The Septuagint: A column of uncial text from 1 Esdras in the Codex Vaticanus c. 325–350 CE, the basis of Sir Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton's Greek edition and English translation.

The Septuagint ( /ˈsɛptjuːəˌdʒɪnt/), or simply "LXX", or the "Greek Old Testament", is a translation into Koine Greek of the Christian Old Testament. It incorporates the oldest of several ancient translations of the Old Testament, Biblical apocrypha and Deuterocanonical books. The LXX is referred to in critical works by the abbreviation Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mathfrak{G} ^[1] or G.

Septuagint was originally the designation for the Jewish Torah translated into Koine Greek, the lingua franca of the Eastern Mediterranean from the death of Alexander the Great (323 BCE) until the development of Byzantine Greek (c.600 CE). Some early pre-Christian Jewish versions of the Septuagint, were held in great respect in ancient times; Philo, the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher, and Josephus, the 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian, ascribed divine inspiration to the Jewish translators.^[2][3] But since Late Antiquity, once attributed to a Council of Jamnia, mainstream rabbinical Judaism rejected the Septuagint as valid Jewish scriptural texts because of what were ascertained as mistranslations along with its Hellenistic heretical elements, preferring the Masoretic tradition of Hebrew texts.^[4][5] As a result, early Jewish translations of the Torah into Koine Greek by Jewish Rabbanim have survived as rare fragments only.

In time the LXX came to refer to the Christian "Greek Old Testament", incorporating the translations of all the books of the Hebrew Bible and books later considered apocryphal or deutero-canonical, some composed in Greek and some translations.^[4] Other versions are now preserved only in fragmentary form. Being a composite work, the translation process of the ancient Septuagint has several distinct stages. Shifting from Hellenistic Judaism to mainstream Christian adoption it began by the 3rd century BCE and was completed by 132 BCE,^{[clarification needed][6][7][5]} initially in Alexandria, but in time elsewhere as well.^[8]

Besides the Old Latin versions, the LXX is also the basis for the Slavonic, the Syriac, Old Armenian, Old Georgian and Coptic versions of the Christian Old Testament.^[9] Of significance for all Christians and for Bible scholars, the Greek Septuagint is quoted by the New Testament,^[10] particularly by Paul the Apostle,^[11] and by the Apostolic Fathers.

Creation[link]

According to the (pseudepigraphic) Letter of Aristeas, and repeated with embellishments in Philo, Josephus and various later Jewish and Christian sources, Jewish scholars first translated the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) into Koine Greek in the 3rd century BCE.^[12][13] The traditional explanation is that Ptolemy II sponsored the translation ^[14] for use by the many Alexandrian Jews who were fluent in Koine Greek, but not in Hebrew. The Talmud perpetuates the story of the Letter of Aristeas:

'King Ptolemy once gathered 72 Elders. He placed them in 72 chambers, each of them in a separate one, without revealing to them why they were summoned. He entered each one's room and said: "Write for me the Torah of Moshe, your teacher." God put it in the heart of each one to translate identically as all the others did.'^[15]

The date of the 3rd century BCE is confirmed for the Pentateuch translation by a number of factors, including the Greek being representative of early Koine,^[16] citations beginning as early as the 2nd century BCE, and early manuscripts datable to the 2nd century.

Further books were translated over the next two to three centuries. It is not altogether clear which was translated when, or where; some may even have been translated twice, into different versions, and then revised.^[17] The quality and style of the different translators also varied considerably from book to book, from the literal to paraphrasing to interpretative.

As the work of translation progressed 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 (out of which the Nevi'im were selected) 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 Jewish canon. Among these books are Maccabees and the Wisdom of Ben Sira. Also, the Septuagint version of some works, like Daniel and Esther, are longer than those in the Masoretic Text.^[18] Some of the later books (Wisdom of Solomon, 2 Maccabees, and others) apparently were not translated, but composed in Greek.

The authority of the larger group of "writings", out of which the ketuvim were selected, had not yet been determined, although some sort of selective process must have been employed because the Septuagint did not include other well-known Jewish documents such as Enoch or Jubilees or other writings that are now part of the Pseudepigrapha. It is not known what principles were used to determine the contents of the Septuagint beyond the "Law and the Prophets", a phrase used several times in the New Testament.

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Naming and designation[link]

The Septuagint derives its name from Latin versio septuaginta interpretum,"translation of the seventy interpreters," (Greek: ἡ μετάφρασις τῶν ἑβδομήκοντα, hē metáphrasis tōn hebdomēkonta), "translation of the seventy ".^[8][19] The title refers to a legendary account in the pseudepigraphic Letter of Aristeas to his brother Philocrates, of how seventy or seventy-two Jewish scholars were asked by the Greek King of Egypt Ptolemy II Philadelphus in the 3rd century BCE to translate the Torah (or Pentateuch) from Biblical Hebrew into Greek for inclusion in the Library of Alexandria.^[2]

As narrated by Philo of Alexandria, 72 Jewish translators were enlisted to complete the translation while kept in separate chambers. According to legend, Aristeas arrived at the figure of 72 scholars by calculating the participation of six elders from each of the 12 tribes of Israel. Adding to the legend and coincidental alignment with the number of scholars being 72 was the implication that these scholars all produced identical versions of the text in exactly seventy-two days. This story underlines the fact that some Jews in antiquity wished to present the translation as authoritative.^[2] 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.

Textual history[link]

The inter-relationship between various significant ancient manuscripts of the Old Testament (some identified by their siglum). LXX here denotes the original septuagint.

Further, the LXX symbol is also the Roman numeral for 70. Thus, LXX is often used as an abbreviation for septuagint.

Modern scholarship holds that the LXX was written during the 3rd through 1st centuries BCE. But nearly all attempts at dating specific books, with the exception of the Pentateuch (early- to mid-3rd century BCE), are tentative and without consensus.^[2]

Later Jewish revisions and recensions of the Greek against the Hebrew are well attested, the most famous of which include the Three: Aquila (128 CE), Symmachus, and Theodotion. These three, to varying degrees, are more literal renderings of their contemporary Hebrew scriptures as compared to the Old Greek. Modern scholars consider one or more of the 'three' to be totally new Greek versions of the Hebrew Bible.^[20]

Around 235 CE, Origen, a Christian scholar in Alexandria, completed the Hexapla, a comprehensive comparison of the ancient versions and Hebrew text side-by-side in six columns, with diacritical markings (a.k.a. "editor's marks", "critical signs" or "Aristarchian signs"). Much of this work was lost, but several compilations of the fragments are available. In the first column was the contemporary Hebrew, in the second a Greek transliteration of it, then the newer Greek versions each in their own columns. Origen also kept a column for the Old Greek (the Septuagint) and next to it was a critical apparatus combining readings from all the Greek versions with diacritical marks indicating to which version each line (Gr. στἰχος) belonged.^[21] Perhaps the voluminous Hexapla was never copied in its entirety, but Origen's combined text ("the fifth column") was copied frequently, eventually without the editing marks, and the older uncombined text of the LXX was neglected. Thus this combined text became the first major Christian recension of the LXX, often called the Hexaplar recension. In the century following Origen, two other major recensions were identified by Jerome, who attributed these to Lucian and Hesychius.^[2]

Manuscripts[link]

The oldest manuscripts of the LXX include 2nd century BCE fragments of Leviticus and Deuteronomy (Rahlfs nos. 801, 819, and 957), and 1st century BCE fragments of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and the Minor Prophets (Alfred Rahlfs nos. 802, 803, 805, 848, 942, and 943). Relatively complete manuscripts of the LXX postdate the Hexaplar rescension and include the Codex Vaticanus from the 4th century CE 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 some 600 years later, from the first half of the 10th century.^[9][22] The 4th century Codex Sinaiticus also partially survives, still containing many texts of the Old Testament.^[23] While there are differences between these three codices, scholarly consensus today holds that one LXX — that is, the original pre-Christian translation — underlies all three. The various Jewish and later Christian revisions and recensions are largely responsible for the divergence of the codices.^[2]

Differences with the Latin Vulgate and the Masoretic text[link]

The sources of the many differences between the Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate and the Masoretic text have long been discussed by scholars. 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 most widely accepted view today is that the original Septuagint provided a reasonably accurate record of an early Hebrew textual variant that differed from the ancestor of the Masoretic text as well as those of the Latin Vulgate, where both of the latter seem to have a more similar textual heritage.

These issues notwithstanding, the text of the LXX is generally close to that of the Masoretes and vulgate. For example, Genesis 4:1–6 is identical in both the LXX, Vulgate 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:

This instance illustrates the complexity of assessing differences between the LXX and the Masoretic Text as well as the Vulgate. Despite the striking divergence of meaning here between the Septuagint and later texts, 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.

The differences between the LXX and the MT thus fall into four categories.^[24]

1. Different Hebrew sources for the MT and the LXX. Evidence of this can be found throughout the Old Testament. Most obvious are major differences in Jeremiah and Job, where the LXX is much shorter and chapters appear in different order than in the MT, and Esther where almost one third of the verses in the LXX text have no parallel in the MT. A more subtle example may be found in Isaiah 36.11; the meaning ultimately remains the same, but the choice of words evidences a different text. The MT reads "...al tedaber yehudit be-'ozne ha`am al ha-homa" [speak not the Judean language in the ears of (or — which can be heard by) the people on the wall]. The same verse in the LXX reads according to the translation of Brenton "and speak not to us in the Jewish tongue: and wherefore speakest thou in the ears of the men on the wall." The MT reads "people" where the LXX reads "men". This difference is very minor and does not affect the meaning of the verse. Scholars at one time had used discrepancies such as this to claim that the LXX was a poor translation of the Hebrew original. With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, variant Hebrew texts of the Bible were found. In fact this verse is found in Qumran (1QIsaa) where the Hebrew word "haanashim" (the men) is found in place of "haam" (the people). This discovery, and others like it, showed that even seemingly minor differences of translation could be the result of variant Hebrew source texts.
2. Differences in interpretation stemming from the same Hebrew text. A good example is Genesis 4.7, shown above.
3. Differences as a result of idiomatic translation issues (i.e. a Hebrew idiom may not easily translate into Greek, thus some difference is intentionally or unintentionally imparted). For example, in Psalm 47:10 the MT reads "The shields of the earth belong to God". The LXX reads "To God are the mighty ones of the earth." The metaphor "shields" would not have made much sense to a Greek speaker; thus the words "mighty ones" are substituted in order to retain the original meaning.
4. Transmission changes in Hebrew or Greek (Diverging revisionary/recensional changes and copyist errors)

Dead Sea Scrolls[link]

The Biblical manuscripts found in Qumran, commonly known as the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS), have prompted comparisons of the various texts associated with the Hebrew Bible, including the Septuagint.^[25] Peter Flint,^[26] cites Emanuel Tov, the chief editor of the scrolls,^[27] who identifies five broad variation categories of DSS texts:^[28]

1. Proto-Masoretic: This consists of a stable text and numerous and distinctive agreements with the Masoretic Text. About 60% of the Biblical scrolls fall into this category (e.g. 1QIsa-b)
2. Pre-Septuagint: These are the manuscripts which have distinctive affinities with the Greek Bible. These number only about 5% of the Biblical scrolls, for example, 4QDeut-q, 4QSam-a, and 4QJer-b, 4QJer-d. In addition to these manuscripts, several others share distinctive individual readings with the Septuagint, although they do not fall in this category.
3. The Qumran "Living Bible": These are the manuscripts which, according to Tov, were copied in accordance with the "Qumran practice" (i.e. with distinctive long orthography and morphology, frequent errors and corrections, and a free approach to the text. Such scrolls comprise about 20% of the Biblical corpus, including the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa-a):
4. Pre-Samaritan: These are DSS manuscripts which reflect the textual form found in the Samaritan Pentateuch, although the Samaritan Bible itself is later and contains information not found in these earlier scrolls, (e.g. God's holy mountain at Shechem rather than Jerusalem). The Qumran witnesses – which are characterized by orthographic corrections and harmonizations with parallel texts elsewhere in the Pentateuch – comprise about 5% of the Biblical scrolls. (e.g. 4QpaleoExod-m)
5. Non-Aligned: This is a category which shows no consistent alignment with any of the other four text-types. These number approximately 10% of the Biblical scrolls, and include 4QDeut-b, 4QDeut-c, 4QDeut-h, 4QIsa-c, and 4QDan-a.^[28][29][30]

The textual sources present a variety of readings. For example, Bastiaan Van Elderen ^[27] compares three variations of Deuteronomy 32.34, the last of the Song of Moses.^[31]

The Dead Sea Scrolls, with its 5% connection to the Septuagint, provides significant information for scholars studying the Greek text of the Hebrew Bible.

Use[link]

Jewish use[link]

Starting approximately in the 2nd century CE, several factors led most Jews to abandon use of the LXX. The earliest gentile Christians of necessity used the LXX, as it was at the time the only Greek version of the Bible, and most, if not all, of these early non-Jewish Christians could not read 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.^[9] Instead, Jews used Hebrew/Aramaic Targum manuscripts later compiled by the Masoretes; and authoritative Aramaic translations, such as those of Onkelos and Rabbi Yonathan ben Uziel.^[32]

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.^[33] Even Greek-speaking Jews tended less to the LXX, preferring other Jewish versions in Greek, such as that of the 2nd century Aquila translation, which seemed to be more concordant with contemporary Hebrew texts.^[9] While Jews have not used the LXX in worship or religious study since the 2nd century CE, recent scholarship has brought renewed interest in it in Judaic Studies.

Christian use[link]

The Early Christian Church used the Greek texts^[33] since Greek was a lingua franca of the Roman Empire at the time, and the language of the Greco-Roman Church (Aramaic was the language of Syriac Christianity, which used the Targums). The relationship between the apostolic use of the Old Testament, for example, the Septuagint and the now lost Hebrew texts (though to some degree and in some form carried on in Masoretic tradition) is complicated. The Septuagint seems to have been a major source for the Apostles, but it is not the only one. St. Jerome offered, for example, Matt 2:15 and 2:23, John 19:37, John 7:38, 1 Cor. 2:9.^[34] as examples not found in the Septuagint, but in Hebrew texts. (Matt 2:23 is not present in current Masoretic tradition either, though according to St. Jerome it was in Isaiah 11:1.) Furthermore, the New Testament writers, when citing the Jewish scriptures or when quoting Jesus doing so, freely used the Greek translation, implying that Jesus, his Apostles and their followers considered it reliable.^[11][35][36]

In the Early Christian Church, the presumed fact was that the Septuagint was translated by Jews before the era of Christ, and that the Septuagint at certain places gives itself more to a christological interpretation than (say, 2nd century) Hebrew texts, was taken as evidence, that "Jews" had changed the Hebrew text in a way that made them less christological. For example Irenaeus concerning Isaiah 7:14: The Septuagint clearly writes of a virgin that shall conceive. While the Hebrew text was, according to Irenaeus, at that time interpreted by Theodotion and Aquila (both proselytes of the Jewish faith) as a young woman that shall conceive. And, according to Irenaeus, the Ebionites used this to claim that Joseph was the (biological) father of Jesus: From Irenaeus' point of view that was pure heresy, facilitated by (late) anti-Christian alterations of the scripture in Hebrew, as evident by the older, pre-Christian, Septuagint.^[37]

When Jerome undertook the revision of the Old Latin translations of the Septuagint, he checked the Septuagint against the Hebrew texts that were then available. He came to believe that the Hebrew text better testified to Christ than the Septuagint.^{[citation needed]} He broke with church tradition and translated most of the Old Testament of his Vulgate from Hebrew rather than Greek. His choice was severely criticized by Augustine, his contemporary; a flood of still less moderate criticism came from those who regarded Jerome as a forger. But with the passage of time, acceptance of Jerome's version gradually increased until it displaced the Old Latin translations of the Septuagint.^[9]

The Eastern Orthodox Church still prefers to use the LXX as the basis for translating the Old Testament into other languages. The Eastern Orthodox also use LXX untranslated where Greek is the liturgical language, e.g. in the Orthodox Church of Constantinople, the Church of Greece and the Cypriot Orthodox Church. 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.^{[9][verification needed]}. For example, the Jerusalem Bible Foreword says, "... only when this (the Masoretic Text) presents insuperable difficulties have emendations or other versions, such as the ... LXX, been used."^[38] The Translator's Preface to the New International Version says: "The translators also consulted the more important early versions (including) the Septuagint ... Readings from these versions were occasionally followed where the MT seemed doubtful ..."^[39]

Deuterocanonical books or Apocrypha[link]

The Septuagint includes some books not found in the Hebrew Bible, see Development of the Hebrew Bible canon for details. After the Reformation, many Protestant Bibles began to follow the Jewish canon and exclude the additional books. Roman Catholics, however, include some of these books in their canon while Eastern Orthodox Churches use all the books of the Septuagint except the Psalms of Solomon.^[40] Anglican lectionaries also use all of the books except Psalm 151, and the full King James Version (following the Geneva Bible, 1560) includes these additional books in a separate section labelled the "Apocrypha".

Language[link]

Some sections of the Septuagint may show Semiticisms, or idioms and phrases based on Semitic languages like Hebrew and Aramaic.^[35] Other books, such as LXX Daniel and Proverbs, show Greek influence more strongly.^[2] The book of Daniel that is found in almost all Greek Bibles, however, is not from the LXX, but rather from Theodotion's translation, which more closely resembles the Masoretic Daniel.^[2]

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.^[41] One must, however, evaluate such evidence with caution since it is extremely unlikely that all ancient Hebrew sounds had precise Greek equivalents.^[42]

Books[link]

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 Western ordering of the books. The Septuagint order for the Old Testament is evident in the earliest Christian Bibles (4th century).^[2]

Some books that are set apart in the Masoretic text are grouped together. For example the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings are in the LXX one book in four parts called Βασιλειῶν ("Of Reigns"). In LXX, the Books of Chronicles supplement Reigns and it is called Paraleipoménon (Παραλειπομένων—things left out). The Septuagint organizes the minor prophets as twelve parts of one Book of Twelve.^[2]

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.

These additional books are Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach, Baruch, Letter of Jeremiah (which later became chapter 6 of Baruch in the Vulgate), 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 Manasseh, the Psalms of Solomon, and Psalm 151. The canonical acceptance of these books varies among different Christian traditions, and there are canonical books not derived from the Septuagint; for a discussion see the article on Biblical apocrypha.

Extracts from Theodotion[link]

In most ancient copies of the Bible which contain the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, the Book of Daniel is not the original Septuagint version, but instead is a copy of Theodotion's translation from the Hebrew.^[43] The Septuagint version of the Book of Daniel was discarded, in favour of Theodotion's version, in the second to 3rd centuries; in Greek-speaking areas, this happened near the end of the 2nd century, and in Latin-speaking areas (at least in North Africa), it occurred in the middle of the 3rd century.^[43] History does not record the reason for this, and Jerome basically reports, in the preface to the Vulgate version of Daniel, this thing 'just' happened.^[43]

The canonical Ezra-Nehemiah is known in the Septuagint as "Esdras B", and 1 Esdras is "Esdras A". 1 Esdras is a very similar text to the books of Ezra-Nehemiah, and the two are widely thought by scholars to be derived from the same original text. It has been proposed, and is thought highly likely by scholars, that "Esdras B" – the canonical Ezra-Nehemiah – is Theodotion's version of this material, and "Esdras A" is the version which was previously in the Septuagint on its own.^[43]

Printed editions[link]

The texts of all printed editions are derived from the three recensions mentioned above, that of Origen, Lucian, or Hesychius.

• The editio princeps is the Complutensian Polyglot. It was based on manuscripts that are now lost, but seems to transmit quite early readings.^[44]
• The Aldine edition (begun by Aldus Manutius) appeared at Venice in 1518. The text is closer to Codex Vaticanus than the Complutensian. 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 Vulgate, 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 Robert Holmes and James Parsons (Oxford, 1798–1827), the seven editions of Constantin von 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 Henry Barclay 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 Fulcran Vigouroux, Dictionnaire de la Bible, 1643 sqq.
• Alfred Rahlfs, a longtime Septuagint researcher at Göttingen, began a manual edition of the Septuagint in 1917 or 1918. The completed Septuaginta was published in 1935. It relies mainly on Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and Alexandrinus, and presents a critical apparatus with variants from these and several other sources.^[45]
• The Göttingen Septuagint (Vetus Testamentum Graecum: Auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum) is a major critical version, comprising multiple volumes published from 1931 to 2009 and not yet complete (the largest missing parts are the history books Joshua through Chronicles except Ruth, and the Solomonic books Proverbs through Song of Songs). Its two critical apparatuses present variant Septuagint readings and variants from other Greek versions.^[46]
• In 2006, a revision of Alfred Rahlfs's Septuaginta was published by the German Bible Society. This editio altera includes over a thousand changes to the text and apparatus.^[47]
• Apostolic Bible Polyglot contains a Septuagint text derived mainly from the agreement of any two of the Complutensian Polyglot, the Sixtine, and the Aldine texts.^[48]

English translations[link]

The Septuagint has been translated a few times into English, the first one (though excluding the Apocrypha) being that of Charles Thomson in 1808; his translation was later revised and enlarged by C. A. Muses in 1954.

The translation of Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton, published in 1851, is a long-time standard. For most of the time since its publication it has been the only one readily available, and has continually been in print. It is based primarily upon the Codex Vaticanus and contains the Greek and English texts in parallel columns. There also is a revision of the Brenton Septuagint available through Stauros Ministries, called The Apostles' Bible, released in January 2008. [3] There is presently a translation of the Septuagint based on Brenton's English Translation of the Septuagint in development, called LXX2012: Septuagint in English 2012 that is being developed by the creator the World English Bible, (WEB) Michael Paul Johnson.

The International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS) has produced A New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included Under that Title (NETS), an academic translation based on standard critical editions of the Greek texts. It was published by Oxford University Press in October 2007.

The Apostolic Bible Polyglot, published in 2003, includes the Greek books of the Hebrew canon along with the Greek New Testament, all numerically coded to the AB-Strong numbering system, and set in monotonic orthography. Included in the printed edition is a concordance and index.

The Orthodox Study Bible was released in early 2008 with a new translation of the Septuagint based on the Alfred Rahlfs edition of the Greek text. To this base they brought two additional major sources. First the Sir Brenton translation of the Septuagint from 1851. Second, Thomas Nelson Publishers granted use of the New King James Version text in the places where the translation of the LXX would match that of the Hebrew Masoretic text. This edition also includes the New Testament as well which was also uses the New King James version. It also includes extensive commentary from an Eastern Orthodox perspective.^[49]

The Eastern / Greek Orthodox Bible (EOB) is an extensive revision and correction of Brenton’s translation which was primarily based on Codex Vaticanus. Its language and syntax have been modernized and simplified. It also includes extensive introductory material and footnotes featuring significant inter-LXX and LXX/MT variants.

Promotion[link]

The International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS), a nonprofit, learned society formed to promote international research in and study of the Septuagint and related texts,^[50] has established February 8 annually as International Septuagint Day, a day to promote the discipline on campuses and in communities.

Definition[link]

The title "Septuagint" should 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. Of these the most important are "the three:" those by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, which are identified by particular Semiticisms and placement of Hebrew and Aramaic characters within their Greek texts.

One of two Old Greek texts of the Book of Daniel has been recently rediscovered and work is ongoing in reconstructing the original form of the book.^[2]

Table of books[link]

See also[link]

Bible portal

• Brenton's English Translation of the Septuagint
• Alfred Rahlfs — editor of a commonly distributed critical edition of LXX.
• La Bible d'Alexandrie
• Documentary hypothesis — discusses the theoretical recensional history of the Torah/Pentateuch in Hebrew.
• Tanakh at Qumran — some of the Dead Sea Scrolls are witnesses to the LXX text.
• Septuagint manuscripts
• Vulgate
• Book of Job in Byzantine illuminated manuscripts
• Hellenistic Judaism

Manuscripts of Septuagint

• Cotton Genesis
• Codex Marchalianus
• Papyrus Rylands 458 – the oldest manuscript
• Papyrus Fouad 266 – the second oldest manuscript

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Bons, Eberhard, and Jan Joosten, eds. Septuagint Vocabulary: Pre-History, Usage, Reception (Society of Biblical Literature; 2011) 211 pages; studies of the language used
• Kantor, Mattis, The Jewish time line encyclopedia: A yearby-year history from Creation to the present, Jason Aronson Inc., London, 1992
• Alfred Rahlfs, Verzeichnis der griechischen Handschriften des Alten Testaments, für das Septuaginta-Unternehmen, Göttingen 1914.
• W. Emery Barnes, On the Influence of Septuagint on the Peshitta, JTS 1901, pp. 186–197.
• Andreas Juckel, Septuaginta and Peshitta Jacob of Edessa quoting the Old Testament in Ms BL Add 17134 JOURNAL OF SYRIAC STUDIES
• Martin Hengel, The Septuagint As Christian Scripture, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004.
• Rajak, Tessa, Translation and survival: the Greek Bible of the ancient Jewish Diaspora (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).
• Bart D. Ehrman. The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings; 608 pages, Oxford University Press (July, 2011); ISBN 978-0-19-975753-4
• Hyam MacCoby. The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity; 238 pages, Barnes & Noble Books (1998); ISBN 978-0-7607-0787-6

External links[link]

General[link]

Greek Wikisource has original text related to this article: The complete Greek text of the modern Septuagint

Wikisource has original text related to this article: 1911 Britannica entry

• The Septuagint Online – Comprehensive site with scholarly discussion and links to texts and translations
• The Septuagint Institute
• Jewish Encyclopedia (1906): Bible Translations
• Catholic Encyclopedia (1913): Septuagint Version
• Catholic Encyclopedia (1913): Versions of the Bible
• Searching for the Better Text: How errors crept into the Bible and what can be done to correct them (Biblical Archaeology Review)
• Codex: Resources and Links Relating to the Septuagint
• Extensive chronological and canonical list of Early Papyri and Manuscripts of the Septuagint
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Septuagint". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

Texts and translations[link]

• Septuagint/Old Greek Texts and Translations LXX finder, listing dozens of editions, both print and digital, in various languages and formats. A good place to start.
• Septuagint and New Testament – Despite its name, this site does not in fact provide the LXX, rather a shortened version which eliminates all the LXX books later called "deuterocanonical." The Greek NT is presented in full. Both Greek texts, the (incomplete) LXX and the NT, have parsing and concordance.
• Elpenor's Bilingual (Greek / English) Septuagint Old Testament Greek text (full polytonic unicode version) and English translation side by side. Greek text as used by the Orthodox Churches.
• PDF version of the Septuagint (Does not include deuterocanonicals, and lacks diacritical marks)
• Titus Text Collection: Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interpretes (advanced research tool)
• Septuagint published by the Church of Greece
• Plain text of the whole LXX
• Greek-English interlinear of OT & NT. Monotonic orthography.
• Bible Resource Pages – contains Septuagint texts (with diacritics) side-by-side with English translations
• The Septuagint in Greek as an MS Word document (requires Vusillus Old Face (Archive copy at the Wayback Machine). Introduction and book abbreviations in Latin.)
• The Book of Daniel from an Old Greek LXX^{[dead link]} (no diacritics, needs special font)
• Sir Lancelot C.L. Brenton's translation
• The New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS), electronic edition
• Project to produce an Orthodox Study Bible (OSB) whose Old Testament is based entirely on the Septuagint.^{[dead link]}
• EOB: Eastern / Greek Orthodox Bible: includes comprehensive introductory materials dealing with Septuagintal issues and an Old Testament which is an extensive revision of the Brenton with footnotes.
• The Septuagint LXX in English (Online text of the entire LXX English translation by Sir Lancelot Brenton)
• (Online text of the entire LXX English translation by Sir Lancelot Brenton in PDF)
• Septuagint (LXX) with Critical Apparatus - contains the Greek text of the Septuagint and other early Greek versions of Old Testament and a new English translation.
• [4] - The Holy Orthodox Bible translated by Peter A. Papoutsis from the Septuagint (LXX) and the Official Greek New Testament text of the Ecumenical Patriarch.

The LXX and the NT[link]

• Septuagint references in NT by John Salza
• An Apology for the Septuagint – By Edward William Grinfield