of Pharos probably account for the legend of the cells. A curious phenomenon has recently suggested that there is an element of truth in one item of Epiphanius’ obviously incredible narrative, namely, the working of the translators in pairs. The Greek books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel fall into two nearly equal parts, apparently the work of separate translators (see VIII, 1, (2), below); while in Exodus, Leviticus and Psalms orthographical details indicate a similar division of the books for clerical purposes. There was, it seems, a primitive custom of transcribing each book on 2 separate rolls, and in the case of Jeremiah and Ezekiel the practice goes back to the time of translation (JTS, IV, 245 ff, 398 ff; IX, 88 ff).
4. Criticism of the Aristeas Story:
Beside the later extravagances, the story of Aristeas appears comparatively rational. Yet it has long been recognized that much of it is unhistorical, in particular the professed date and nationality of the writer. Its claims to authenticity were demolished by Dr. Hody two centuries ago (De bibliorum textibus originalibus, Oxon., 1705). Clearly the writer is not a Greek, but a Jew, whose aim is to glorify his race and to disseminate information about their sacred books. Yet the story is not wholly to be rejected, though it is difficult to disentangle truth from fiction. On one side his veracity has since Hody’s time been established; his court titles, technical terms, epistolary formulas, etc., reappear in Egyptian papyri and inscriptions, and all his references to Alexandrian life and customs are probably equally trustworthy (sections 28, 109 ff, measures to counteract the ill effects upon agriculture of migration from country to town; section 167, treatment of informers (compare section 25); section 175 reception of foreign embassies (compare section 182)). The import of this discovery has, however, since its announcement by Lombroso (Recherches sur l’economie politique de l’Egypte, Turin, 1870), been somewhat modified by the new-found papyri which show that Aristeas’ titles and formulas are those of the later, not the earlier, Ptolemaic age.
5. Date:
The letter was used by Josephus and probably known to Philo. How much earlier is it? Schurer (HJP, II, iii, 309 f (GJV4, III, 608-16)), relying on (1) the questionable Aristobulus passage, (2) the picture drawn of Palestine as if still under Ptolemaic rule, from which it passed to the Seleucids circa 200 BC, argued that the work could not be later than that date. But it is hard to believe that a fictitious story (as he regards it to be) could have gained credence within little more than half a century of the period to which it relates, and Wendland rightly rejects so ancient an origin. The following indications suggest a date about 100-80 BC.
(1) Many of Aristeas’ formulas, etc. (see above), only came into use in the 2nd century BC (Strack, Rhein. Mus., LV, 168 ff; Thackeray, Aristeas, English translation, pp. 3, 12). (2) The later Maccabean age or the end of the 2nd century BC is suggested by some of the translators’ names (Wendland, xxvi), and (3) by the independent position of the high priest. (4) Some of Ptolemy’s questions indicate a tottering dynasty (section 187, etc.). (5) The writer occasionally forgets his role and distinguishes between his own time and that of Philadelphus (sections 28, 182). (6) He appears to borrow his name from a Jewish historian of the 2nd century BC and to wish to pass off the latter’s history as his own (section 6). (7) He is guilty of historical inaccuracies concerning Demetrius, etc. (8) The prologue to the Greek Ecclesiasticus (after 132 BC) ignores and contradicts the Aristeas story, whereas Aristeas possibly used this prologue (Wendland, xxvii; compare Hart, Ecclesiasticus in Greek, 1909). (9) The imprecation upon any who should alter the translation (section 311) points to divergences of text which the writer desired to check; compare section 57, where he seems to insist on the correctness of the Septuagint text of Exo 25:22, gold of pure gold, as against the Hebrew. (10) Allusions to current criticisms of the Pentateuch (sections 128, 144) presuppose a familiarity with it on the part of non-Jewish readers only explicable if the Septuagint had long been current. (11) Yet details in the Greek orthography preclude a date much later than 100 BC.
6. Credibility:
The probable amount of truth in the story is ably discussed by Swete (Intro, 16-22). The following statements in the letter may be accepted: (1) The translation was produced at Alexandria, as is conclusively proved by Egyptian influence on its language. (2) The Pentateuch was translated first and, in view of the homogeneity of style, as a whole. (3) The Greek Pentateuch goes back to the first half of the 3rd century BC; the style is akin to that of the 3rd-century papyri, and the Greek Genesis was used by the Hellenist Demetrius toward the end of the century. (4) The Hebrew rolls were brought from Jerusalem. (5) Possibly Philadelphus, the patron of literature, with his religious impartiality, may have countenanced the work. But the assertion that it owed its inception wholly to him and his librarian is incredible; it is known from other sources that Demetrius Phalereus did not fill the office of librarian under that monarch. The language is that of the people, not a literary style suitable to a work produced under royal patronage. The importation of Palestinian translators is likewise fictitious. Dr. Swete acutely observes that Aristeas, in stating that the translation was read to and welcomed by the Jewish community before being presented to the king, unconsciously reveals its true origin. It was no doubt produced to meet their own needs by the large Jewish colony at Alexandria. A demand that the Law should be read in the synagogues in a tongue understanded of the people was the originating impulse.
IV. Evidence of Prologue to Sirach.
The interesting, though in places tantalizingly obscure, prologue to Ecclesiasticus throws light on the progress made with the translation of the remaining Scriptures before the end of the 2nd century BC.
The translator dates his settlement in Egypt, during which he produced his version of his grandfather’s work, as the 38th year under Euergetes the king. The words have been the subject of controversy, but, with the majority of critics, we may interpret this to mean the 38th year of Euergetes II, reckoning from the beginning (170 BC) of his joint reign with Philometor, i.e. 132 BC. Euergetes I reigned for 25 years only. Others, in view of the superfluous preposition, suppose that the age of the translator is intended, but the cumbrous form of expression is not unparalleled. A recent explanation of the date (Hart, Ecclesiasticus in Greek) as the 38th year of Philadelphus which was also the 1st year of Euergetes I (i.e. 247 BC) is more ingenious than convincing.
The prologue implies the existence of a Greek version of the Law; the Prophets and the rest of the books. The translator, craving his readers’ indulgence for the imperfections of his own work, due to the difficulty of reproducing Hebrew in Greek, adds that others have experienced the same difficulties: The Law itself and the prophecies and the rest of the books have no small difference when spoken in their original language. From these words we may understand that at the time of writing (132-100 BC) Alexandrian Jews possessed Greek versions of a large part (probably not the whole) of the Prophets, and of some of the Writings or Hagiographa. For some internal evidence as to the order in which the several books were translated see VIII, below.
V. Transmission of the Septuagint Text.
The main value of the Septuagint is its witness to an older Hebrew text than our own. But before we can reconstruct this Hebrew text we need to have a pure Greek text before us, and this we are at present far from possessing. The Greek text has had a long and complex history of its own. Used for centuries by both Jews and Christians it underwent corruption and interpolation, and, notwithstanding the multitude of materials for its restoration, the original text has yet to be recovered. We are much more certain of the ipsissima verba of the New Testament writers than of the original Alexandrian version of the Old Testament. This does not apply to all portions alike. The Greek Pentateuch, e.g., has survived in a relatively pure form. But everywhere we have to be on our guard against interpolations, sometimes extending to whole paragraphs. Not a verse is without its array of variant readings. An indication of the amount of mixture which has taken place is afforded by the numerous doublets or alternative renderings of a single Hebrew word or phrase which appear side by side in the transmitted text.
1. Early Corruption of the Text:
Textual corruption began early, before the Christian era. We have seen indications of this in the letter of Aristeas (III, 5, (9) above). Traces of corruption appear in Philo (e.g. his comment, in Quis Rer. Div. Her. 56, on Gen 15:15, shows that already in his day taphes, buried, had become taphes, nurtured, as in all our manuscripts); doublets already exist. Similarly in the New Testament the author of Hebrews quotes (Heb 12:15) a corrupt form of the Greek of Deu 29:18.
2. Official Revision of Hebrew Text Circa 100 AD:
But it was not until the beginning of the 2nd century AD that the divergence between the Greek and the Palestinian Hebrew text reached an acute stage. One cause of this was the revision of the Hebrew text which took place about this time. No actual record of this revision exists, but it is beyond doubt that it originated in the rabbinical school, of which Rabbi Akiba was the chief representative, and which had its center at Jamnia in the years following the destruction of Jerusalem. The Jewish doctors, their temple in ruins, concentrated their attention on the settlement of the text of the Scriptures which remained to them. This school of eminent critics, precursors of the Massoretes, besides settling outstanding questions concerning the Canon, laid down strict rules for Biblical interpretation, and in all probability established an official text.
3. Adoption of Septuagint by Christians:
But another cause widened still farther the distance between the texts of Jerusalem and Alexandria. This was the adoption of the Septuagint by the Christian church. When Christians began to cite the Alexandrian version in proof of their doctrines, the Jews began to question its accuracy. Hence, mutual recriminations which are reflected in the pages of Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho. They dare to assert, says Justin (Dial., 68), that the interpretation produced by your seventy elders under Ptolemy of Egypt is in some points inaccurate. A crucial instance cited by the Jews was the rendering virgin in Isa 7:14, where they claimed with justice that young woman would be more accurate. Justin retaliates by charging the Jews with deliberate excision of passages favorable to Christianity.
4. Alternative 2nd Century Greek Versions:
That such accusations should be made in those critical years was inevitable, yet there is no evidence of any material interpolations having been introduced by either party. But the Alexandrian version, in view of the revised text and the new and stricter canons of interpretation, was felt by the Jews to be inadequate, and a group of new translations of Scripture in the 2nd century AD supplied the demand. We possess considerable fragments of the work of three of these translators, namely, Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion, besides scanty remnants of further anonymous versions
5. Aquila:
The earliest of the three was Aquila, a proselyte to Judaism, and, like his New Testament namesake, a native of Pontus. He flourished, according to Epiphanius (whose account of these later translators in his De mens. et pond. is not wholly trustworthy), under Hadrian (117-38 AD) and was related to that emperor; there is no probability in Epiphanius’ further statement that Hadrian entrusted to Aquila the superintendence of the building of Aelia Capitolina on the site of Jerusalem, that there he was converted to Christianity by Christian exiles returning from Pella, but that refusing to abandon astrology he was excommunicated, and in revenge turned Jew and was actuated by a bias against Christianity in his version of the Old Testament. What is certain is that he was a pupil of the new rabbinical school, in particular of Rabbi Akiba (95-135 AD), and that his version was an attempt to reproduce exactly the revised official text. The result was an extraordinary production, unparalleled in Greek literature, if it can be classed under that category at all. No jot or tittle of the Hebrew might be neglected; uniformity in the translation of each Hebrew word must be preserved and the etymological kinship of different Hebrew words represented. Such were some of his leading principles. The opening words of his translation (Gen 1:1) may be rendered: In heading rounded God with the heavens and with the earth. Heading or summary was selected because the Hebrew word for beginning was a derivative of head. With represents an untranslatable word (‘eth) prefixed to the accusative case, but indistinguishable from the preposition with. The Divine Name (the tetragrammaton, YHWH) was not translated, but written in archaic Hebrew characters. A slave to the letter, as Origen calls him, his work has aptly been described by a modern writer as a colossal crib (Burkitt, JQR, October, 1896, 207 ff). Yet it was a success. In Origen’s time it was used by all Jews ignorant of Hebrew, and continued in use for several centuries; Justinian expressly sanctioned its use in the synagogues (Nov., 146). Its lack of style and violation of the laws of grammar were not due to ignorance of Greek, of which the writer shows, in vocabulary at least, a considerable command. Its importance lay and lies (so far as it is preserved) in its exact reproduction of the rabbinical text of the 2nd century AD; it may be regarded as the beginning of the scientific study of the Hebrew Scriptures. Though a bold attempt to displace the Septuagint, it cannot be charged with being intentionally antagonistic to Christianity. Of the original work, previously known only from extracts in manuscripts, some palimpsest fragments were recovered from the Cairo Genizah in 1897 and edited by F. C. Burkitt (Fragments of the Books of Kings, 1897) and by C. Taylor (Sayings of the Jewish Fathers2, 1897; Hebrew-Greek Cairo Genizah Palimpsests, 1900). The student of Swete’s Old Testament will trace Aquila’s unmistakable style in the footnotes to the Books of Samuel and Kings; the older and shorter B text in those books has constantly been supplemented in the A text from Aquila. A longer specimen of his work occurs in the Greek Ecclesiastes, which has no claim to be regarded as Septuagint; Jerome refers to a second edition of Aquila’s version, and the Greek Ecclesiastes is perhaps his first edition of that book, made on the basis of an unrevised Hebrew text (McNeile, Introduction to Ecclesiastes, Cambridge, 1904, App. I). The suggested identification of Aquila with Onkelos, author of the Targum of that name, has not been generally accepted.
6. Theodotion:
Epiphanius’ account of the dates and history of Theodotion and Symmachus is untrustworthy. He seems to have reversed their order, probably misled by the order of the translations, in the columns of the Hexapla (see below). He also apparently confused Aquila and Theodotion in calling the latter a native of Pontus. As regards date, Theodotion, critics are agreed, preceded Symmachus and probably flourished under M. Aurelius (161-80), whereas Symmachus lived under Commodus (180-92); Irenaeus mentions only the versions of Aquila and Theodotion, and that of Symmachus had in his day either not been produced or at least not widely circulated. According to the more credible account of Irenaeus, Theodotion was an Ephesian and a convert to Judaism. His version constantly agrees with the Septuagint and was rather a revision of it, to bring it into accord with the current Hebrew text, than an independent work. The supplementing of lacunae in the Septuagint (due partly to the fact that the older version of some books did not aim at completeness) gave scope for greater originality. These lacunae were greatest in Job and his version of that book was much longer than the Septuagint. The text of Job printed in Swete’s edition is a patchwork of old and new; the careful reader may detect the Theodotion portions by transliterations and other peculiarities. Long extracts from Theodotion are preserved in codex Q in Jeremiah. As regards the additional matter contained in Septuagint, Theodotion was inconsistent; he admitted, e.g., the additions to Daniel (Sus, Bel and the Dragon, and the Song of Three Children), but did not apparently admit the non-canonical books as a whole. The church adopted his Daniel in place of the inadequate Septuagint version, which has survived in only one Greek manuscript; but the date when the change took place is unknown and the early history of the two Greek texts is obscure. Theodotion’s renderings have been found in writings before his time (including the New Testament), and it is reasonably conjectured that even before the 2nd century AD the Septuagint text had been discarded and that Theodotion’s version is but a working over of an older alternative version Theodotion is free from the barbarisms of Aquila, but is addicted to transliteration, i.e. the reproduction of Hebrew words in Greek letters: His reasons for this habit are not always clear; ignorance of Hebrew will not account for all (compare VIII, 1, (5), below).
7. Symmachus and Others:
Beside the two versions produced by, and primarily intended for, Jews was a third, presumably to meet the needs of a Jewish Christian sect who were dissatisfied with the Septuagint. Symmachus, its author, was, according to the more trustworthy account, an Ebionite, who also wrote a commentary on Matthew, a copy of which was given to Origen by Juliana, a lady who received it from its author (Euseb., HE, VI, 17). Epiphanius’ description of him as a Samaritan convert to Judaism may be rejected. The date of his work, as above stated, was probably the reign of Commodus (180-192 AD). In one respect the version resembled Aquila’s, in its faithful adherence to the sense of the current Hebrew text; its style, however, which was flowing and literary, was a revolt against Aquila’s monstrosities. It seems to have been a recasting of Aquila’s version, with free use of both Septuagint and Theodotion. It carried farther a tendency apparent in the Septuagint to refine away the anthropomorphisms of the Old Testament.
Of three other manuscripts discovered by Origen (one at Nicopolis in Greece, one at Jericho) and known from their position in the Hexapla as Quinta, Sexta, and Septima, little is known. There is no reason to suppose that they embraced the whole Old Testament. Quinta is characterized by Field as the most elegant of the Greek versions F.C. Burkitt has discussed the so-called Quinta of 4 Kings in PSBA, June, 1902. The Christian origin of Sexta betrays itself in Hab 3:13 (Thou wentest forth to save thy people for the sake of (or by) Jesus thy anointed One).
8. Origen and the Hexapla:
These later versions play a large part in the history of the text of the Septuagint. This is due to the labors of the greatest Septuagint scholar of antiquity, the celebrated Origen of Alexandria, whose active life covers the first half of the 3rd century. Origen frankly recognized, and wished Christians to recognize, the merits of the later VSS, and the divergences between the Septuagint and the current Hebrew. He determined to provide the church with the materials for ascertaining the true text and meaning of the Old Testament. With this object he set himself to learn Hebrew – a feat probably unprecedented among non-Jewish Christians of that time – and to collect the later versions The idea of using these versions to amend the Septuagint seemed to him an inspiration: By the gift of God we found a remedy for the divergence in the copies of the Old Testament, namely to use the other editions as a criterion (Commentary on Mat 15:14). The magnum opus in which he embodied the results of his labors was known as the Hexapla or six-column edition. This stupendous work has not survived; a fragment was discovered toward the end of the 19th century in the Ambrosian Library at Milan (Swete, Introduction, 61 ff) and another among the Cairo Genizah palimpsests (ed C. Taylor, Cambridge, 1900). The material was arranged in six parallel columns containing (1) the current Hebrew text, (2) the same in Greek letters, (3) the version of Aquila, (4) that of Symmachus, (5) that of the Septuagint, (6) that of Theodotion. The text was broken up into short clauses; not more than two words, usually one only, stood in the first column. The order of the columns doubtless represents the degree of conformity to the Hebrew; Aquila’s, as the most faithful, heads the VSS, and Symmachus’ is on the whole a revision of Aquila as Theodotion’s is of the Septuagint. But Origen was not content with merely collating the VSS; his aim was to revise the Septuagint and the 5th column exhibited his revised text. The basis of it was the current Alexandrian text of the 3rd century AD; this was supplemented or corrected where necessary by the other versions Origen, however, deprecated alteration of a text which had received ecclesiastical sanction, without some indication of its extent, and the construction of the 5th column presented difficulties. There were (1) numerous cases of words or paragraphs contained in the Septuagint but not in the Hebrew, which could not be wholly rejected, (2) cases of omission from the Septuagint of words in the Hebrew, (3) cases of paraphrase and minor divergences, (4) variations in the order of words or chapters. Origen here had recourse to a system of critical signs, invented and employed by the grammarian Aristarchus (3rd century BC) in his edition of Homer. Passages of the first class were left in the text, but had prefixed to them an obelus, a sign of which the original form was a spit or spear, but figuring in Septuagint manuscripts as a horizontal line usually with a dot above and a dot below; there are other varieties also. The sign in Aristarchus indicated censure, in the Hexapla the doubtful authority of the words which followed. The close of the obelized passage was marked by the metobelus, a colon (:), or, in the Syriac VSS, shaped like a mallet. Passages missing in the Septuagint were supplied from one of the other versions (Aquila or Theodotion), the beginning of the extract being marked by an asterisk – a sign used by Aristarchus to express special approval – the close, by the metobelus. Where Septuagint and Hebrew widely diverged, Origen occasionally gave two VSS, that of a later translator under an asterisk, that of Septuagint obelized. Divergence in order was met by transposition, the Hebrew order being followed; in Proverbs, however, the two texts kept their respective order, the discrepancy being indicated by a combination of signs. Minor supposed or real corruptions in the Greek were tacitly corrected. Origen produced a minor edition, the Tetrapla, without the first two columns of the larger work. The Heptapla and Octapla, occasionally mentioned, appear to be alternative names given to the Hexapla at points where the number of columns was increased to receive other fragmentary versions. This gigantic work, which according to a reasonable estimate must have filled 5,000 leaves, was probably never copied in extenso. The original was preserved for some centuries in the library of Pamphilus at Caesarea; there it was studied by Jerome, and thither came owners of Biblical manuscripts to collate their copies with it, as we learn from some interesting notes in our uncial manuscripts (e.g. a 7th-century note appended to Esther in codex S). The Library probably perished circa 638 AD, when Caesarea fell into the hands of the Saracens.
9. Hexaplaric Manuscripts:
But, though the whole work was too vast to be copied, it was a simple task to copy the 5th column. This task was performed, partly in prison, by Pamphilus, a martyr in the Diocletian persecution, and his friend Eusebius, the great bishop of Caesarea. Copies of the Hexaplaric Septuagint, i.e. Origen’s doctored text with the critical signs and perhaps occasional notes, were, through the initiative of these two, widely circulated in Palestine in the 4th century. Naturally, however, the signs became unintelligible in a text detached from the parallel columns which explained them; scribes neglected them, and copies of the doctored text, lacking the precautionary symbols, were multiplied. This carelessness has wrought great confusion; Origen is, through others’ fault, indirectly responsible for the production of manuscripts in which the current Septuagint text and the later versions are hopelessly mixed. No manuscripts give the Hexaplaric text as a whole, and it is preserved in a relatively pure form in very few: the uncials G and M (Pentatruch and some historical books), the cursives 86 and 88 (Prophets). Other so-called Hexaplaric manuscripts, notably codex Q (Marchalianus: Proph.) preserve fragments of the 5th and of the other columns of the Hexapla. (For the Syro-Hexaplar see below, VI, 1.) Yet, even did we possess the 5th column entire, with the complete apparatus of signs, we should not have the original Septuagint, but merely, after removing the asterisked passages, a text current in the 3rd century. The fact has to be emphasized that Origen’s gigantic work was framed on erroneous principles. He assumed (1) the purity of the current Hebrew text, (2) the corruption of the current Septuagint text where it deviated from the Hebrew. The modern critic recognizes that the Septuagint on the whole presents the older text, the divergences of which from the Hebrew are largely attributable to an official revision of the latter early in the Christian era. He recognizes also that in some books (e.g. Job) the old Greek version was only a partial one. To reconstruct the original text he must therefore have recourse to other auxiliaries beside Origen.
10. Recensions Known to Jerome:
Such assistance is partly furnished by two other recensions made in the century after Origen. Jerome (Praef. in Paralipp.; compare Adv. Ruf., ii. 27) states that in the 4th century three recensions circulated in different parts of the Christian world: Alexandria and Egypt in their Septuagint acclaim Hesychius as their authority, the region from Constantinople to Antioch approves the copies of Lucian the martyr, the intermediate Palestinian provinces read the manuscripts which were promulgated by Eusebius and Pamphilus on the basis of Origen’s labors, and the whole world is divided between these three varieties of text.
11. Hesychian Recension:
Hesychius is probably to be identified with the martyr bishop mentioned by Eusebius (Historia Ecclesiastica, VIII, 13) along with another scholar martyr, Phileas bishop of Thmuis, and it is thought that these two were engaged in prison in revising the Egyptian text at the time when Pamphilus and Eusebius were employed on a similar task under similar conditions. How far existing manuscripts preserve the Hesychian recension is uncertain; agreement of their text with that of Egyptian versions and Fathers (Cyril in particular) is the criterion. For the Prophets Ceriani has identified codex Q and its kin as Hesychian. For the Octateuch N. McLean (JTS, II, 306) finds the Hesychian text in a group of cursives, 44, 74, 76, 84, 106, 134, etc. But the first installments of the larger Cambridge Septuagint raise the question whether Codex B (Vaticanus) may not itself be Hesychian; its text is more closely allied to that of Cyril Alex. than to any other patristic text, and the consensus of these two witnesses against the rest is sometimes (Exo 32:14) curiously striking. In the Psalter also Rahlfs (Septuaginta-Studien, 2. Heft, 1907, 235) traces the Hesychian text in B and partially in Codex Sinaiticus. Compare von Soden’s theory for the New Testament. See TEXT AND MANUSCRIPTS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
12. Lucianic Recension:
The Lucianic recension was the work of another martyr, Lucian of Antioch (died 311-12), probably with the collaboration of the Hebraist Dorotheus. There are, as Hort has shown, reasons for associating Lucian with a Syrian revision of the New Testament in the 4th century, which became the dominant type of text. That he produced a Syrian recension of the Greek Old Testament is expressly stated by Jerome, and we are moreover able with considerable certainty to identify the extant manuscripts which exhibit it. The identification, due to Field and Lagarde, rests on these grounds: (1) certain verses in 2 Kings are in the Arabic Syro-Hexaplar marked with the letter L, and a note explains that the letter indicates Lucianic readings; (2) the readings so marked occur in the cursives 19, 82, 93, 108, 118; (3) these manuscripts in the historical books agree with the Septuagint citations of the Antiochene Fathers Chrysostom and Theodoret. This clue enabled Lagarde to construct a Lucianic text of the historical books (Librorum Vet. Test. canonic. pars prior, Gottingen, 1883); his death prevented the completion of the work. Lagarde’s edition is vitiated by the fact that he does not quote the readings of the individual manuscripts composing the group, and it can be regarded only as an approximate reconstruction of Lucian. It is evident, however, that the Lucianic Septuagint possessed much the same qualities as the Syrian revision of the New Testament; lucidity and completeness were the main objects. It is a full text, the outcome of a desire to include, so far as possible, all recorded matter; doublets are consequently numerous. While this conflation of texts detracts from its value, the Lucianic revision gains importance from the fact that the sources from which it gleaned include an element of great antiquity which needs to be disengaged; where it unites with the Old Latin version against all other authorities its evidence is invaluable.
VI. Reconstruction of Septuagint Text; Versions, Manuscripts and Printed Editions.
The task of restoring the original text is beset with difficulties. The materials (MSS, VSS, patristic citations) are abundant, but none has escaped mixture, and the principles for reconstruction are not yet securely established (Swete, Introduction, I, iv-vi; III, vi).
1. Ancient Versions Made from Septuagint:
Among the chief aids to restoration are the daughter versions made from the Septuagint, and above all the Old Latin (pre-Hieronymian) version, for the earliest (African) Old Latin version dates from the 2nd century AD, i.e. before Origen, and contains a text from which the asterisked passages in Hexaplaric manuscripts are absent; it thus brings us the best independent proof we have that the Hexaplar signs introduced by Origen can be relied on for the reconstruction of the LXX (Burkitt). The Old Latin also enables us to recognize the ancient element in the Lucianic recension. But the Latin evidence itself is by no means unanimous. Augustine (De Doctr. Christ., ii. 16) speaks of the infinite variety of Latin VSS; though they may ultimately prove all to fall into two main families, African and European. Peter Sabatier’s collection of patristic quotations from the Old Latin is still useful, though needing verification by recent editions of the Fathers. Of Old Latin manuscripts one of the most important is the codex Lugdunensis, edited by U. Robert (Pentateuchi e codex Lugd. versio Latin antiquissima, Paris, 1881; Heptateuchi partis post. versio Latin antiq. e codex Lugd., Lyons, 1900). The student should consult also Burkitt’s edition of The Rules of Tyconius (Texts and Studies, III, 1, Cambridge, 1894) and The Old Latin and the Itala (ibid., IV, 3, 1896).
Jerome’s Vulgate is mainly a direct translation from the Hebrew, but the Vulgate (Jerome’s Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) Psalter, the so-called Gallican, is one of Jerome’s two revisions of the Old Latin, not his later version from the Hebrew, and some details in our Prayer-book Psalter are ultimately derived through the Vulgate (Jerome’s Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) Psalter from the Septuagint. Parts of the Apocrypha (Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, 1 and 2 Maccabees) are also pure Old Latin, untouched by Jerome.
The early date (2nd century AD) once claimed for the Egyptian or Coptic versions (Bohairic, i.e. in the dialect of Lower Egypt, Sahidic or Upper Egyptian and Middle Egyptian) has not been confirmed by later researches, at least as regards the first-named, which is probably not earlier than the 3rd or 4th century AD. Rahlfs (Sept-Studien, II, 1907) identifies the Bohairic Psalter as the Hesychian recension. The Sahidic version of Job has fortunately preserved the shorter text lacking the later insertions from Theodotion (Lagarde, Mittheilungen, 1884, 204); this does not conclusively prove that it is pre-Origenic; it may be merely a Hexaplaric text with the asterisked passages omitted (Burkitt, EB, IV, 5027). The influence bf the Hexapla is traceable elsewhere in this version
The Ethiopic version was made in the main from the Greek and in part at least from an early text; Rahlfs (Sept. Stud., I, 1904) considers its text of S-K, with that of codex B, to be pre-Origenic.
The Vulgate (Jerome’s Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) or Peshitta Syriac version was made from the Hebrew, though partly influenced by the Septuagint. But another Syriac version is of primary importance for the Septuagint text, namely, that of Paul, bishop of Tella (Constantine in Mesopotamia), executed at Alexandria in 616-17 and known as the Syro-Hexaplar. This is a bald Syriac version of the Septuagint column of the Hexapla, containing the Hexaplar signs. A manuscript of the poetical and prophetical books is in the Ambrosian Library at Milan and has been edited by Ceriani (Monumenta sacra et profana, 1874); fragments of the historical books are also extant (Lagarde and Rahlfs, Bibliothecae Syriacae, Gottingen, 1892). This version supplements the Greek Hexaplaric manuscripts and is the principal authority for Origen’s text. For the original version of Daniel, which has survived in only one late MS, the Syro-Hexaplar supplies a second and older authority of great value.
The Armenian version (ascribed to the 5th century) also owes its value to its extreme literalness; its text of the Octateuch is largely Hexaplaric.
A bare mention must suffice of the Arabic version (of which the prophetical and poetical books, Job excluded, were rendered from the Septuagint); the fragments of the Gothic version (made from the Lucianic recension), and the Slavonic (partly from Septuagint, also Lucianic) and the Georgian versions.
2. Manuscripts:
For a full description of the Greek manuscripts see Swete, Introduction, I, chapter V. They are divided according to their script (capitals or minuscules) into uncials and cursives, the former ranging from the 4th century (four papyrus scraps go back to the 3rd century; Nestle in Hauck-Herzog, Realencyklopadie fur protestantische Theologie und Kirche, XXIII, 208) to the 10th century AD, the latter from the 9th to the 16th century AD. Complete Bibles are few; the majority contain groups of books only, such as the Pentateuch, Octateuch (Gen-Ruth), the later historical books, the Psalter, the 3 or 5 Solomonic books, the Prophets (major, minor or both). Uncials are commonly denoted by capital letters (in the edition of Holmes and Parsons by Roman figures); cursives, of which over 300 are known, by Arabic figures; in the larger Cambridge Septuagint the selected cursives are denoted by small Roman letters.
The following are the chief uncials containing, or which once contained, the whole Bible: B (Vaticanus, at Rome, 4th century AD), adopted as the standard text in all recent editions; Codex Sinaiticus, at Petersburg and Leipzig, 4th century AD), discovered by Tischendorf in 1844 and subsequent years in Catherine’s Convent, Mt. Sinai; A (Alexandrinus, British Museum, probably 5th century AD); C (Ephraemi rescriptus, Paris, probably 5th century), a palimpsest, the older Biblical matter underlying a medieval Greek text of works of Ephrem the Syrian. For the Octateuch and historical books: D (Cottonianus, British Museum, probably 5th or 6th century), fragments of an illuminated Gen, the bulk of which perished in a fire at Ashburnham House in 1731, but earlier collations of Grabe and others are extant, which for the lost portions are cited in the Cambridge texts as D (Dsil, i.e. silet Grabius, denotes an inference from Grabe’s silence that the manuscript did not contain a variant); F (Ambro-sianus, Milan, 4th to 5th century), fragments of the Octateuch; G (Sarravianus, fragments at Leyden, Paris and Petersburg, 4th to 5th century), important as containing an Origenic text with the Hexaplar signs; L (Purpureus Vindobonensis, Vienna, 5th to 6th century), fragments of an illuminated manuscript Genesis on purple vellum; M (Coislinianus, Paris, 7th century), important on account of its marginal Hexaplaric matter. For the Prophets, Q (Marchalianus, Rome, 6th century) is valuable, both for its text, which is Hesychian (see above), and for its abundant marginal Hexaplaric matter. A curious mixture of uncial and cursive writing occurs in E (Bodleianus, probably 10th century), fragments of the historical books (to 3 R 16 28) preserved at Oxford, Cambridge (1 leaf), Petersburg and London; Tischendorf, who brought the manuscript from the East, retained the tell-tale Cambridge leaf, on which the transition from uncial to cursive script occurs, until his death. The long-concealed fact that the scattered fragments were part of a single manuscript came to light through Swete’s identification of the Cambridge leaf as a continuation of the Bodleian fragment. Many of the cursives still await investigation, as do also the lectionaries. The latter, though the manuscripts are mainly late, should repay study. The use of the Septuagint for lectionary purposes was inherited by the church from the synagogue, and the course of lessons may partly represent an old system; light may also be expected from them on the local distribution of various types of text.
3. Printed Texts:
Of the printed text the first four editions were (1) the Complutensian Polyglot of Cardinal Ximenes, 1514-17, comprising the Greek, Hebrew and Vulgate (Jerome’s Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) texts, the last in the middle place of honor being compared to Jesus in the midst between the two thieves (!). The Greek was based on manuscripts from the Vatican and one from Venice; it exhibits on the whole the Lucianic recension, as the Hesychian is by a curious coincidence represented in (2) the Aldine edition of 1518, based on Venetian manuscripts. (3) The monumental Sixtine edition, published at Rome in 1586 under the auspices of Pope Sixtus V and frequently reprinted, was mainly based on the codex Vaticanus, the superiority of which text is justly recognized in the interesting preface (printed in Swete’s Intro). (4) The English edition (Oxford, 1707-20) begun by Grabe (died 1712) was based on the codex Alexandrinus, with aid from other manuscripts, and had the peculiarity that he employed Origen’s critical signs and different sizes of type to show the divergence between the Greek and the Hebrew. Of more recent editions three are preeminent. (5) The great Oxford edition of Holmes and Parsons (Oxford, 1798-1827, 5 volumes, folio) was the first attempt to bring together in a gigantic apparatus criticus all the evidence of uncial and cursire manuscripts (upward of 300), versions and early Citations from Philo and Josephus onward. As a monumental storehouse of materials H. and P. will not be wholly superseded by the latest edition now (1913) in preparation. (6) The serviceable Cambridge manual, edition of Swete (lst edition 1887-94, edition 3, 1901-7, 3 volumes, 8vo), is in the hands of all serious Septuagint students. The text is that of B, or (where B fails) of A, and the apparatus contains the readings of the principal uncial manuscripts. New materials discovered since the edition of H. and P., especially codex S, are employed, and greater accuracy in the presentation of the other evidence has been made possible by photography. The fact that the text here printed is but a provisional one is sometimes overlooked. Swete’s edition was designed as a precursor to (7) the larger Cambridge Septuagint, of which three installments embracing the Pentateuch have (1913) appeared (The Old Testament in Greek, edition A.E. Brooke and N. McLean, Cambridge, 1911 pt. III. Numbers and Deuteronomy). The text is a reprint of Swete’s except that from Ex onward a few alterations of errors in the primary manuscript have been corrected, a delicate task in which the editors have rejected a few old readings without sufficient regard to the peculiarities of Hellenistic Greek. The importance of the work lies in its apparatus, which presents the readings of all the uncials, versions and early citations, and those of a careful representative selection of the cursives. The materials of H (Law of Holiness, Lev. 17 through 26) and P (the Priestly Code) are brought up to date and presented in a more reliable and convenient form. Besides these there is (8) Lagarde’s reconstruction of the Lucianic recension of the historical books, which, as stated, must be used with caution (see above)
4. Reconstruction of Original Text:
The task of reconstructing the Oldest text is still unaccomplished. Materials have accumulated, and much preliminary spade-work has been done, by Lagarde in particular (see his axioms in Swete, Introduction, 484, ff) and more recently by Nestle and Rahlfs; but the principles which the editor must follow are not yet finally determined. The extent to which mixture has affected the documents is the stumbling-block. Clearly no single Moabite Stone presents the oldest text. That of codex B, as in the New Testament, is on the whole the purest. In the 4 books of Reigns (1 Samuel through 2 Kings), e.g., it has escaped the grosser interpolations found in most manuscripts, and Rahlfs (Sept.-Studien, I, 1904) regards its text as pre-Origenic. It is, however, of unequal value and by no means an infallible guide; in Judges, e.g., its text is undoubtedly late, no earlier than the 4th century AD, according to one authority (Moore, Jgs, ICC). In relation to two of the 4th-century recensions its text is neutral, neither predominantly Lucianic nor Hexaplaric; but it has been regarded by some authorities as Hesychian. Possibly the recension made in the country which produced the Septuagint adhered more closely than others to the primitive text; some Hesychian features in the B text may prove to be original. Still even its purest portions contain marks of editorial revision and patent corruptions. Codex Alexandrinus presents a quite different type of text, approximating to that of the Massoretic Text. In the books of Reigns it is practically a Hexaplaric text without the critical signs, the additional matter being mainly derived from Aquila. Yet that it contains an ancient element is shown by the large support given to its readings by the New Testament and early Christian writers. Individual manuscripts must give place to groups. In order to reconstruct the texts current before Origen’s time, it is necessary to isolate the groups containing the three 4th-century recensions, and to eliminate from the recensions thus recovered all Hexaplaric matter and such changes as appear to have been introduced by the authors of those recensions. Other groups brought to light by the larger Cambridge text have also to be taken into account. The attempt to Renetrate into the earlier stages of the history is the hardest task. The Old Latin version is here the surest guide; it has preserved readings which have disappeared from all Greek manuscripts, and affords a criterion as to the relative antiquity of the Greek variants. The evidence of early Christian and Jewish citations is also valuable. Ultimately, after elimination of all readings proved to be recensional or late, the decision between outstanding variants must depend on internal evidence. These variants will fall into two classes: (1) those merely affecting the Greek text, by far the larger number and presenting less difficulty; (2) those which imply a different Hebrew text. In adjudicating on the latter Lagarde’s main axioms have to be borne in mind, that a free translation is to be preferred to a slavishly literal one, and a translation presupposing another Hebrew original to one based on the Massoretic Text.
VII. Number, Titles and Order of Books.
1. Contents:
In addition to the Hebrew canonical books, the Septuagint includes all the books in the English Apocrypha except 2 Esdras (The Prayer of Manasseh only finds a place among the canticles appended in some manuscripts to the Psalms) besides a 3rd and 4th book of Maccabees. Swete further includes in his text as an appendix of Greek books on the borderland of canonicity the Ps of Sol (found in some cursives and mentioned in the list in codex A), the Greek fragments of the Book of Enoch and the ecclesiastical canticles above mentioned. Early Christian writers in quoting freely from these additional books as Scripture doubtless perpetuate a tradition inherited from the Jews of Alexandria. Most of the books being original Greek compositions were ipso facto excluded from a place in the Hebrew Canon. Greater latitude as regards canonicity prevailed at Alexandria; the Pentateuch occupied a place apart, but as regards later books no very sharp line of demarcation between canonical and uncanonical appears to have been drawn.
2. Titles:
Palestinian Jews employed the first word or words of each book of the Pentateuch to serve as its title; Genesis e.g. was denoted in the beginning, Exodus (and these are the) names; a few of the later books have similar titles. It is to the Septuagint, through the medium of the Latin VSS, that we owe the familiar descriptive titles, mostly suggested by phrases in the Greek version. In some books there are traces of rival titles in the Ptolemaic age. Exodus (outgoing) is also called Exagoge (leading out) by Philo and by the Hellenist Ezekiel who gave that name to his drama on the deliverance from Egypt. Philo has also alternative names for Deuteronomy – Epinoms (after-law) borrowed from the title of a pseudo-Platonic treatise, and for Judgess the Book of Judgments. The last title resembles the Alexandrian name for the books of Samuel and Kings, namely, the four Books of Kingdoms or rather Reigns; the name may have been given in the first place to a partial version including only the reigns of the first few monarchs. Jerome’s influence in this case restored the old Hebrew names as also in Chronicles (= Hebrew Words of Days, Diaries), which in the Septuagint is entitled Paraleipomena, omissions, as being a supplement to the Books of Reigns.
3. Bipartition of Books:
Another innovation, due apparently to the Greek translators or later editors, was the breaking up of some of the long historical narratives into volumes of more manageable compass. In the Hebrew manuscripts, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah form respectively one book apiece. In the Septuagint the first three of these collections are subdivided into two volumes as in modern Bibles; an acquaintance with the other arrangement is, however, indicated in Codex B by the insertion at the end of 1 R, 3 R, 1 Chronicles of the first sentence of the succeeding book, a reminder to the reader that a continuation is to follow. Ezra-Nehemiah, the Greek version (2 Esdras) being made under the influence of Palestinian tradition, remains undivided. Originally Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah formed a unit, as was apparently still the case when the oldest Greek version (1 Esdras) was made.
4. Grouping and Order of Books:
In the arrangement of books there is a radical departure from Palestinian practice. There were three main unalterable divisions in the Hebrew Bible, representing three stages in the formation of the Canon: Law, Prohets Former i.e. Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, and Latter) and Writings. This arrangement was known at Alexandria at the end of the 2nd century BC (Sir, prol.) but was not followed. The Writings were a miscellaneous collection of history and poetry with one prophetical book (Daniel). Alexandrian scholars introduced a more literary and symmetrical system, bringing together the books of each class and arranging them with some regard to the supposed chronological order of their authors. The Law, long before the Greek translation, had secured a position of supreme sanctity; this group was left undisturbed, it kept its precedence and the individual books their order (Leviticus and Numbers, however, exchange places in a few lists). The other two groups are broken up. Ruth is removed from the Writings and attached to Judges. Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah are similarly transferred to the end of the historical group. This group, from chronological considerations, is followed by the poetical and other Writings, the Prophets coming last (so in Codex Vaticanus, etc.; in Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus, prophets precede poets). The internal order of the Greek Hagiographa, which includes quasi-historical (Esther, Tobit, Judith) and Wisdom books, is variable. Daniel now first finds a place among the Prophets. The 12 minor prophets usually precede the major (Codex Sinaiticus and Western authorities give the four precedence), and the order of the first half of their company is shuffled, apparently on chronological grounds, Hosea being followed by Amos, Micah, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Jeremiah has his train of satellites, Baruch, Lamentation (transferred from the Writings) and Epistle of Jeremiah; Susanna and Bel and the Dragon consort with and form integral parts of Daniel. Variation in the order of books is partly attributable to the practice of writing each book on a separate papyrus roll, kept in a cylindrical case; rolls containing kindred matter would tend to be placed in the same case, but there would be no fixed order for these separate items until the copying of large groups in book-form came into vogue (Swete, Introduction, 225 f, 229 f).
VIII. Characteristics of the Version and Its Component Parts.
Notwithstanding the uncertain state of the text, some general characteristics of the version are patent. It is clear that, like the Hebrew itself, it is not a single book, but a library. It is a series of versions and Greek compositions covering well-nigh 400 years, since it includes a few productions of the 2nd century AD; the bulk of the translations, however, fall within the first half of the period (Sirach, prolegomena).
1. Grouping of Septuagint Books on Internal Evidence:
The translations may be grouped and their chronological order approximately determined from certain characteristics of their style. (1) We may inquire how a Hebrew word or phrase is rendered in different parts of the work. Diversity of renderings is not an infallible proof that different hands have been employed, since invariable uniformity in translation is difficult of attainment and indeed was not the aim of the Pentateuch translators, who seem rather to have studied variety of expression. If, however, a Hebrew word is consistently rendered by one Greek word in one portion and by another elsewhere, and if each of the two portions has other features peculiar to itself, it becomes highly probable that the two portions are the work of different schools. Among test-words which yield results of this kind are servant in Moses the servant of the Lord, Hosts in Lord of Hosts, Philistines (Swete, Introduction, 317 f; Thackeray, Grammar of the Old Testament, 7 ff). (2) We may compare the Greek with that of dated documents of the Ptolemaic age. The translations were written in the koine or common Greek, most of them in the vernacular variety of it, during a period when this new cosmopolitan language was in the making; the abundant dated papyri enable us to trace some stages in its evolution. The Petrie and Hibeh papyri of the 3rd century BC afford the closest parallels to the Greek Pentateuch. The following century witnessed a considerable development or degeneracy in the language, of which traces may be found in the Greek of the prophetical books. Beside the vernacular Greek was the literary language of the Atticistic school which persistently struggled, with indifferent success, to recover the literary flavor of the old Greek masterpieces. This style is represented in the Septuagint by most of the original Greek writings and by the paraphrases of some of the Writings. (3) We may compare the Greek books as translations, noting in which books Iicense is allowed and which adhere strictly to the Hebrew. The general movement is in the direction of greater literalism; the later books show an increasing reverence for the letter of Scripture, resulting in the production of pedantically literal VSS; the tendency culminated in the 2nd century AD in the barbarisms of Aquila. Some of the Writings were freely handled, because they had not yet obtained canonical rank at the time of translation. Investigation on these lines goes to show that the order of the translation was approximately that of the Hebrew Canon. The Greek Hexateuch may be placed in the 3rd century BC, the Prophets mainly in the 2nd century BC, the Writings mainly in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC.
(1) The Hexateuch.
The Greek Pentateuch should undoubtedly be regarded as a unit: the Aristeas story may so far be credited. It is distinguished by a uniformly high level of the common vernacular style, combined with faithfulness to the Hebrew, rarely lapsing into literalism. It set the standard which later translators tried to imitate. The text was more securely established in this portion and substantial variant readings are comparatively few. The latter part of Exodus is an exception; the Hebrew had here not reached its final form in the 3rd century BC, and there is some reason for thinking that the version is not the work of the translator of the first half. In Deuteronomy a few new features in vocabulary appear (e.g. ekklesa; see Hort, Christian Ecclesia, 4 ff). The Greek version of Josephus forms a link between the Pentateuch and the later historical books. The text was not yet fixed, and variants are more abundant than in the Pentateuch. The earliest VS, probably of selections only, appears from certain common features to have been nearly coeval with that of the Law.
(2) The Latter Prophets.
There is little doubt that the next books to be translated were the Prophets in the narrower sense, and that Isaiah came first. The style of the Greek Isaiah has a close similarity, not wholly attributable to imitation, to that of the Pentateuch: a certain freedom of treatment connects it with the earlier translation period: it was known to the author of Wisdom (Isa 3:10 with Ottley’s note). The translation shows obvious signs of incompetence (Swete), but the task was an exacting one. The local Egyptian coloring in the translation is interesting (R. R. Ottley, Book of Isaiah according to the Septuagint, 2 volumes, Greek text of A, translation and notes, Cambridge, 1904-6, with review in JTS, X, 299). Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Minor Prophets were probably translated en bloc or nearly so. The Palestinian Canon had now been enlarged by a second group of Scriptures and this stimulated a desire among Alexandrian Jews to possess the entire collection of the Prophets in Greek. The undertaking seems to have been a formal and quasi-official one, not a haphazard growth. For it has been ascertained that Jeremiah and Ezekiel were divided for translation purposes into two nearly equal parts; a change in the Greek style occurs at the junctures. In Jeremiah the break occurs in chapter 29 Septuagint order); the clearest criterion of the two styles is the twofold rendering of Thus saith the Lord. The last chapter (Jer 52) is probably a later addition in the Greek. The translator of the second half of Jer also translated the first half of Baruch (1:1-3:8); he was incompetent and his work, if our text may be relied on, affords flagrant examples of Greek words being selected to render words which he did not understand merely because of their similar sound. Ezekiel is similarly divided, but here the translator of the first half (chapters 1 through 27) undertook the difficult last quarter as well (chapters 40 through 48), the remainder being left to a second worker. An outstanding test is afforded by the renderings of the refrain, They shall know that I am the Lord. The Greek version of the twelve shows no trace of a similar division; in its style it is closely akin to the first half of Ezekiel and is perhaps by the same hand (JTS, IV, 245, 398, 578). But this official version of the Prophets had probably been preceded by versions of short passages selected to be read on the festivals in the synagogues. Lectionary requirements occasioned the earliest versions of the Prophets, possibly of the Pentateuch as well. Two indications of this have been traced. There exists in four manuscripts a Greek version of the Psalm of Habakkuk (Hab 3), a chapter which has been a Jewish lesson for Pentecost from the earliest times, independent of and apparently older than the Septuagint and made for synagogue use. Similarly in Ezekiel of the Septuagint there is a section of sixteen verses (Eze 36:24-38) with a style quite distinct from that of its context. This passage was also an early Christian lesson for Pentecost, and its lectionary use was inherited from Judaism. Here the Septuagint translators seem to have incorporated the older version, whereas in Hab 3 they rejected it (JTS, XII, 191; IV, 407).
(3) Partial Version of the Former Prophets.
The Greek style indicates that the history of the monarchy was not all translated at once. Ulfilas is said to have omitted these books from the Gothic version as likely to inflame the military temper of his race; for another reason the Greek translators were at first content with a partial version. They omitted as unedifying the more disastrous portions, David’s sin with the subsequent calamities of his reign and the later history of the divided monarchy culminating in the captivity. Probably the earliest versions embraced only (1) 1 R, (2) 2 R 1 1 through 11 1 (David’s early reign), (3) 3 R 2 12 through 21 13 (Solomon and the beginning of the divided monarchy); the third book of Reigns opened with the accession of Solomon (as in Lucian’s text), not at the point where 1 Kings opens. These earlier portions are written in a freer style than the rest of the Greek Reigns, and the Hebrew original differed widely in places from that translated in the English Bible (JTS, VIII, 262).
(4) The Writings.
The Hagiographa at the end of the 2nd century BC were regarded as national literature. (Sirach, prolegomena the other books of our fathers), but not as canonical. The translators did not scruple to treat these with great freedom, undeterred by the prohibition against alteration of Scripture (Deu 4:2; Deu 12:32). Free paraphrases of extracts were produced, sometimes with legendary additions. A partial version of Job (one-sixth being omitted) was among the first; Aristeas, the historian of the 2nd century BC, seems to have been acquainted with it (Freudenthal, Hellenistische Studien, 1875, 136 ff). The translator was a student of the Greek poets; his version was probably produced for the general reader, not for the synagogues. Hatch’s theory (Essays in Biblical Greek, 1889, 214) that his Hebrew text was shorter than ours and was expanded later is untenable; avoidance of anthropomorphisms explains some omissions, the reason for others is obscure. The first Greek narrative of the return from exile (1 Esdras) was probably a similar version of extracts only from Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah, grouped round a fable of non-Jewish origin, the story of the 3 youths at the court of Darius. The work is a fragment, the end being lost, and it has been contended by some critics that the version once embraced the whole of Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah (C. C. Torrey, Ezra Studies, Chicago, 1910). The Greek is obviously earlier than Esdras B and is of great value for the reconstruction of the Hebrew. The same translator appears from peculiarities of diction to have produced the earliest version of Dnl, treating it with similar freedom and incorporating extraneous matter (the Song of Three Children, Susanna, Bel). The maximum of interpolation is reached in Esther, where the Greek additions make up two-thirds of the story. The Greek Proverbs (probably 1st century BC) includes many maxims not in the Hebrew; some of these appear to be derived from a lost Hebrew collection, others are of purely Greek origin. This translator also knew and imitated the Greek classics; the numerous fragments of iambic and hexameter verse in the translation cannot be accidental (JTS, XIII, 46). The Psalter is the one translation in this category in which liberties have not been taken; in Psa 13:1-6 (14):3 the extracts from other parts of Psalms and from Isaiah included in the B text must be an interpolation possibly made before Paul’s time (Rom 3:13 ff), or else taken from Romans. The little Ps 151 in Septuagint, described in the title as an autograph work of David and as outside the number, is clearly a late Greek production, perhaps an appendix added after the version was complete.
(5) The Latest Septuagint Translations.
The latest versions included in the Septuagint are the productions of the Jewish translators of the 2nd century AD; some books may be rather earlier, the work of pioneers in the new school which advocated strict adherence to the Hebrew. The books of Reigns were now completed, by Theodotion, perhaps, or by one of his school; the later portions (2 R 11 2 through 3 R 2 11, David’s downfall, and 3 R 22-4 R end, the downfall of the monarchy) are by one hand, as shown by peculiarities in style, e.g. I am have with child (2 R 11 5) = I am with child, a use which is due to desire to distinguish the longer form of the pronoun ‘anokh (I, also used for I am) from the shorter ‘an. A complete version of Jdg was now probably first made. In two cases the old paraphrastic versions were replaced. Theodotion’s Daniel, as above stated, superseded in the Christian church the older version A new and complete version of Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah was made (Esdras B), though the older version retained its place in the Greek Bible on account of the interesting legend imbedded in it; the new version is here again possibly the work of Theodotion; the numerous transliterations are characteristic of him (Torrey, Ezra Studies; theory had previously been advanced by Sir H. Howorth). In the Greek Ecclesiastes we have a specimen of Aquila’s style (see McNeile’s edition, Cambridge, 1904). Canticles is another late version
2. General Characteristics:
A marked feature of the whole translation is the scrupulous avoidance of anthropomorphisms and phrases derogatory to the divine transcendence. Thus Exo 4:16, Thou shalt be to him in things pertaining to God (Hebrew for or as God); Exo 15:3, The Lord is a breaker of battles (Hebrew a Man of war); Exo 24:10, They saw the place where the God of Israel stood (Hebrew they saw the God of Israel); Exo 24:11, Of the elect of Israel not one perished and they were seen in the place of God (Hebrew Upon the nobles … He laid not His hand, and they beheld God). The comparison of God to a rock was consistently paraphrased as idolatrous, as was sometimes the comparison to the sun from fear of sun-worship (Ps 83 (84):12, The Lord loves mercy and truth for Hebrew The Lord is a sun and shield). The sons of God (Gen 6:2) becomes the angels of God. For minor liberties, e.g. slight amplifications, interpretation of difficult words, substitution of Greek for Hebrew coinage, translation of place-names, see Swete, Introduction, 323 ff. Blunders in translation are not uncommon, but the difficulties which these pioneers had to face must be remembered, especially the paleographical character of the Hebrew originals. These were written on flimsy papyrus rolls, in a script probably in a transitional stage between the archaic and the later square characters; the words were not separated, and there were no vowel-points; two of the radicals (waw and yodh) were also frequently omitted. Add to this the absence at Alexandria, for parts at least of the Scriptures, of any sound tradition as to the meaning. On the other hand the vocalization adopted by the translators, e.g. in the proper names, is of great value in the history of early Semitic pronunciation. It must further be remembered that the Semitic language most familiar to them was not Hebrew but Aramaic, and some mistakes are due to Aramaic or even Arabic colloquialisms (Swete, Introduction, 319).
IX. Salient Differences Between Greek and Hebrew Texts.
Differences indicating a Hebrew original other than the Massoretic Text affect either the sequence or the subject-matter (compare Swete, Introduction, 231 ff).
1. Sequence:
The most extensive discrepancies in arrangement of materials occur in (1) Ex 35 through 39, the construction of the Tabernacle and the ornaments of its ministers, (2) 3 R 4 through 11, Solomon’s reign, (3) Jeremiah (last half), (4) Proverbs (end). (1) In Exodus the Septuagint gives precedence to the priests’ ornaments, which in the Hebrew follow the account of the Tabernacle, and omits altogether the altar of incense. The whole section describing the execution of the instructions given in the previous chapters in almost identical words is one of the latest portions of the Pentateuch and the text had clearly not been finally fixed in the 3rd century BC; the section was perhaps absent from the oldest Greek version In Exo 20:13-15 Codex B arranges three of the commandments in the Alexandrian order (7, 8, 6), attested in Philo and in the New Testament. (2) Deliberate rearrangement has taken place in the history of Solomon, and the Septuagint unquestionably preserves the older text. The narrative of the building of the Temple, like that of the Tabernacle, contains some of the clearest examples of editorial revision in the Massoretic Text (Wellhausen, Hist of Israel, 67, 280, etc.). At the end of 3 R Septuagint places chapters 20 and 21 in their proper order; Massoretic Text reverses this, interposing the Naboth story in the connected account of the Syriac wars and justifying the change by a short preface. (3) In Jeremiah the chapter numbers differ from the middle of chapter 25 to the end of chapter 51, the historical appendix (chapter 52) concluding both texts. This is due to the different position assigned to a group of prophecies against the nations: Septuagint places them in the center, Massoretic Text at the end. The items in this group are also rearranged. The diversity in order is earlier than the Greek translation; see JTS, IV; 245. (4) The order of some groups of maxims at the end of Proverbs was not finally fixed at the time of the Greek translation; like Jeremiah’s prophecies against the nations, these little groups seem to have circulated as late as the 2nd or 1st century BC as separate pamphlets. The Psalms numbers from 10 to 147 differ by one in Septuagint and Massoretic Text, owing to discrepancies in the lines of demarcation between individual psalms.
2. Subject Matter:
Excluding the end of Exodus, striking examples of divergence in the Pentateuch are few. Septuagint alone preserves Cain’s words to his brother, Let us go into the field (Gen 4:8). The close of Moses’ song appears in an expanded form in Septuagint (Deu 32:43). Similarly Hannah’s song in 1 R 2 (? originally a warrior’s triumph-song) has been rendered more appropriate to the occasion by the substitution in verse 8c of words about the answer to prayer, and enlarged by the insertion of a passage from Jeremiah; the changes in both songs may be connected with their early use as canticles. In Joshua the larger amount of divergence suggests that this book did not share the peculiar sanctity of the Law. But the books of Reigns present the widest differences and the fullest scope for the textual critic. The Septuagint here proves the existence of two independent accounts of certain events. Sometimes it incorporates both, while the Massoretic Text rejects one of them; thus Septuagint gives (3 R 2 35a ff, 46a ff) a connected summary of events in Solomon’s personal history; most of which appear elsewhere in a detached form, 3 R 12 24a-z is a second account of the dismemberment of the kingdom; 16:28a-h a second summary of Jehoshaphat’s reign (compare 22 41 ff); 4 R 1 18a another summary of Joram’s reign (compare 3 1 ff). Conversely in 1 R 17 through 18, Massoretic Text has apparently preserved two contradictory accounts of events in David’s early history, while Septuagint presents a shorter and consistent narrative (Swete, Intro, 245 f). An addition in Septuagint of the highest interest appears in 3 R 8 53b, where a stanza is put into the mouth of Solomon at the Temple dedication, taken from the Song-book (probably the Book of Jashar); the Massoretic Text gives the stanza in an edited form earlier in the chapter (8 12 f); for the reconstruction of the original Hebrew see JTS, X, 439; XI, 518. The last line proves to be a title, For the Sabbath – On Alamoth (i.e. for sopranos), showing that the song was set to music for liturgical purposes. In Jeremiah, besides transpositions, the two texts differ widely in the way of excess and defect; the verdict of critics is mainly in favor of the priority of the Septuagint (Streane, Double Text of Jeremiah, 1896). For divergences in the Writings see VIII, above; for additional titles to the Psalms see Swete, Introduction, 250 f.
Literature.
The most important works have been mentioned in the body of the article. See, further, the very full lists in Swete’s Introduction and the bibliographies by Nestle in PRE3, III, 1-24, and XXIII, 207-10 (1913); HDB, IV, 453-54.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Septuagint
Among the Greek versions of the Old Testament, says Mr. Horne, the Alexandrian or Septuagint is the most ancient and valuable, and was held in so much esteem both by the Jews as well as by the first Christians, as to be constantly read in the synagogues and churches. Hence it is uniformly cited by the early fathers, whether Greek or Latin; and from this version all the translations into other languages which were anciently approved by the Christian church were executed, with the exception of the Syriac; as the Arabic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Gothic, and old Italic or the Latin version in use before the time of Jerom; and to this day the Septuagint is exclusively read in the Greek and most other oriental churches. This version has derived its name either from the Jewish account of seventy-two persons having been employed to make it, or from its having received the approbation of the sanhedrim or great council of the Jews, which consisted of seventy, or, more correctly, of seventy-two persons. Much uncertainty, however, has prevailed concerning the real history of this ancient version; and while some have strenuously advocated its miraculous and Divine origin, other eminent philologists have laboured to prove that it must have been executed by several persons and at different times. According to one account, Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, caused this translation to be made for the use of the library which he had founded at Alexandria at the request and with the advice of the celebrated Demetrius Phalereus, his principal librarian. For this purpose, it is reported, that he sent Aristeas and Andreas, two distinguished officers of his court, to Jerusalem, on an embassy to Eleazar, then high priest of the Jews, to request of the latter a copy of the Hebrew Scriptures, and that there might also be sent to him seventy-two persons, six chosen out of each of the twelve tribes, who were equally well skilled in the Hebrew and Greek languages. These learned men were accordingly shut up in the island of Pharos; where, having agreed in a translation of each period after a mutual conference, Demetrius wrote down their version as they dictated it to him; and thus, in the space of seventy-two days, the whole was accomplished. This relation is derived from a letter ascribed to Aristeas himself, the authenticity of which has been greatly disputed. If, as there is every reason to believe is the case, this piece is a forgery, it was made at a very early period; for it was in existence in the time of Josephus, who has made use of it in his Jewish Antiquities. The veracity of Aristeas’s narrative was not questioned until the seventeenth or eighteenth century, at which time, indeed, Biblical criticism was, comparatively, in its infancy. Vives, Scaliger, Van Dale, Dr. Prideaux, and, above all, Dr. Hody, were the principal writers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who attacked the genuineness of the pretended narrative of Aristeas; and though it was ably vindicated by Bishop Walton, Isaac Vossius, Whiston, Brett, and other modern writers, the majority of the learned of our own time are fully agreed in considering it as fictitious. Philo, the Jew, who also notices the Septuagint version, was ignorant of most of the circumstances narrated by Aristeas; but he relates others which appear not less extraordinary.
According to him, Ptolemy Philadelphus sent to Palestine for some learned Jews, whose number he does not specify; and these, going over to the island of Pharos, there executed so many distinct versions, all of which so exactly and uniformly agreed in sense, phrases, and words, as proved them to have been not common interpreters, but men prophetically inspired and divinely directed, who had every word dictated to them by the Spirit of God throughout the entire translation. He adds, that an annual festival was celebrated by the Alexandrian Jews in the isle of Pharos, where the version was made, until his time, to preserve the memory of it, and to thank God for so great a benefit.
It is not a little remarkable that the Samaritans have traditions in favour of their version of the Pentateuch, equally extravagant with these preserved by the Jews. In the Samaritan chronicle of Abul Phatach, which was compiled in the fourteenth century from ancient and modern authors, both Hebrew and Arabic, there is a story to the following effect: that Ptolemy Philadelphus, in the tenth year of his reign, directed his attention to the difference subsisting between the Samaritans and Jews concerning the law, the former receiving only the Pentateuch, and rejecting every other work ascribed to the prophets by the Jews. In order to determine this difference, he commanded the two nations to send deputies to Alexandria. The Jews entrusted this mission to Osar, the Samaritans to Aaron, to whom several other associates were added. Separate apartments in a particular quarter of Alexandria were assigned to each of these strangers, who were prohibited from having any personal intercourse, and each of them had a Greek scribe to write his version. Thus were the law and other Scriptures translated by the Samaritans; whose version being most carefully examined, the king was convinced that their text was more complete than that of the Jews. Such is the narrative of Abul Phatach, divested, however, of numerous marvellous circumstances with which it has been decorated by the Samaritans, who are not surpassed, even by the Jews, in their partiality for idle legends.
A fact, buried under such a mass of fables as the translation of the Septuagint has been by the historians who have pretended to record it, necessarily loses all its historical character, which, indeed, we are fully justified in disregarding altogether. Although there is no doubt but that some truth is concealed under this load of fables, yet it is by no means an easy task to discern the truth from what is false: the following, however, is the result of our researches concerning this celebrated version:
It is probable that the seventy interpreters, as they are called, executed their version of the Pentateuch during the joint reigns of Ptolemy Lagus and his son Philadelphus. The pseudo Aristeas, Josephus, Philo, and many other writers whom it were tedious to enumerate, relate that this version was made during the reign of Ptolemy II, or Philadelphus; Joseph Ben Gorion, however, among the rabbins, Theodoret, and many other Christian writers, refer its date to the time of Ptolemy Lagus. Now, these two traditions can be reconciled only by supposing the version to have been performed during the two years when Ptolemy Philadelphus shared the throne with his father; which date coincides with the third and fourth years of the hundred and twenty-third Olympiad, that is, about B.C. 286 and 285. Farther, this version was neither made by the command of Ptolemy, nor at the request nor under the superintendence of Demetrius Phalereus; but was voluntarily undertaken by the Jews for the use of their countrymen. It is well known, that, at the period above noticed, there was a great number of Jews settled in Egypt, particularly at Alexandria: these, being most strictly observant of the religious institutions and usages of their forefathers, had their sanhedrim or grand council composed of seventy or seventy-two members, and very numerous synagogues, in which the law was read to them on every Sabbath; and as the bulk of the common people were no longer acquainted with Biblical Hebrew, the Greek language alone being used in their ordinary intercourse, it became necessary to translate the Pentateuch into Greek for their use. This is a far more probable account of the origin of the Alexandrian version than the traditions above stated. If this translation had been made by public authority, it would unquestionably have been performed under the direction of the sanhedrim, who would have examined and perhaps corrected it, if it had been the work of a single individual, previously to giving it the stamp of their approbation, and introducing it into their synagogues. In either case the translation would probably be denominated the Septuagint, because the sanhedrim was composed of seventy or seventy-two members. It is even possible that the sanhedrim, in order to ascertain the fidelity of the work might have sent to Palestine for some learned men of whose assistance and advice they would have availed themselves in examining the version. This fact, if it could be proved, for it is offered as a mere conjecture, would account for the story of the king of Egypt’s sending an embassy to Jerusalem: there is, however, one circumstance which proves that, in executing this translation, the synagogues were originally in contemplation, namely, that all the ancient writers unanimously concur in saying that the Pentateuch was first translated. The five books of Moses, indeed, were the only books read in the synagogues until the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Syria; who having forbidden that practice in Palestine, the Jews evaded his commands by substituting for the Pentateuch the reading of the prophetic books. When, afterward, the Jews were delivered from the tyranny of the kings of Syria, they read the law and the prophets alternately in the synagogues; and the same custom was adopted by the Hellenistic or Graecising Jews.
But, whatever was the real number of the authors of the version, their introduction of Coptic words, such as , &c, as well as their rendering of ideas purely Hebrew altogether in the Egyptian manner, clearly prove that they were natives of Egypt. Thus, they express the creation of the world, not by the proper Greek word , but by , a term employed by the philosophers of Alexandria to express the origin of the universe. The Hebrew word thummim, Exo 28:30, which signifies perfections, they render , truth. The difference of style also indicates the version to have been the work not of one but of several translators, and to have been executed at different times. The best qualified and most able among them was the translator of the Pentateuch, who was evidently master of both Greek and Hebrew: he has religiously followed the Hebrew text, and has in various instances introduced the most suitable and best chosen expressions. From the very close resemblance subsisting between the text of the Greek version, and the text of the Samaritan Pentateuch, Louis De Dieu, Selden, Whiston, Hassencamp, and Bauer, are of opinion that the author of the Alexandrian version made it from the Samaritan Pentateuch. And in proportion as these two correspond, the Greek differs from the Hebrew. This opinion is farther supported by the declarations of Origen and Jerom, that the translator found the venerable name of Jehovah, not in the letters in common use, but in very ancient characters; and also by the fact that those consonants in the Septuagint are frequently confounded together, the shapes of which are similar in the Samaritan, but not in the Hebrew, alphabet. This hypothesis, however ingenious and plausible, is by no means determinate; and what militates most against it is, the inveterate enmity subsisting between the Jews and Samaritans, added to the constant and unvarying testimony of antiquity, that the Greek version of the Pentateuch was executed by Jews. There is no other way by which to reconcile these conflicting opinions than by supposing either that the manuscript used by the Egyptian Jews approximated toward the letters and text of the Samaritan Pentateuch, or that the translators of the Septuagint made use of manuscripts written in ancient characters. Next to the Pentateuch, for ability and fidelity of execution, ranks the translation of the book of Proverbs, the author of which was well skilled in the two languages: Michaelis is of opinion that, of all the books of the Septuagint, the style of the Proverbs is the best, the translator having clothed the most ingenious thoughts in as neat and elegant language as was ever used by a Pythagorean sage, to express his philosophical maxims.
The Septuagint version, though originally made for the use of the Egyptian Jews, gradually acquired the highest authority among the Jews of Palestine, who were acquainted with the Greek language, and subsequently also among Christians: it appears, indeed, that the legend above confuted, of the translators having been divinely inspired, was invented in order that the LXX might be held in the greater estimation. Philo, the Jew, a native of Egypt, has evidently followed it in his allegorical expositions of the Mosaic law; and though Dr. Hody was of opinion that Josephus, who was a native of Palestine, corroborated his work on Jewish antiquities from the Hebrew text, yet Salmasius, Bochart, Bauer, and others, have shown that he has adhered to the Septuagint throughout that work. How extensively this version was in use among the Jews, appears from the solemn sanction given to it by the inspired writers of the New Testament, who have in very many passages quoted the Greek version of the Old Testament. Their example was followed by the earlier fathers and doctors of the church, who, with the exception of Origen and Jerom, were unacquainted with the Hebrew: notwithstanding their zeal for the word of God, they did not exert themselves to learn the original language of the sacred writings, but acquiesced in the Greek representation of them, judging it, no doubt, to be fully sufficient for all the purposes of their pious labours. The Greek Scriptures were the only Scriptures known to or valued by the Greeks.
This was the text commented on by Chrysostom and Theodoret; it was this which furnished topics to Athanasius, Nazianzen, and Basil. From this fountain the stream was derived to the Latin church, first by the Italic or Vulgate translation of the Scriptures, which was made from the Septuagint, and not from the Hebrew; and, secondly, by the study of the Greek fathers. It was by this borrowed light that the Latin fathers illumined the western hemisphere; and, when the age of Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustine, and Gregory, successively passed away, this was the light put into the hands of the next dynasty of theologists, the schoolmen, who carried on the work of theological disquisition by the aid of this luminary, and none other. So that, either in Greek or in Latin, it was still the Septuagint Scriptures that were read, explained, and quoted as authority, for a period of fifteen hundred years.