Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D
The Septuagint, Greek for 70 and usually identified as LXX, is the
earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (See, Encyclopedia
Britanica, ad loc). This was done in two stages: The Pentateuch, namely, the
Five Books attributed to Moses (i.e., Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and
Deuteronomy) was translated into Greek in the 3rd cent. BCE, and the
rest of the Hebrew Bible, namely, The Prophets and Writings, in the 2nd
cent. BCE. The LXX is the official text of the Greek Church. There is a new
English translation of the Septuagint by the Oxford University press, 2007.
The story dealing with this famous translation is found in the Letter
of Aristeas, a text written in Greek in the 2nd cent. BCE.
According to this text, a certain Aristeas, probably a Jew from Alexandria, in
a letter written to his brother Philocrates, tells him that the Greek king in Egypt,
Ptolemy II (mid. 3rd cent. BCE) had ordered his chief librarian, Demetrius
to request from the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem a list of qualified translators
to be sent to Alexandria, where a large Jewish community lived, in order to
carry out the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek. The Jewish high priest, Eleazar, responded favorably, and sent six learned
individuals from each of the twelve tribes of Israel, a total of 72, to
Alexandria to begin the work. According to the legend, this was accomplished in
72 days. All translations were made to agree with others. It was then presented to the king and the leaders of the Jewish
community for their approval. This was done, and, in fact, a curse was issued against
anyone who would alter the translation proposed by the experts from Israel.
Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish philosopher who lived in the 1st
cent. BCE (See, On the Life of Moses, II, 25-44), repeats the story of
Aristeas. So does the Jewish historian, Josephus (1st cent. CE), who approvingly
quotes the Letter (Antiq. 12: 2). In reality,
Aristeas’ text is a mixture of facts and myth, containing many mistakes. For
example, the so-called librarian, Demetrius,
never held such a position in the court of Ptolemy II. The Letter is a typical
work of Jewish apologetics and self-defense, directed to the Greeks of the time.
The Septuagint translation varies considerably from the Hebrew text
that we have: For example, the Song of Moses in the LXX, is longer by six
verses; Similarly, the Greek text in Samuel is much longer than the Hebrew; On
the other hand, the LXX text of Job is much shorter. Furthermore, the LXX
contains the books of the Apocrypha, that is, Jewish texts that were not
included in the Hebrew Bible.
The “most important reason for studying the LXX is to read and
understand the thought of Jews in the pre-Christian centuries” (Anchor Bible,
Dict. Vol 5, p. 1102).
When Christians started to rely on the Septuagint, Jews stopped
using it.
SONSINO’S BLOG, rsonsino.blogspot.com
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