• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Septuagint (LXX)

The so-called Septuagint (LXX) was so named from the story related at much length in the romantic 'Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates,' of how Ptolemy Philadclphus (283-247 BC), at the suggestion of his librarian, Demetrius Phalereus, wishing to gather all literature into his library at Alexandria, called by embassy on the Jews for their sacred books in a Greek translation, and how the High Priest Eleazer at Jerusalem replied by sending him 72 experts, six from each tribe (as requested), who were then, after preliminary seven days' symposium, dismissed each to his own hut on the Island of Pharos, where each made independently his translation, and finally on comparison it was found they all agreed exactly, whereupon, by unanimous approval of Alexandrian Jews, the translation was proclaimed canonic, henceforth to be. received as authoritative, with a curse against any modification (as in Rev. xxit, 18, 19).

At a later time, Christian writers add to the story, and represent the elders as having worked singly or in pairs, and produced versions absolutely identical, and hence considered inspired. Since the sixteenth century, doubts have been uttered as to the character of the story, and the authenticity of the letter of Aristeas; which is now considered to have been written not, as it claims to be, in Philadelphus' reign, by one of his courtiers, but perhaps about fifty years later; and not to give an exact historical account of the matter, though it may preserve considerable remnants of the truth.

Doubtless, the Alexandrian Jews, having lost their understanding of Hebrew, and even of Aramaic, from long residence abroad, needed a version of their Scriptures in their own language, that is, in 'Hellenistic' Greek which had spread, in company with Greek influence, over the ancient world, to some degree from the Rhone to the Indus, and more thoroughly from S. Italy, Sicily, and Cyrene to the Black Sea, and the borders of Armenia. Of this Hellenistic Greek Egypt, under its Macedonian kings, was a stronghold; and Alexandria, their capital, was at once one of the greatest literary centres of the world, and the most important of Jewish settlements outside Palestine.

The translation may have begun as early as 260 BC and extended slowly from book to book through two or three hundred years. The presence of many hands is indeed not doubted, the character of the version varies within wide limits in different sections: Sometimes it is almost word for word, as in the Sorlg of Songs, in Chronicles, in Ecclesiastes; again, it is exceeding loose, with considerable apparent additions, as in Daniel and Job. The more narrative portions, especially the Pentateuch, seem to be rendered best, while the chief Prophet, Isaiah, has suffered most. The change in style becomes most notable on comparing younger with older portions.

The language of the Version generally is considered to be Egyptian, not Palestinian; Jewish rather than court Greek, and popular rather than literary. The Law was followed by other books, in the course of the next century or so: as told in the prologue to Ecclesiasticus, dating perhaps about 130 BC (though some place it a century earlier); and it would seem that by then the Historical Books and Prophets were completed, by various hands; most of the remainder following within a generation from that time. This version became the Bible of the Greek-speaking Jews; then of the Christian Church.

While Philo and his Alexandrian coreligionists looked upon the translation of the Seventy as a work of inspired men, the Palestinian Rabbis subsequently considered the day on which the Septuagint was completed as one of the most unfortunate in Israel's history, seeing that the Torah could never be adequately translated. And there are indications enough that the consequences of such translations were not all of a desirable nature.

The Septuagint is probably the first translation of large scope that was ever undertaken, and its importance, notable then, has even to the present remained scarcely diminished. It gave a distinct stamp to all Biblical Greek, supplies even now the clew not only to the New Testament but to all Greek literature kindred and derived, and is the most trustworthy collateral witness to the contents of Hebrew Scriptures in the two centuries immediately before our era. Accordingly, it becomes a matter of signal interest to determine just what this translation was in its original form,— but at the same time a matter of perplexing difficulty. The manuscript and testimonies do indeed vastly abound,— as seen in the fact that the critical apparatus (of 20 uncials and 277 cursives) amassed by Holmes and Parsons fills five huge volumes (1798-1827),— but their witness is inordinately contradictory and uncertain. Indeed the problem proper of the Septuagint, so brilliantly attacked by Lagarde in his 'Remarks on the Greek Translation of Proverbs' (1863), remains yet one of the most embarrassing in textual criticism.

The example and authority of Origen stimulated to endless attempts at improving the Septuagint, all of which ended in making confusion worse confounded. Half a century after his death (254) three main types of text appeared and established themselves on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean: as named in order by Jerome (Preface to Chron.), that of Hesychius in Egypt, of Lucian in Asia Minor from Constantinople to Antioch, of Eusebius and Pamphilus in Palestine, this latter being really Origen's fifth column; and the most, but not all, of the manuscripts still fall under these three types.

It was widely perceived that the official Palestinian text could not be that used by the Seventy, and accordingly still other translations of the former were now undertaken, as by Symmachus and Theodotion into Greek, and also into Syriac (Peshitta). The version of Symmachus is highly praised by the Fathers for its elegance and clarity,— in contrast with Akyla's, often obscurer than the original; Theodotion's is thought to display a rather inferior scholarship.

Here, then, were four versions, and more than one edition of some, often widely divergent. Such apologists as Justin, assuming that the Septuagint was perfectly made from a perfect text, charged the Jews with corrupting their own Scriptures; others assumed (with many generations of moderns) that the Palestinian was the true aboriginal and hence discredited the Septuagint and other versions, and Origen even proposed to himself the superhuman tb.sk of making a collation, at first in four, then in six (or even in nine) parallel columns, of the Hebrew (in Hebrew and also in Greek characters), of Aquila's, of Symmachus,' of the LXX, and also of Theodotion's translation, a formidable array of deadly parallels, called the Sextuple (Hexapla). The Septuagint he then corrected as seemed best.