The Septuagint: A Snapshot

On By Jovan PayesIn Bibliology, Early Christianity, Hebrew Bible, Judaism, Second Temple Judaism, Septuagint, Theology, Translation

Among the various collections of Greek writings essential to understanding early Judaism and emerging Christianity is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, commonly called the Septuagint (LXX). What is this translation? Where did it come from? What sort of books were in it? In this piece I seek to provide a short snapshot of this ancient Bible translation, surveying the origin and contents of this corpus, noting its impact on Second Temple Judaism and the New Testament, and its role in Bible transmission will be an indispensable starting point for Bible students.

Origins

The traditional “origin story” of the Septuagint is told in the Letter to Aristeas, a self-described “narrative” recounting how the Jewish Law arrived in Alexandria, Egypt, and was translated into Greek by 70–72 Judean scribes during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (282–246 BCE).[1] This translation of the Law–and Greek translations of the rest of the Old Testament–is commonly called the Septuagint, for being the translation of the alleged seventy (abbreviated LXX).[2] The historical accuracy of the account in Aristeas is heavily questioned by scholars, but a mid-third century BCE dating and an Alexandrian setting for this translation is regarded as the most likely historical scenario.[3] Additionally, the origin of the Greek translations of the rest of the Old Testament is not well understood except that they were likely present by the first century.

Content

The LXX became the Bible for Jews living in the Hellenic world and the “first scriptures” for an emerging Christianity, but it must be remembered that the LXX was not a set corpus of books. According to Aristeas, the Pentateuch alone was translated into Greek. Later the LXX would include “all of the books of what [is called] the Hebrew Bible,” additional writings translated from Hebrew or Aramaic, and a body of Greek literature.[4] These additional books are called Apocryphal by Protestants and Deuterocanonical by Roman Catholics, 13 of these are typically found in collections together while the Greek Orthodox and Slavonic Bibles include others. The earliest “complete” Greek Christian Bibles from the fourth and fifth centuries CE (Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, and Sinaiticus) do not include the same list of these books.[5] It is anachronistic, then, to treat the content of the LXX as a stable list of books that determined which books should be in the Bible.[6]

Influence

Nevertheless, its impact on Judaism and the New Testament is unmistakable. The LXX provided Greek-speaking Jews of the Hellenistic period with the word of God throughout the diaspora, but its reception was not without extremes. Some ancients (and some modern people) shared the belief, as suggested in Aristeas, that the LXX was inspired; meanwhile, other ancient believers were not persuaded and continued to produce editions of the LXX reflecting varying translation philosophies (Theodotion, Aquila, and Symmachus).[7] Early Christians, being Jewish, used the LXX as their “first Bible.” The New Testament books cite passages from the LXX, even revisions of passages, quotations from memory, or employ modifications.[8] As Christian use of the LXX went “mainstream” as their Bible, Bruce Metzger notes, “more and more Jews ceased using the Septuagint” by the end of the first century CE. As a result, the Greek translation became the “only source” in the church for access to the Old Testament.[9]

Textual Witness

The LXX tradition is a vital witness to our knowledge of the state of the transmission of the “original reading of the biblical text” of the Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts.[10] The LXX tradition contributes to Old Testament textual criticism by giving insight into the “original” biblical manuscripts the LXX translators had in front of them which no longer exist today. The study of the LXX also helps to assess the habits of both translators and scribes.[11] Sometimes, for example, these translators and scribes changed a reading believed to be discrepant; other times, they “updated” the text to fit the context of their times. Still, modern study of the LXX in light of the Dead Sea Scrolls has underscored that its translators provided, “reliably and accurately reflect what lay before them.”[12]

Conclusion

The influence of the Septuagint in the history of the Second Temple Period and its career for early Christianity as the Bible of God’s people continues today regardless of whether it is perceived by the average Bible reader.

Recommended Reading:

Gallagher, Edmon L. Translation of the Seventy: History, Reception, and Contemporary Use of the Septuagint. Abilene: Abilene Christian University Press, 2021. I highly recommend this excellent work by Dr. Edmon L. Gallagher, Professor of Christian Scripture at Heritage Christian University (Florance, AL).

Endnotes

  1. Benjamin G. Wright, III, “Aristeas, Letter of,” Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism, eds. John J. Collins and Daniel C. Harlow (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010),376.
  2. I will use LXX in this paper to refer to this Greek translation tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures.
  3. Edmon L. Gallagher, Translation of the Seventy: History, Reception, and Contemporary Use of the Septuagint (Abilene: Abilene Christian University Press, 2021), 33–34.
  4. Leonard J. Greenspoon, “Septuagint,” Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism, eds. John J. Collins and Daniel C. Harlow (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 1218.
  5. On this point of what additional books were included, Lee Martin McDonald describes how in the early church there was a “lack of universal agreement on the scope of and order of the church’s OT canon, though by the fourth century there was broad but never universal agreement on the scope of church’s first scriptures [i.e., LXX],” in John J. Collins, Craig A. Evans, and Lee McDonald, Ancient Jewish and Christian Scriptures: New Developments in Canon Controversy (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2020),79.
  6. Gallagher, Translation, 52–55. In Gallagher’s assessment, the LXX did not impact the development of the biblical canon, “The Septuagint had no bearing on the development of the canon of Scripture” (47).
  7. Gallagher, Translation, 113–20.
  8. Greenspoon, “Septuagint,” 1219.
  9. Bruce M. Metzger, The Bible in Translation: Ancient and English Versions (Grand Rapids, MI: Abaker Academic, 2001), 18.
  10. Amy Anderson and Wendy Widder, Textual Criticism of the Bible, rev. ed., Lexham Methods Series, ed. Douglas Mangum (Bellingham: Lexham, 2018), 40–41. 
  11. Anderson and Widder, Textual Criticism, 95. There is a movement within Old Testament textual criticism that has shifted from seeking the wording of the original manuscripts (i.e., the autographs) to seeking the earliest authoritative form of the text. This latter focus places the goal away from the original words of the text and emphasizes that from various versions one became the authoritative form.
  12. Greenspoon, “Septuagint,” 1218–19.