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Septuagint: Greek Septuagint
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Septuagint (sometimes abbreviated LXX) is the name given to the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures. The Septuagint has its origin in Alexandria, Egypt and was translated between 300-200 BC. Widely used among Hellenistic Jews, this Greek translation was produced because many Jews spread throughout the empire were beginning to lose their Hebrew language. The process of translating the Hebrew to Greek ... gave many non-jews a glimpse into Judaism. According to an ancient document called the Letter of Aristeas, it is believed that 70 to 72 Jewish scholars were commissioned during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus to carry out the task of translation. The term “Septuagint” means seventy in Latin, and the text is so named to the credit of these 70 scholars.
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The Greek Old Testament, commonly referred to as the Septuagint or LXX, was translated from the Hebrew Scriptures approximately 250 years before the Christ. An account of this occurrence is noted in the dubious Letter of Aristeas, and can be found in the back of An Introduction to The Old Testament in Greek, by Henry Barclay Swete, 1902. Whether or not this letter is true to the facts can be debated, but that the Greek Scriptures were well entrenched by the time of the birth of the Christ is undeniable. The acceptance of the Greek Scriptures can best be described by a quotation in the Mishna written around the time of the Christ, with Herbert Danby’s translation reading in Megillah 1.8, "The Books [of Scripture] differ from phylacteries and Mezuzahs only in that the Books may be written in any language, while phylacteries and Mezuzahs may be written in the Assyrian writing only. Rabban Simeon b. Gamaliel says: 'The Books, too, they have only permitted to be written in Greek.'” At the time the New Testament was being written, the language of the common people of the Holy Land was Aramaic, but Greek was the international language used throughout the Mediterranean world. The sign above the head of the suffering Christ was written in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, with Latin being the tongue used by the Roman prelates and judiciary.
The International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS) has produced A New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included Under that Title (NETS), an academic translation based on standard critical editions of the Greek texts. It was published by Oxford Press in October of 2007.
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Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew OT that began in the third century b.c. in Alexandria, Egypt. The name Septuagint comes from the Greek word for ‘seventy’ (hence the symbol LXX, 70 in Roman numerals) and refers to the seventy-two Jewish translators brought to Egypt by Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-246 b.c.) to translate the Pentateuch, according to the legendary account in the Letter of Aristeas. The translations of the books of the OT differ in style, accuracy, and substance, indicating that there was no single original translation into Greek. Manuscripts found at Qumran among the Dead Sea Scrolls and other early manuscripts and quotations from the Septuagint in ancient writings all indicate that revisions were constantly being made to the Septuagint. In addition, Hebrew manuscripts found at Qumran differ from the standard Hebrew text (the Masoretic Text) but agree with some of the Greek renderings in the Septuagint. Thus the Septuagint often witnesses to a Hebrew manuscript tradition different from and earlier than the Masoretic Text and so is valuable in solving textual difficulties.
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The Septuagint was ... a source of the Old Testament for early Christians during the first few centuries AD. Many early Christians spoke and read Greek, thus they relied on the Septuagint translation for most of their understanding of the Old Testament. The New Testament writers also relied heavily on the Septuagint, as a majority of Old Testament quotes cited in the New Testament are quoted directly from the Septuagint (others are quoted from the Hebrew texts). Greek church fathers are also known to have quoted from the Septuagint. Even today, the Eastern Orthodox Church relies on the Septuagint for its Old Testament teachings. Some modern Bible translations also use the Septuagint along side Hebrew manuscripts as their source text.
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The sources of the many differences between the Septuagint and the Masoretic text have long been discussed by scholars. The most widely accepted view today is that the original Septuagint provided a reasonably accurate record of an early Semitic textual variant, now lost, that differed from ancestors of the Masoretic text. Ancient scholars... did not suspect this. Early Christians—who were largely unfamiliar with Hebrew texts, and were thus only made aware of the differences through the newer Greek versions—tended to dismiss the differences as a product of uninspired translation of the Hebrew in these new versions. Following the Renaissance, a common opinion among some humanists was that the LXX translators bungled the translation from the Hebrew and that the LXX became more corrupt with time. The discovery of many fragments in the Dead Sea scrolls that agree with the Septuagint rather than the Masoretic Text proved that many of the variants in Greek were also present in early Semitic manuscripts.[12]
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Greek Septuagint