What is the Septuagint?
The Septuagint is the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament — the Bible most people in the New Testament world could actually read. Understanding what it is answers several questions at once: why Jesus and the apostles sometimes quote the Old Testament in words that differ slightly from ours, and how God prepared a language for the gospel long before the gospel came.
What the Name Means
The word itself is a number. One writer gives the plain definition:
The Bible TreasuryThis name is given to that ancient Greek translation of the Bible which was made in Egypt sometime before the coming of Christ, and which was called the Septuagint (that is, the seventy), because of the tradition that it was done by that number of translators.
It is often written simply as "LXX," the Roman numerals for seventy.
How It Came to Be Made
The project began in Alexandria, a Greek-speaking city in Egypt with a large Jewish population, under a king who wanted the Jewish law in his famous library.
The Bible TreasuryBoth literary curiosity and political prudence made those kings want to possess the ancient law of the Jews in the common tongue. So Ptolemy Philadelphus (or his father — it is uncertain which) asked the high priest at Jerusalem to find competent scribes for him, who could translate the laws of Moses from Hebrew into Greek... Its composition must have been somewhere about the year 280 B.C. It seems to have been gradually followed at different times by translations of other parts of the Jewish Scriptures.
The famous stories told about it are another matter. Commentators here treat them as legend, not history:
The Bible TreasuryPhilo even claims that these seventy-two men were shut up in separate cells; that each of them translated the entire Bible with no contact with his colleagues; and that these seventy-two independent translations were found to agree exactly in every detail... There is no doubt that these stories are fictitious, for there is positive internal evidence that the several books were done at different times and by different hands.
The Bible in Common Use
By the time of Christ, this version was not a scholar's curiosity. It was the ordinary Bible of ordinary people, even in Palestine.
The Bible TreasuryThis Alexandrian or Septuagint version, being made in the common speech of the East, was read even in Palestine, where Greek had become the ordinary language of daily life... the writers of the New Testament almost constantly refer to it: for at that time it stood in the same relation to the Hebrew as our common English version does, and was therefore used by all who wrote books meant for everyone to read.
Why the Lord's Use of It Matters
Several writers draw a conclusion from the fact that Jesus quoted it. If a translation could be trusted by Him, a translation can be trusted by us.
Walter ScottThe Lord, the apostles, and early Christian writers reverently turned the pages of this old translation, reading it, citing it, and referring to it as the word of God. Many quotations found in the New Testament are from this Greek translation; others, of course, are from the Hebrew. Now, is there any difference in principle between an English and a Greek translation?... it was this very Greek copy of the Old Testament that Timothy knew from childhood, and yet the Holy Spirit through Paul calls it "the sacred writings," declaring their full inspiration.
Where It Differs from the Hebrew
It is a translation, and it is not flawless. Commentators are careful about its limits while still valuing it:
Morrish Bible DictionaryThe Septuagint can never take the place of the Hebrew Scriptures; but it is often useful to show how the Jews of that early period, who understood both Hebrew and Greek, translated many of the words or sentences.
The differences, however, turn out to be a strength rather than a worry, because the two texts reached us by separate routes:
The Bible TreasuryThe Hebrew we owe entirely to the Jews... Whereas the Septuagint has reached us through the hands of the Christian church. These two guardians of the Scriptures had no contact whatever with each other. And their united testimony is of the strongest possible kind... every item of our faith is unaffected by them. We could throw out every passage where they disagree without shaking a single article of the Creed.
A Vehicle Prepared in Advance
Looking back, writers see more than a royal library project at work.
A J PollockGreek being the great language of commerce at that time, it can clearly be seen that, though a heathen king sought the glory for himself, it was in fact God's overruling hand that prepared this wonderful vehicle for the spread of the gospel in days to come.
Summary
- Seventy. The name means "seventy," from the tradition about the number of translators; it is the Greek Old Testament, begun around 280 B.C. in Alexandria.
- Legend. The tale of translators in sealed cells producing identical texts is rejected — the books were plainly done at different times by different hands.
- Common. It became the everyday Bible of the Greek-speaking world, standing where our English Bible stands for us.
- Quoted. Jesus and the apostles read and cited it, which settles the question of whether a translation can be called the word of God.
- Prepared. A pagan king's library project was God's hand readying a world language to carry the gospel.