Septuagint


The Septuagint, sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy, and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek title derives from the story recorded in the Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates that "the laws of the Jews" were translated into the Greek language at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus by seventy-two Hebrew translators—six from each of the Twelve Tribes of Israel—though this story is considered to be pseudepigraphical by some scholars.
Biblical scholars agree that the first five books of the Hebrew Bible were translated from Biblical Hebrew into Koine Greek by Jews living in the Ptolemaic Kingdom, centred on the large community in Alexandria, probably in the early or middle part of the 3rd century BC. The remaining books were presumably translated in the 2nd century BC. Some targums translating or paraphrasing the Bible into Aramaic were also made during the Second Temple period.
Few people could speak and even fewer could read in the Hebrew language during the Second Temple period; Koine Greek and Aramaic were the lingua francas at that time among the Jewish community. The Septuagint, therefore, satisfied a need in the Jewish community.

Etymology

The term "Septuagint" is derived from the Latin phrase Vetus Testamentum ex versione Septuaginta Interpretum. This phrase in turn was derived from the. It was not until the time of Augustine of Hippo that the Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures was called by the Latin term Septuaginta. The Roman numeral LXX is commonly used as an abbreviation, in addition to or G.

Composition

Jewish legend

According to tradition, Ptolemy II Philadelphus sent seventy-two Hebrew translators—six from each of the Twelve Tribes of Israel—from Jerusalem to Alexandria to translate the Tanakh from Biblical Hebrew into Koine Greek, for inclusion in his library. This narrative is found in the possibly pseudepigraphic Letter of Aristeas to his brother Philocrates, and is repeated by Philo of Alexandria, Josephus, and by later sources. It is also found in the Tractate Megillah of the Babylonian Talmud:
Philo of Alexandria writes that the number of scholars was chosen by selecting six scholars from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Caution is needed here regarding the accuracy of this statement by Philo of Alexandria, as it implies that the twelve tribes were still in existence during King Ptolemy's reign, and that the Ten Lost Tribes of the twelve tribes had not been forcibly resettled by Assyria almost 500 years previously. Although not all the people of the ten tribes were scattered, many peoples of the ten tribes sought refuge in Jerusalem and survived, preserving a remnant of each tribe and their lineages. Jerusalem swelled to five times its prior population due to the influx of refugees. According to later rabbinic tradition, the Septuagint was given to Ptolemy two days before the annual Tenth of Tevet fast.
According to Aristobulus of Alexandria's fragment 3, portions of the Law were translated from Hebrew into Greek long before the well-known Septuagint version. He stated that Plato and Pythagoras knew the Jewish Law and borrowed from it.
In the preface to his 1844 translation of the Septuagint, Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton acknowledges that the Jews of Alexandria were likely to have been the writers of the Septuagint, but dismisses Aristeas' account as a pious fiction. Instead, he asserts that the real origin of the name "Septuagint" pertains to the fact that the earliest version was forwarded by the authors to the Jewish Sanhedrin at Alexandria for editing and approval.
The Jews of Alexandria celebrated the translation with an annual festival on the island of Pharos, where the Lighthouse of Alexandria stood—the location where the translation was said to have taken place. During the festival, a large gathering of Jews, along with some non-Jewish visitors, would assemble on the beach for a grand picnic.

History

The dating of the translation of the Pentateuch to the 3rd century BC is supported by a number of factors, including its Greek being representative of early Koine Greek, citations beginning as early as the 2nd century BC, and early manuscripts datable to the 2nd century BC. After the Torah, other books were translated over the next two to three centuries. It is unclear which was translated when, or where; some may have been translated twice, and then revised. The quality and style of the translators varied considerably from book to book, from a literal translation to paraphrasing to an interpretative style.
The translation process of the Septuagint and from the Septuagint into other versions can be divided into several stages: the Greek text was produced within the social environment of Hellenistic Judaism, and completed by 132 BC. With the spread of Early Christianity, this Septuagint in turn was rendered into Latin in a variety of versions and the latter, collectively known as the Vetus Latina, were also referred to as the Septuagint initially in Alexandria but elsewhere as well. The Septuagint also formed the basis for the Slavonic, Syriac, Old Armenian, Old Georgian, and Coptic versions of the Christian Old Testament.

Language

The Septuagint is written in Koine Greek. Some sections contain Semiticisms, which are idioms and phrases based on Semitic languages such as Hebrew and Aramaic. Other books, such as Daniel and Proverbs, have a stronger Greek influence.
The Septuagint may also clarify pronunciation of pre-Masoretic Hebrew; many proper nouns are spelled with Greek vowels in the translation, but contemporary Hebrew texts lacked vowel pointing. However, it is unlikely that all Biblical Hebrew sounds had precise Greek equivalents.

Canonical differences

The Septuagint does not consist of a single, unified corpus. Rather, it is a collection of ancient translations of the Tanakh, along with other Jewish texts that are now commonly referred to as apocrypha. Importantly, the canon of the Hebrew Bible was evolving over the century or so in which the Septuagint was being written. Also, the texts were translated by many different people, in different locations, at different times, for different purposes, and often from different original Hebrew manuscripts.
The Hebrew Bible, also called the Tanakh, has three parts: the Torah, the Nevi'im, and the Ketuvim. The Septuagint has four: law, history, poetry, and prophets. The books of the Apocrypha were inserted at appropriate locations. Extant copies of the Septuagint, which date from the 4th century AD, contain books and additions not present in the Hebrew Bible as established in the Jewish canon and are not uniform in their contents. These copies of the Septuagint include books known as anagignoskomena in Greek and in English as deuterocanon, books not included in the modern Jewish canon. These books are estimated to have been written between 200 BC and 50 AD. Among them are the first two books of Maccabees; Tobit; Judith; the Wisdom of Solomon; Sirach; Baruch, and additions to Esther and Daniel. The Septuagint version of some books, such as Daniel and Esther, are longer than those in the Masoretic Text, which were affirmed as canonical in Rabbinic Judaism. The Septuagint Book of Jeremiah is shorter than the Masoretic Text. The Psalms of Solomon, 1 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, the Letter of Jeremiah, the Book of Odes, the Prayer of Manasseh and Psalm 151 are included in some copies of the Septuagint.
The Septuagint has been rejected as scriptural by mainstream Rabbinic Judaism for a couple of reasons. First, the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew source texts in many cases. For example, according to Heinrich Guggenheimer, intentional mistranslations in Deuteronomy 6 make reference to ancient sources of the Passover Haggadah. Second, the translations appear at times to demonstrate an ignorance of Hebrew idiomatic usage. A particularly noteworthy example of this phenomenon is found in Isaiah 7:14, in which the Hebrew word is translated into the Koine Greek as παρθένος.
The Septuagint became synonymous with the Greek Old Testament, a Christian canon incorporating the books of the Hebrew canon with additional texts. Although the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church include most of the books in the Septuagint in their canons, Protestant churches usually do not. After the Reformation, many Protestant Bibles began to follow the Jewish canon and exclude the additional texts as noncanonical. The Apocrypha are included under a separate heading in the King James Version of the Bible.
Greek nameTransliterationEnglish name
Προσευχὴ ΜανασσῆProseuchē ManassēPrayer of Manasseh
Ἔσδρας Αʹ1 Esdras1 Esdras
Τωβίτ Tōbit Tobit
ἸουδίθIoudithJudith
ἘσθήρEsthērEsther
Μακκαβαίων Αʹ1 Makkabaiōn1 Maccabees
Μακκαβαίων Βʹ2 Makkabaiōn2 Maccabees
Μακκαβαίων Γʹ3 Makkabaiōn3 Maccabees
Μακκαβαίων Δ' Παράρτημα4 Makkabaiōn Parartēma4 Maccabees
Ψαλμός ΡΝΑʹPsalmos 151Psalm 151
Σοφία ΣαλομῶντοςSophia SalomōntosWisdom or Wisdom of Solomon
Σοφία Ἰησοῦ ΣειράχSophia Iēsou SeirachSirach or Ecclesiasticus
ΒαρούχBarouchBaruch
Ἐπιστολὴ ἸερεμίουEpistolē IeremiouLetter of Jeremiah
ΔανιήλDaniēlDaniel
Ψαλμοὶ ΣαλομῶντοςPsalmoi SalomōntosPsalms of Solomon