Septuagint

Name and Character

The Septuagint is a translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into ancient Greek. The name itself does not appear in the text of Scripture. It derives from the Latin septuaginta ("seventy") and is commonly abbreviated with the Roman numeral LXX. Originally the term referred only to the translation of the Pentateuch. Today it designates the entire Greek Old Testament, including the books translated later.

Background and Formation

Scholars generally hold that the Pentateuch was translated first, in Alexandria, Egypt, around the third century BC, and that the remaining books were translated over several subsequent generations. The translation was intended for Hellenistic Jews who were more familiar with Greek than with Hebrew. The name "Seventy" comes from a story recounted in the Letter of Aristeas, which relates that during the reign of Ptolemy II, seventy-two men, six chosen from each of the twelve tribes of Israel, translated the Pentateuch. Scholars generally regard this account not as a historical record but as a tradition intended to enhance the authority of the translation.

Relationship to the New Testament

The writers of the New Testament are known to have frequently followed the Septuagint when quoting the Old Testament. Representative examples include the following:

• Matthew 1:22–23 quotes Isaiah 7:14 and uses the word "virgin." This agrees with the Septuagint's rendering of the Hebrew almah ("young woman") as parthenos ("virgin").
• Hebrews 10:5, "a body hast thou prepared me," quotes Psalm 40:6. Here the quotation follows the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew text, which reads "ears."

The early church received and used the Septuagint as its Old Testament. Judaism later turned instead to other Greek translations and to the Hebrew text.

Contents and Differences from the Hebrew Text

The Septuagint contains books not found in the Hebrew Bible: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Maccabees, Baruch, and the additions to Esther and Daniel. Its Book of Jeremiah is shorter than that of the Masoretic Text. Because the Dead Sea Scrolls include Hebrew manuscripts close to the Septuagint, scholars have raised the possibility that the translators worked from a different Hebrew textual tradition.

Views in Different Traditions

• The Eastern Orthodox Church uses the Septuagint as the authoritative text of the Old Testament.
• The Roman Catholic Church long used the Vulgate. It accepts the additional books found in the Septuagint as "deuterocanonical," a position confirmed by the Council of Trent in 1546.
• Protestantism regards only the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew Bible as canonical and calls the rest the "Apocrypha." Martin Luther placed these books in a separate section of his German Bible.

Interpretation and Points of Debate

The New Testament's quotation of a translation has given rise to differing interpretations. Those who emphasize biblical inerrancy explain that inspiration resides not in the translation itself but in the words recorded by the New Testament writers. Views also diverge on Isaiah 7:14. Conservative interpreters hold that the Septuagint's "virgin" correctly conveys the meaning of the prophecy, while critical scholars emphasize that the original Hebrew means "young woman."

Another story holds that although the translators worked separately, their results did not differ by a single letter. This detail is absent from the Letter of Aristeas; it was added later in the writings of Philo and some of the Church Fathers.

In the Korean Church

The Revised Korean Version (New Revised Edition) and the New Korean Standard Version translate the Old Testament from the Hebrew text. The New Korean Standard Version notes Septuagint readings in the footnotes to some verses. The Catholic edition of the Common Translation Bible includes the deuterocanonical books. For these reasons, the Septuagint is frequently mentioned in Bible studies dealing with the question of the Apocrypha or with New Testament quotations of the Old Testament.