LXX-perts Deny LXX

Even the LXX X-perts admit there is no actual evidence for a BC LXX. Of course they affirm the LXX in other places because they have a $take in it - but they admit, however unwittingly, that the fact don't support their beliefs.

 Here is Sir Frederick Kenyon:

"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." "The Text of the Greek Bible", Sir Frederick Kenyon, (~1920) p 35.

Now comes Brenton, who edited a contemporary issuing of the LXX:

"It may also be doubted whether in the year 285 BC there were Jews in Palestine who had sufficient intercourse with the Greeks to have executed a translation into that language; for it must be borne in mind how recently they had become the subjects of Greek monarchs... we must also bear in mind

that we find at this period NO TRACE OF ANY VERSIONS HAVING BEEN MADE BY THE JEWS INTO THE LANGUAGES OF OTHER COUNTRIES in which they had continued for periods much longer than that of their settlement at Alexandria." Brenton's Septuagint Introduction (Zondervan, from the original 1851), p ii.

With regard to being able to recover a pre-Origenian LXX, Brenton then remarks -

"The Hexapla itself is said never to have been copied: what remains of the versions which it contained (mere fragments) were edited by Montfaucon in 1714, and in an abridged edition by Bahrdt in 1769-70. The Hexaplar text of the Septuagint was copied about a half century after Origen's death by Pamphilus and Eusebius; it thus obtained a circulation; but the errors of copyists soon confounded the marks of addition and omission which Origen placed, AND HENCE THE TEXT OF THE SEPTUAGINT BECAME ALMOST HOPELESSLY MIXED UP WITH THAT OF OTHER VERSIONS." ibid, p vi.

In other words, we can't even reconstruct Origen's fifth column of the LXX, let alone a pre-Origenian Septuagint, much less a BC LXX.

Here are a few statements by Jobes & Silva, both of whom are noted LXX scholars and both of whom BELIEVED that the NT writers made use of the LXX - 

In "Invitation To The Septuagint," Moises Silva & Karen Jobes, Baker Academic, 2000, "In effect, the great task of Septuagint textual criticism is to reconstruct the pre-Hexaplaric text, which means undoing Origen's labors so as to rediscover the form of the "Septuagint" in the second century. Without Greek manuscripts predating Origen, however, that goal is not easily reached." p 53.

In other words, aside from the few scraps which predate Origen, they can't even reconstruct Origen's Hexapla, let alone any kind of "Septuagint." They don't have any EVIDENCE to work with. 

"We have no EVIDENCE that any Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, or even of the Pentateuch, was called the Septuagint prior to the second century of this era." Jobes & Silva, Invitation To The Septuagint, p 32. (emphasis mine)

"There really is no such thing as THE Septuagint. If the entire corpus of the Hebrew Bible had been translated at one point in history by one group of translators in one location and for one purpose, then it would be much easier to use the Septuagint as a snapshot of the history of interpretation and theological thought. However, apart from the translation of the Pentateuch (for which we have very limited information), the when, where, and who, and why of the Greek translation of other books is basically unknown." ibid, pg 89-90. (emphasis in original)