The most noted Old
Testament translated into Greek is the Septuagint (also known as the LXX). The
conventional thought is that the LXX was translated from the Hebrew text by
Hellenistic Jews during the period from 275 to 100 BC at Alexandria, Egypt. And,
as pointed out by scholars such as Ralph W. Klein, the LXX used a differing
Hebrew text and not that of the Masorictic Text type, as reflected in some of
the finding among the DSS. The LXX was used by Jerome in producing his Old
Testament of the Latin Vulgate used by the Roman Catholic Church, and the LXX
remains the official Old Testament of the Greek Orthodox Church. This accounts
for the additional books found in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches known as
the Apocrypha, because they are contained in the text of the LXX.
The
association of the Latin numbers LXX (meaning 70) with the Septuagint comes from
the legend concerning the origin of this Greek translation. According to the
Letter of Aristeas seventy Jewish scholars were chosen to translate the
Law of Moses into Greek so that it could be added to the great library of
Ptolemy Philadelphus in Alexandria, Egypt. The letter states that the High
Priest in Jerusalem sent 72 scholars to the Egyptian king. The High Priest
writes, " In the presence of all the people I selected six elders from each
tribe, good men and true, and I have sent them to you with a copy of our law. It
will be a kindness, O righteous king, if you will give instruction that as soon
as the translation of the law is completed, the men shall be restored again to
us in safety." (Letter of Aristeas 2:34-35). Thus six scholars from the twelve
tribes number seventy-two (it is to be assumed that the 70 is merely a rounding
off of the 72).
One wide-spread myth concerning the LXX is an old story
which states that
the translators worked on their translation alone and compared
their work each morning, only to find that each had translated the passage
exactly the same. This, of course, has no historical foundation and some have
falsely applied this story to the translators of the King James Bible. However,
stories such as this one caused some to claim inspiration for the LXX. Dr.
Karlfried Froehlich notes this and writes, " Inspiration was also claimed for
the Greek translation of the 'Seventy', which was endorsed by Alexandrian Jewish
authorities. In Christian eyes, the legend of the Septuagint's miraculous
origin, first told in the Letter of Aristeas, then elaborated by Philo, and
further embellished by Christian authors such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of
Lyons, Tertullian, and Augustine, even rendered the Septuagint superior to the
Hebrew original." (
The Oxford Companion to the Bible, p.
310).
Even if the story given in the Letter of Aristeas were true, the
Greek translation deals only with the first five books of the Old Testament.
Most scholars note that there are differences in style and quality of
translation within the LXX and assign a much greater time frame than the
seventy-two days allotted in the Letter of Aristeas. In his book,
Textual
Criticism of the Old Testament: The Septuagint after Qumran, Ralph Klein
notes, " the Letter of Aristeas is riddled with many historical improbabilities
and errors. . .And yet, however legendary and improbable the details, many still
believe that some accurate historical facts about the LXX can be distilled from
Aristeas: (1) the translation began in the third century BC; (2) Egypt was the
place of origin; and (3) the Pentateuch was done first." (p. 2).
Dr. F.
F. Bruce correctly points out that, strictly speaking, the
LXX deals only with
the Law and not the whole Old Testament. Bruce writes, " The Jews might have
gone on at a later time to authorize a standard text of the rest of the
Septuagint, but . . . lost interest in the Septuagint altogether. With but few
exceptions, every manuscript of the Septuagint which has come down to our day
was copied and preserved in Christian, not Jewish, circles." (
The Books and
the Parchments, p.150). This is important to note because
the manuscripts
which consist of our LXX today date to the third century AD. Although there are
fragments which pre-date Christianity and some of the Hebrew DSS agree with the
LXX, the majority of manuscripts we have of the LXX date well into the Christian
era. And, not all of these agree.
The most noted copy of the LXX is that
found in the Hexapla by Origen. Origen produced an Old Testament with six
translations paralleled together, called the Hexapla which means sixfold. The
fifth column was the LXX. (The columns of the Hexapla were as follows: 1. The
Hebrew text. 2. The Hebrew transliterated into Greek. 3. The Greek translation
of Aquila. 4. The Greek translation of Symmachus. 5. The LXX. 6. The Greek
translation of Theodotion.) However,
we do not have Origen's Hexapla (with the
exception of a few limited fragments). Sir Frederic Kenyon wrote, " A
considerable number of MSS. exist which give information as to Origen's
Hexaplaric text and particular passages in the other columns, but these
do not
go far towards enabling us to recover the LXX text as it existed before Origen;
and this remains the greatest problem which confronts the textual student of the
Septuagint. Until we can do that, we are not in a position fully to utilize the
evidence of the Greek for the recovery of the pre-Masoretic Hebrew." (
The
Text of the Greek Bible, p.35). In other words, we cannot fully reconstruct
Origen's fifth column, let alone a pre-Origenian Septuagint.
Origen's LXX
was revised and edited by two of his disciples, Pamphilus and Eusebius. There
were additional Greek translations of the Old Testament during this time which
were also contained in the Hexapla, such as the work by Aquila and Theodotion.
Some scholars believe that the translation produced by Theodotion replaced the
LXX in the book of Daniel so that the readings there are really that of
Theodotion and not of the LXX. However, others have claimed that this is not the
case. Therefore, concerning Origen's Hexapla and the LXX the best scholars can
say is that cited by Ernst Wurthwein, " Although no authentic manuscript of the
Hexaplaric Septuagint has survived, there are manuscripts which represent the
text of Origen more or less closely." (
The Text of the Old Testament,
p.57). Two such manuscripts which represent the text of Origen are Codex
Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, which the student will recall from our study of
New Testament textual criticism.
