A Case for the Septuagint

For several years now, I’ve been using an English translation of the Septuagint (pronounced, sep-‘tü-ə-jənt) for my reading of the Hebrew Scriptures. For those of us who might not know, the Septuagint (sometimes seen as “LXX”) is the Greek translation of the Old Testament or Jewish Scriptures. Why would I use a Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures instead of the Aramaic/Hebrew version? There are a number of reasons, actually. While this might be a bit technical, I hope the post will be a brief answer to that question.

I first heard about the Septuagint way back in college. I found it odd that people would use the Septuagint instead of the Masoretic Text, the version of the Old Testament that’s found in almost all Bibles. I have a misty memory of someone saying something along the lines of, “Jesus and the Apostles were Jews and spoke Hebrew. It makes sense, then, to use an English text based on the Hebrew Old Testament.” And that was it for me. I never really looked into it again.

Many years later, though, I met a person who was really into Orthodox Christianity and we became friends. Because of my friend I started looking into Orthodoxy and discovered that Orthodox Christians use the Septuagint in their Bibles. Their reasoning? “It’s the scriptures Jesus and the Apostles used.”

“Wait…” 

“What?!”

Exactly.

Being the type of person I am, I started researching this. I discovered some really interesting things, not only about the translation itself but also some differences between the Masoretic text and the Septuagint. For the most part, the Masoretic text and the Septuagint text are very close but the differences are both shocking and important. But before we get there, I want to think about that assertion some more — 

Jesus and the Apostles used the Septuagint.

That was the Bible they used. How do we know this? It’s all a matter of history.

The story goes that Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the Greek Pharaoh of Egypt (285 - 247 BCE), requested that the Jewish Scriptures be translated into Greek for inclusion to the Library of Alexandria. Seventy scholars were selected (later tradition says it was 72) for the work and each placed in separate rooms without access to the other scholars or knowledge of why they were summoned. Ptolemy II went to each one and said, “Write for me the Torah of Moshe, your teacher.” And so they did. And each one produced the exact same document. The name Septuagint reflects this; it means, “The Translation of the Seventy.”

That’s how the story goes, anyway.

Whether it happened that way or not is debatable (the story is repeated in several historic accounts, including those of Philo and Josephus), but what’s interesting to me is the date of the completion of the Septuagint — 3rd to 2nd BCE. That’s roughly 200 - 300 years before Christ. The oldest surviving, nearly complete manuscripts of the Old Testament in any language is the Septuagint. By contrast, the Masoretic text of the Old Testament was completed about 1,000 years after the Septuagint (roughly 9th -10th CE).

While that’s all very interesting, how do we know that Jesus and the Apostles used the Septuagint as their scriptures? Our biggest evidence is their quotations of the Old Testament. Here are some examples:

Matthew 1.22-23 (CEB):[1] Now all of this took place so that what the Lord had spoken through the prophet would be fulfilled: 23“Look! A virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, And they will call him, Emmanuel” (Emmanuel means “God with us.”).

A lot of us don’t even bother looking up the quotations and references to the Hebrew Scriptures. I think the reason for this is we just assume that the verses are going to match. I mean, we have the Hebrew Scriptures so why would we check? We (sort of) blindly accept that the quotes are correct since they’re from “the Bible.”

But… 

When we look up the source of the quote, we read — 

Isaiah 7.14 (CEB): Therefore, the Lord will give you a sign. The young woman is pregnant and is about to give birth to a son, and she will name him Immanuel (emphasis added).

If you’ve never had this pointed out to you before, this passage is used by some people to try and prove that the Bible is all smoke and mirrors, that it’s fake (whatever that’s supposed to mean). The argument goes something like, “See, the writer of Matthew changed the text to support his view that Jesus was the Messiah.”

Well … not really.

When we look up Isaiah 7.14 in the Septuagint we read —

Isaiah 7.14 (LXX2012):[2] Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel (emphasis added).

We see, then, that Matthew was quoting from the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint) and not from the Hebrew text. In other words, the writer of Matthew didn’t change anything. He didn’t need to since the only version of the Jewish Scriptures was the Septuagint. Let’s look at some other passages.

In Romans 9, Paul wrote — 

Romans 9.30-33 (CEB): So what are we going to say? Gentiles who weren’t striving for righteousness achieved righteousness, the righteousness that comes from faith. 31But though Israel was striving for a Law of righteousness, they didn’t arrive. 32Why? It’s because they didn’t go for it by faith but they went for it as if it could be reached by doing something. They have tripped over a stumbling block. 33As it’s written: “Look! I’m putting a stumbling block in Zion, which is a rock that offends people. And the one who has faith in him will not be put to shame.”

Paul is quoting from Isaiah. And Isaiah from the Masoretic text states —  

Isaiah 28.16 (CEB): Therefore, the LORD God says: Look! I’m laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, a valuable cornerstone, a sure foundation: the one who trusts won’t tremble.

There are two things here. First, Paul’s quote is about putting one’s faith in a person — “the one who has faith in him…” Second, the one who has faith in that person “[won’t] be put to shame.” The Masoretic text doesn’t not convey Paul’s meaning at all. But, as we know, the Masoretic text wasn’t around when Paul quoted this passage; he was using the Septuagint.

Isaiah 28.16 (LXX2012): Therefore thus says the Lord, even the Lord, Behold, I lay for the foundations of Sion a costly stone, a choice, a corner-stone, a precious stone, for its foundations; and he that believes on him shall by no means be ashamed.

Now, I know what some of us are thinking, “Hey, even the Septuagint doesn’t line up with what Paul quoted!” True. But Paul wasn’t only quoting from Isaiah 28.16. He was combining Isaiah 8.14 and 28.16. Isaiah 8.14 in the Septuagint reads, “And if you shall trust in him, he shall be to you for a sanctuary; and you shall not come against him as against a stumbling-stone, neither as against the falling of a rock: but the houses of Jacob are in a snare, and the dwellers in Jerusalem in a pit” (emphasis added). The context of this passage makes it clear that the “him” in question is Yahweh, the God of Israel.[3]

In 1 Peter, we read — 

1 Peter 1.22-25 (CEB): As you set yourselves apart by your obedience to the truth so that you might have genuine affection for your fellow believers, love each other deeply and earnestly. 23Do this because you have been given new birth — not from the type of seed that decays but from seed that doesn’t. This seed is God’s life-giving and enduring word. 24Thus, “All human life on the earth is like grass, and all human glory is like a flower in a field. The grass dries up and its flower falls off, 25but the Lord’s word endures forever.” This is the word that was proclaimed to you as good news.

In the Masoretic text, it states — 

Isaiah 40.6-8 (CEB): … All flesh is grass; all its loyalty is like the flowers of the field. 7The grass dries up and the flower withers when the Lord’s breath blows on it. Surely the people are grass. 8The grass dries up; the flower withers, but our God’s word will exist forever.

As we can see, there are some similarities between the two passages but it’s not quite right. Once more, though, when we read it from the Septuagint, the passages line up — 

Isaiah 40.7-8 (LXX2012): All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass: 8The grass withers, and the flower fades: but the word of our God abides forever. 

I could literally go on and on and this post would be several hundred pages but I hope you get the point. The Bible used by the writers of the New Testament was not a Hebrew text; it was a Greek text of the Jewish Scriptures. This, then, brings up a very important point to me: When Paul wrote — 

2 Timothy 3.16-17 (CEB): Every scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for showing mistakes, for correcting, and for training character, 17so that the person who belongs to God can be equipped to do everything that’s good.

— he was not referring to the Jewish Scriptures we currently have in our Bibles; he was referring to the Septuagint.

If you’d like to know more about the Septuagint, there are several articles online: Wikipedia; Encyclopedia Britannica; Orthodoxwiki; and just a Google search will provide a plethora of information.

There are also some wonderful English translations of the Septuagint available. The one I’ve used for this post is the Septuagint in American English 2012. This is based on Brenton’s translation (19th century, CE), one of the most widely used English versions of the Septuagint (which you can read here). There’s also the New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS), which you can read online (in a PDF) or get in hardback. And, lastly (but certainly not least), one can get the Orthodox Study Bible in either digital or bound.

~~~

In the Love of the Three in One,

Br. Jack+, LC

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[1] Scripture quotations marked (CEB) are taken from The Common English Bible. Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible. Used by permission.

[2] Scripture quotations marked (LXX2012) are taken from the Septuagint in American English 2012. The Septuagint in American English 2012 is in the public domain and may be freely copied, published, etc.

[3] This doesn’t mean that God’s a “him.” It means that’s one of the ways the ancient people understood God. They also understood God as feminine, too (Genesis 1.27; Deuteronomy 32.18; Proverbs 8; Isaiah 49.15; Matthew 23.37; Luke 15.8-10; etc.).