The Manuscripts of the Old Testament – The Septuagint

When we consider the manuscripts of the Old Testament, many of them are of course in Hebrew, and there are Aramaic resources as well (which we will look at in the future). But one important resource is not in Hebrew or its sister tongue of Aramaic, but rather in Greek. This is the Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint.

The Septuagint was a Greek translation of the Old Testament books and some other writings in the Apocrypha. It was probably first done around 250-200 BC. Jewish tradition claimed it was made by 70 translators, thus it came to be known as the Septuagint, and is most often seen by its abbreviation LXX (the Roman number for the number 70).

The type and skill of translation vary from book to book. Some follow a quite literal, almost wooden, translation practice, while others are much looser in translating from Hebrew to Greek. Furthermore, sometimes the Septuagint is missing portions of text, and sometimes it has portions not found in the Masoretic Text. For example, in the Septuagint, there are 151 Psalms! However, it mainly has the same text as the Hebrew version we have, and it is a valuable witness to help us understand the Hebrew texts in use more than 200 years before the time of Christ.

The Septuagint is also important because it was clearly used by much of the early Church since they could not read Hebrew but could read Greek. In fact, any of the Old Testament quotations in the New Testament are clearly drawn from the Septuagint.

In light of this, the Eastern Orthodox churches actually use the Septuagint as their version of the Old Testament. However, both Protestants and Roman Catholics take the Hebrew as the primary Old Testament text and consult the Septuagint only secondarily.

For the purposes we are discussing (the manuscripts of the Old Testament) the Septuagint is a critical resource to help us understand the Hebrew test that existed before and during the time of Jesus. Though there are differences (as noted above), it gives a great view of the Hebrew text as it existed then, and also how people understood that text.

Next week we will look at another important ancient text – the Samaritan Pentateuch.

In Christ,

Bret