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Septuagint

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The Septuagint (or the "LXX", Greek "Μετάφραση των Εβδομήκοντα") is the name commonly given in the West to the ancient, Koine Greek version of the Old Testament translated in stages between the 3rd to 1st century BC in Alexandria. It is the oldest of several ancient translations from the Hebrew Bible into Greek. The name means "seventy" and derives from a tradition that seventy-two Jewish scholars (LXX being the nearest round number) translated the Pentateuch (or Torah) from Hebrew into Greek for one of the Ptolemaic kings. As the work of translation went on gradually, and new books were added to the collection, the compass of the Greek Bible came to be somewhat indefinite. The Pentateuch always maintained its pre-eminence as the basis of the canon; but the prophetic collection changed its aspect by having various hagiographa incorporated into it. Some of the newer works, those called anagignoskomena in Greek, are not included in the Hebrew canon. Among these Apochrypha are the books of the Maccabees and the wisdom of Ben Sira. The LXX versions of some works, like Daniel and Esther, are longer than the Hebrew.[1] Several of the later books were apparently composed in Greek.

The LXX was held with great respect in ancient times; Philo and Josephus ascribed divine inspiration to its authors. It formed the basis of the Old Latin versions and is still used within Eastern Orthodoxy. Besides the Old Latin versions, the LXX is also the basis for Gothic, Slavonic, old Syriac (but not the Peshitta), old Armenian, and Coptic versions of the Old Testament. Of significance for all Christians and for bible scholars, the LXX is quoted by the Christian New Testament and by the Apostolic Fathers. While Jews have not used the LXX in worship or religious study since the second century CE, recent scholarship has brought renewed interest in it in Judaic Studies. Some of the Dead Sea scrolls attest to Hebrew texts other than those on which the Masoretic Text was based; in many cases, these newly found texts accord with the LXX version. The oldest surviving codices of LXX date to the fourth century CE.

Naming and designation

The Septuagint derives its name from Latin septuaginta interpretum versio, "translation of the seventy interpreters" (hence the abbreviation LXX). The Latin title refers to a legendary account in the spurious Letter of Aristeas of how seventy-two Jewish scholars were asked by the Greek King of Egypt Ptolemy II Philadelphus in the 3rd century BC to translate the Torah for inclusion in the Library of Alexandria. In a later version of that legend narrated by Philo of Alexandria, although the translators were kept in separate chambers, they all produced identical versions of the text in seventy-two days. Although this story is widely viewed as implausible today, it underlines the fact that some ancient Jews wished to present the translation as authoritative. A version of this legend is found in the Tractate Megillah of the Babylonian Talmud (pages 9a-9b), which identifies fifteen specific unusual translations made by the scholars. Only two of these translations are found in the extant LXX.

Dating and critical scholarship

Modern scholarship holds that the LXX, beginning with the Torah, was written during the 3rd through 1st centuries BC.

The oldest manuscripts of the LXX include 2nd century BC fragments of Leviticus and Deuteronomy (Rahlfs nos. 801, 819, and 957), and 1st century BC fragments of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and the Minor Prophets (Rahlfs nos. 802, 803, 805, 848, 942, and 943). Relatively complete manuscripts of the LXX include the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus of the 4th century and the Codex Alexandrinus of the 5th century. These are indeed the oldest surviving nearly-complete manuscripts of the Old Testament in any language; the oldest extant complete Hebrew texts date 700 years later, from around 1000. While there are significant differences between these three codices, scholarly consensus today favors the view that one LXX—that is, the original pre-Christian translations—underly all three.

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 Septuagint provides a reasonably accurate record of an early Semitic textual variant, now lost, that differed from ancestors of the Masoretic text. Ancient scholars, however, 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.

Jewish revisions and recensions of the Greek against the Hebrew are well attested, the most famous of which include those by Aquila (ca 128 CE), Symmachus, and Theodotion. The Three, to varying degrees, tend to favor a more literal adherence to the contemporary Hebrew scriptures than apparent in the old Greek; some scholars consider one or more of the Three to be new Greek versions of the Hebrew Bible. Church fathers like Origen (ca 235 CE) discussed the differences and attempted to preserve the original reading of the Greek. A Christian scholast in Alexandria, Origen completed a comprehensive synopsis of each ancient version side-by-side, but his work is now almost completely lost.

These issues notwithstanding, the text of the LXX is in general close to that of the Masoretic. For example, Genesis 4:1-6 is identical in both the LXX and the Masoretic Text. Likewise, Genesis 4:8 to the end of the chapter is the same. There is only one noticeable difference in that chapter, at 4:7, to wit:

Genesis 4:7, LXX (Brenton)
Genesis 4:7, Masoretic (Artscroll)
Hast thou not sinned if thou hast brought it rightly, but not rightly divided it? Be still, to thee shall be his submission, and thou shalt rule over him. Surely, if you improve yourself, you will be forgiven. But if you do not improve yourself, sin rests at the door. Its desire is toward you, yet you can conquer it.

This instance illustrates the complexity of assessing differences between the LXX and the Masoretic Text. Despite the striking divergence of meaning here between the two, nearly identical consonantal Hebrew source texts can be reconstructed. The readily apparent semantic differences result from alternative strategies for interpreting the difficult verse and relate to differences in vowelization and punctuation of the consonantal text.

Use of the Septuagint

Jewish use

Ancient Jewish attitudes toward translations of their scripture developed with time. By the 3rd century BCE, Jewry was situated primarily within the Hellenistic world. Outside of Judea, many Jews may have needed synagogue readings or texts for religious study to be interpreted into Greek, producing a need for the LXX. Alexandria held the greatest diaspora Jewish community of the age and was also a great center of Greek letters. Alexandria is thus likely the site of LXX authorship, a notion supported by the legend of Ptolmey and the 72 scholars. The Septuagint enjoyed widespread use in the Hellenistic Jewish diapora and even in Jerusalem, which had become a rather cosmopolitan (and therefore Greek-speaking) town. Both Philo and Josephus show a reliance on the Septuagint in their citations of Jewish scripture.

Starting approximately in the 2nd century CE, several factors led most Jews to abandon the LXX. Christians naturally used the LXX since it was the only Greek version available to the earliest Christians; and since Christians, as a group, had rapidly become overwhelmingly gentile and, therefore, unfamiliar with Hebrew. The association of the LXX with a rival religion may have rendered it suspect in the eyes of the newer generation of Jews and Jewish scholars. Perhaps more importantly, the Greek language - and therefore the Greek bible - declined among Jews after most of them fled from the Greek-speaking eastern Roman Empire into the Aramaic-speaking Persian Empire when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. Instead, Jews used Hebrew/Aramaic manuscripts later compiled by the Masoretes; and authoritative Aramaic translations, such as those of Onkelos and Rabbi Yonathan ben Uziel.

What was perhaps most significant for the LXX, as distinct from other Greek versions, was that the LXX began to lose Jewish sanction after differences between it and contemporary Hebrew scriptures were discovered. Even Greek-speaking Jews - such as those remaining in Palestine - tended less to the LXX, preferring other Jewish versions in Greek, such as that of Aquila, which seemed more faithful to the Hebrew.

Christian use

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The early Christian Church continued to use the Old Greek texts since Greek was the lingua franca of the Roman Empire at the time, since Greek was the language of the Church, and since the Church Fathers tended to accept Philo's account of the LXX' miraculous and inspired origin. The Septuagint version of some Prophetic passages, furthermore, seemed to point to Jesus as the Christ, whereas the same passages are more ambiguous or absent in the Hebrew and other Greek versions.

When Jerome undertook preparation of the Vulgate version of the Bible (his new Latin translation), he started with the Septuagint, checking it against the Hebrew Tanakh. He discovered many significant differences. Jerome at last broke with church tradition to translate the Old Testament not directly from the LXX, but from his study of all available Greek versions and of the Hebrew. In his prologues he defends his choice by stating that, in some verses, the Hebrew text honors Christ more clearly than the corresponding Greek. The Psalms in Jerome's latest translation differ particularly from the Septuagint, although his Vulgate Psalms were translated from the Hexaplar revision of the Septuagint.

The writers of the New Testament, which was also written in Greek, usually, but not always, chose to quote the Septuagint when referring to the Old Testament. This is significant since the Hebrew text diverges in some passages which Christians hold to prophesy Christ. The Eastern Orthodox Church still prefers to use the LXX as the basis for translating the Old Testament into other languages, and the Orthodox Church of Constantinople, the Church of Greece and the Cypriot Orthodox Church, (who have no need for translation) continue to use it in their liturgy even today. Many modern critical translations of the Old Testament, while using the Masoretic text as their basis, consult the Septuagint as well as other versions in an attempt to reconstruct the meaning of the Hebrew text whenever the latter is unclear, undeniably corrupt, or ambiguous.

Some Aramaic verses among the Dead Sea Scrolls correspond more closely with the LXX than with the Masoretic text. This suggests that in some verses the LXX may represent an alternative reading to the one incorporated in the Hebrew scriptures from Jerome's time to the present. However, most of the verses of the Dead Sea Scrolls correspond more closely with the Masoretic Text than with the Septuagint where those two diverge[1].

Of the fuller quotations in the New Testament of the Old, nearly one hundred agree with the modern form of the Septuagint[2] and six agree with the Masoretic Text.[3]

Language of the Septuagint

Some sections of the Septuagint may show Semiticisms, or idioms and phrases based on Semitic dialects like Hebrew and Aramaic. Other books, such as LXX Daniel and Proverbs, show Greek influence more strongly. The book of Daniel that is found in almost all Greek bibles, however, is the not from the LXX, but rather from Theodotion's translation, which more closely resembles the Masoretic Daniel.

The LXX is also useful for elucidating pre-Masoretic Hebrew: many proper nouns are spelled out with Greek vowels in the LXX, while contemporary Hebrew texts lacked vowel pointing.Hoffman, 2004 One must, however, evaluate such evidence with caution since it is unlikely that all ancient Hebrew sounds had precise Greek equivalents.

Books of the Septuagint

See also Table of books below.

All the books of western canons of the Old Testament are found in the Septuagint, although the order does not always coincide with the modern ordering of the books. The order of books in the Septuagint may be indicative of a consensus on the order of books before the 1st century AD.

Some books are differently named. For example the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings are in the LXX one book in four parts called Βασιλειῶν (Kingdoms); the Books of Chronicles supplement this book and are called Paraleipomenon (Παραλειπομένων—things left out). The Septuagint organizes the minor prophets as twelve parts of one Book of Twelve.

Some scripture of ancient origin are found in the Septuagint but are not present in the Hebrew. These include additions to Daniel and Esther. For more information regarding these books, see the articles Biblical apocrypha, Biblical canon, Books of the Bible, and Deuterocanonical books.

The New Testament makes a number of allusions to and perhaps quotations of the additional books (as Orthodox Christians aver) and are part of surviving codices. The books are Tobias, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Jesus Seirach, Baruch, Epistle of Jeremy (sometimes considered part of Baruch), additions to Daniel (The Prayer of Azarias, the Song of the Three Children, Sosanna and Bel and the Dragon), additions to Esther, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Odes, including the Prayer of Manasses, and Psalm 151. The canonical acceptance of these books varies among different Christian faiths, and there are canonical books not derived from the Septuagint; for a discussion see the article on Biblical apocrypha.

Printed Editions

All the printed editions of the Septuagint are derived from the three recensions mentioned above.

  • The editio princeps is the Complutensian Polyglot. It was from Origen's hexaplar text; printed in 1514-18, it was not published till it appeared in the Polyglot of Cardinal Ximenes in 1520.
  • The Aldine edition (begun by Aldus Manutius) appeared at Venice in 1518. The text is purer than that of the Complutensian edition, and is closer to Codex B. The editor says he collated ancient manuscripts but does not specify them. It has been reprinted several times.
  • The most important edition is the Roman or Sixtine, which reproduces the "Codex Vaticanus" almost exclusively. It was published under the direction of Cardinal Caraffa, with the help of various savants, in 1586, by the authority of Sixtus V, to assist the revisers who were preparing the Latin Vulgate edition ordered by the Council of Trent. It has become the textus receptus of the Greek Old Testament and has had many new editions, such as that of Holmes and Pearsons (Oxford, 1798-1827), the seven editions of Tischendorf, which appeared at Leipzig between 1850 and 1887, the last two, published after the death of the author and revised by Nestle, the four editions of Swete (Cambridge, 1887-95, 1901, 1909), etc.
  • Grabe's edition was published at Oxford, from 1707 to 1720, and reproduced, but imperfectly, the "Codex Alexandrinus" of London. For partial editions, see Vigouroux, "Dict. de la Bible", 1643 sqq.

Translations of the Septuagint

The Septuagint has been translated into English. Most notable is Brenton's English Translation of the Septuagint, based primarily upon Codex Vaticanus. More recently, Brenton's translation has been used as the inspiration for a modern-language version, by Paul Esposito, The Apostles' Bible.

Further, Peter A. Papoutsis has translated a substantial amount of the Septuagint into English in his translation called The Holy Orthodox Bible. This translation is based on Greek Orthodox Biblical and Liturgical texts of the Septuagint as used in The Holy Orthodox Church.

Questioning the Septuagint

Although the integrity of the Septuagint as a text distinct from the Masoretic is upheld by Dead Sea scroll evidence, the LXX does show signs of age in that textual variants are attested. There is at least one highly unreliable complete text of the LXX, Codex Alexandrinus. The whole Septuagint is also found in the Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, which do not perfectly coincide. But the LXX is a particularly excellent text when compared to other ancient works with textual variants. To reject the existence of a Septuagint merely on the basis of variation due to editorial rescention and typographical error is unjustified. Link 1, Link 2

The title "Septuagint" is of course not to be confused with the seven or more other Greek versions of the Old Testament, most of which do not survive except as fragments. These other Greek versions were once in side-by-side columns of Origen's Hexapla, now almost wholly lost.

The Old Greek text of the Book of Daniel has been recently rediscovered and work is ongoing in reconstructing the original form of the Septuagint as a whole.

See also

References

  1. ^ Editors: Trent C. Butler, Chad Brand, Charles Draper, Archie England, Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary

General

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Texts and translations

The LXX and the NT

Table of books

LXX LXX Anglicized MT Anglicized
Law
Γένεσις Genesis Genesis
Ἔξοδος Exodus Exodus
Λευϊτικόν Leviticus Leviticus
Ἀριθμοί Numbers Numbers
Δευτερονόμιον Deuteronomy Deuteronomy
History
Ἰησοῦς Nαυῆ Jesus Nauë Joshua
Κριταί Judges Judges
Ῥούθ Ruth Ruth
Βασιλειῶν Reigns[1]
    Α'      I I Samuel
    Β'      II II Samuel
    Γ'      III I Kings
    Δ'      IV II Kings
Παραλειπομένων Omissions
    Α'      I I Chronicles
    Β'      II II Chronicles
Ἔσδρας Esdras
    Α'      I —
    Β'      II Ezra & Nehemiah
Ἐσθήρ Es·th·er Esther+
Ἰουδίθ Iudith —
Τωβίας[2] Toby —
Wisdom
Ψαλμοί Psalms Psalms
Ἰώβ Iōb Job
Παροιμίαι Proverbs Proverbs
Ἐκκλησιαστής Ecclesiastes Ecclesiastes
Ἆσμα Ἀσμάτων Song of Songs Song of Solomon
Σοφία Σαλoμῶντος Wisdom of Salomon —
Σοφία Ἰησοῦ Σειράχ Wisdom of Jesus Seirach —
Prophets
Δώδεκα The Twelve
    Ὡσηέ Α'      I. Osëe Hosea
    Ἀμώς Β'      II. Ämōs Amos
    Μιχαίας Γ'      III. Michai Micah
    Ἰωήλ Δ'      IV. Ioel Joel
    Ὀβδιού Ε'      V. Obdiu Obadiah
    Ἰωνᾶς Ϛ'      VI. Ionas Jonah
    Ναούμ Ζ'      VII. Naum Nahum
    Ἀμβακούμ Η'      VIII. Ambakum Habakkuk
    Σοφονίας Θ'      IX. Sophony Zephaniah
    Ἀγγαῖος Ι'      X. Angai Haggai
    Ζαχαρίας ΙΑ'      XI. Zachary Zachariah
    Ἄγγελος ΙΒ'      XII. Messenger Malachi
Ἠσαΐας Hesai Isaiah
Ἱερεμίας Hieremy Jeremiah
Βαρούχ Baruch —
Θρῆνοι Lamentations Lamentations
Ἰεζεκιήλ Iezekiel Ezekiel
Δανιήλ Daniel Daniel+
NOTE: LXX=Septuagint, MT=Masoretic Text. To these books of the old Greek LXX were added the Anagignoskomena before the time of Christ. This table does not attempt a verse-mapping of texts.
  1. ^ Βασιλειῶν (Basileiōn) is the genitive plural of Βασιλεῖα (Basileia).
  2. ^ Τωβίας is the older Greek title of Tobit. See Talk.
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