Bible Studies

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The truth about “the” Greek Septuagint (part 1)

“Jesus quoted from “the” Greek Septuagint………..”

I'm sure at some point just about every Christian has either made this claim themselves or has heard this claim being made by someone else. I know I most certainly have. On so many an occasion that it would be near on impossible for me to count …..on my fingers and toes anyway.

It is said so matter of fact, Jesus quoted “the” Greek Septuagint. Paul also quoted it repeatedly. Then we get the good old “if it was good enough for Jesus and Paul then it is good enough for me” statements.

But how true are these claims?

In this writing I am going to look at the history of “the” Septuagint, examine the “facts” regarding its origin and authenticity and see just how true the commonly accepted statement “Jesus quoted from “the” Greek Septuagint………..” actually is.

It is my belief that not only did Jesus NOT quote “the” Septuagint but I do not believe that such a thing as a “Septuagint” an “official” Greek translation of the Hebrew text even existed until AFTER Jesus himself had died and resurrected and ascended into heaven, and certainly not in existence when he was alive and preaching in the synagogues. Now there may well have been and actually more correctly stated almost certainly was some kind of Greek version of something regarding the Hebrew. However it is almost certain that this or even more probable these translations as there is likely more than one were nothing more than individual attempts to translate a book or maybe even the Torah into Greek. But certainly NOT what is commonly understood as “the” Septuagint today. Not by a long shot.

Now I already know some of the arguments that will be used against me. One such being that i’m biased, my KJV only goggles have blinded me from the truth. I need “the” Septuagint to be false so I can grasp hold of my precious KJV even tighter(I have already experienced these). Anyone that has read my writings will know I am far from biased. I personally do not care if I go against the normal belief, if something goes against what I believe, or at least believed, I am not scared to change my belief on something if I am shown wrong or my own study goes against my own personal belief. While I personally did not believe that Jesus would have quoted “the” Septuagint I 100% believed that “the” Septuagint was an actual thing, a pre Christ translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek …..until I studied what that “thing” actually was and as such do not need “the” Septuagint to be fake, to not be an actual thing (pre Christ anyway) because my KJV onlyism does not stem from the lack of or not of “the” Septuagint in order to be KJV only. It’s a strawman argument at best. You do not need to be KJV only in order to reject the existence of a BC “the” Septuagint, as the rejection, or acceptance of such should be based on the evidence and not a need to hold onto any certain belief.  I was not aware just how little evidence and how poorly supported the existence of “the” Septuagint actually was. How much assumption has been made in order for “it” to be. So with that out the way we can continue.

Questions

The questions must be asked

Did Jesus really quote “the” Greek Septuagint? Did Jesus really quote a Greek translation of the Hebrew texts?  a Greek version of the Hebrew texts that contain the apocrypha? a Greek version of the Hebrew texts that contain the apocrypha that was “apparently” translated for hellenistic Jews in Egypt (did you hear that part as well?) , while he himself taught Jews in Israel? Not only did he but also WHY would he?

And what is “the” Greek Septuagint anyway?

First things first

The first thing that we need to do is explain exactly what “the” Septuagint actually is, even though i’m sure most people will say “I already know what it is”. Yes I am making lots of assumptions of what people will say, although this may not be as assumptive as some may think, these are actual statements that I have heard.

If you type “What is the Greek Septuagint” into google you will probably get thousands of results. One of the first I got was from Britannica.com that states

“Septuagint, abbreviation LXX, the earliest extant Greek translation of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew. The Septuagint was presumably made for the Jewish community in Egypt when Greek was the common language throughout the region.” Britannica.com

Notice the word “presumably” here….


Also there is the obvious wikipedia entry

“The Septuagint or LXX (from the Latin: septuāgintā literally "seventy"; sometimes called the Greek Old Testament) is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew.[1] It is estimated that the first five books of the Old Testament, known as the Torah or Pentateuch, were translated in the mid-3rd century BCE and the remaining texts were translated in the 2nd century BCE.[2] Under Christian auspices, the Septuagint includes the Hebrew Bible as well as the deuterocanonical books of the Christian Old Testament. Considered the primary Greek translation of the Old Testament, it is quoted a number of times in the New Testament,[3][4] particularly in Pauline epistles,[5] by the Apostolic Fathers, and later by the Greek Church Fathers.

The full title in Ancient Greek: Ἡ τῶν Ἑβδομήκοντα μετάφρασις, literally "The Translation of the Seventy", derives from the traditional story recorded in the Letter of Aristeas that the Septuagint was translated at the request of Ptolemy II by 70 or 72 Jewish scholars (6 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel) who independently translated identical versions of the entire Hebrew canon.[6][7][8] Subsequently, the Greek translation was in circulation among the Alexandrian Jews who were fluent in Greek, the common language in Egypt at the time, but not in Hebrew.[9][10] Separated from the Hebrew canon in Rabbinic Judaism, translations of the Torah into Greek by early Jewish rabbis have survived as rare fragments only.

The Septuagint should not be confused with other Greek versions of the Old Testament,[7] most of which did not survive except as fragments (some parts of these being known from Origen's Hexapla, a comparison of six translations in adjacent columns, now almost wholly lost). Of these, the most important are those by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion.

Modern critical editions of the Septuagint are based on the Codices Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and Alexandrinus.”



Can't help but notice the word “estimated” here as well…...hmmm

Let's have a look at one last source….Septuagint.net (sounds like a good source to me)

Septuagint (sometimes abbreviated LXX) is the name given to the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures. The Septuagint has its origin in Alexandria, Egypt and was translated between 300-200 BC. Widely used among Hellenistic Jews, this Greek translation was produced because many Jews spread throughout the empire were beginning to lose their Hebrew language. The process of translating the Hebrew to Greek also gave many non-Jews a glimpse into Judaism. According to an ancient document called the Letter of Aristeas, it is believed that 70 to 72 Jewish scholars were commissioned during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus to carry out the task of translation. The term “Septuagint” means seventy in Latin, and the text is so named to the credit of these 70 scholars.

Notice the claim “this Greek translation was produced because many Jews spread throughout the empire were beginning to lose their Hebrew language”.

I'm sure that many have heard this claim as well, again I know I have. Remember it as this will come into play during this writing.

So there we have it, basically “the” Greek Septuagint is the “authorised” BC Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible or at least the Torah anyway.  

 Now You may have noticed that I put “the” of “the” Septuagint in brackets. This is because there is actually NO SUCH THING as THE Greek Septuagint. Yes I really did just say that. Contrary to what is believed by many, which included myself there is no such thing as THE Septuagint. When a person says “the” Greek Septuagint it’s a fair guess that that person has not personally studied the subject or at least not in any great depth. Just as I myself used to refer to THE Greek Septuagint, rather ignorantly I shall add, through a lack of proper study. Simply taking what is commonly “known” and accepted as if it were truth.  I should have known better.

First of all unlike as it is commonly referred to today the text itself was not originally referred to as “the” Septuagint. “The” Septuagint originally referred to the “apparent” translators of the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures and not the actual translation itself. Septuagint from the Latin septuāgintā meaning 70. It is also known by its Roman numerals name the LXX again meaning 70.

It isn't until the early to mid 17th century that we get Septuagint referring to the text itself and for a time during the 17th century the translators become known as the Septuagints, a plural of Septuagint that was starting to be used for the text.

John owen refers to the LXX using a plural noun referring to the LXX as the translators rather than the text.

Todays Septuagint

What passes as the modern Greek Septuagint(s) (plural)as there are more than one Greek Septuagint, the texts of which are most certainly not the same text as what would have existed back in 285 bc even had such a document even existed,  are actually a compilation of the codices Sinaiticus, Vaticanus and Alexandrius all of which are considered “Septuagint texts and all of which disagree with each other in literally thousands of places. Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are both from 4th century AD and Alexandrius is an early 5th century AD manuscript around  200-300 years after the New Testament had already been written and some 600-700 years AFTER the “supposed” original translation. The Septuagint includes the Apocrypha books.



A couple of examples of Septuagints available today are

Sir Lancelot c.l Brenton 1851

Rahlfs Hanhart Septuaginta  1935 updated 2006

Again it must be stated the texts of these Greek “Septuagints” would not be the same texts as what would have existed before or at the time of Christ had it existed. So when a person says Jesus quoted “the” Septuagint it needs to be asked as to what “Septuagint” are they referring to.

As I already stated there is actually very little…..very very little indeed, evidence regarding the existence of an “official” BC Greek Septuagint. Now i’m certainly not saying that there were no translations whatsoever, we do have some evidence that there were at least attempts to translate the Hebrew into Greek but there is very little evidence for this specific “official” translation.

Evidence

The earliest attestation of “the” Greek Septuagint is the letter of Aristeas. This just happens to be THE sole “primary” source of evidence that we have available. It is dated to somewhere between 100-150 BC, at least 100 but maybe even as much as 185 years AFTER the “supposed translation took place. It is in the first person, the author claiming to be Aristeas the man sent to the Jews to procure the translators. Aristeas would appear to be a rather old man when writing the letter. Most scholars reject the authenticity of this letter. It has to be stated that there is NO collaborating evidence that verifies the claims made in this letter that exist in the known world. The claims made by the author of the letter stand alone. The letter itself being the evidence for the claims.  We do have further secondary sources such as Josephus, Philo and Justin Martyr .to name a few (there are 17 sources named in the appendix of Henry St. John Thackeray’s 1917 book “The Letter of Aristeas” as supporting evidence for the septuagint.

( I highly recommend checking out the research of David w Daniels of Chick Publications on these 17 sources. )

And of course there is Origen's Hexapla which we will deal with later in part 2.

There are various different versions of the story of the origination of the Greek text, let's see how much of the version that YOU know fits with the evidence and WHERE each particular part of the story comes from.

Let's start then with the letter of Aristeas seeing that the information contained within this letter is claimed to be from the person who was sent to Israel to procure the services of the translators. I shall look at the claims made and then analyze them along with the evidence from other sources. (full letter will be available at the end of this writing).

In this letter the author “Aristeas” claims that HE was a Greek court official during the time of king Ptolemy Philadelphus' reign.

There is NO historical evidence available that supports this claim. Very simply put there are no records of any Aristeas holding this or in fact any position during the reign of king Ptolemy Philadelphus. Therefore this is an unverified claim. It is nothing more than an unsubstantiated claim.

Aristeas then states the king of Egypt wanting to have all the books of the world in his library is told about the books of the Jewish law by Demetrius who has been appointed by the king to acquire all the books of the world for the kings library.  The King asks why it shouldn't be so that the books be attained. Demetrius explains that they are in the Hebrew tongue and would require translating.

There are a few claims here. The letter claims it was for the kings library that the translation be made. NOT as the Septuagint.net made claim for the Hellenistic Greek speaking Jews who were living in Egypt at the time because they spoke Greek and had forgotten their mother tongue. These are 2 very different reasons for the translation.

It most certainly must be noted that Egypt had only been part of the Greek empire for 50 or so years by the time this “supposed” translation took place. Egypt was conquered by Alexander the great in 332 BC. More so, although we know there were Jews living in Egypt before this time, it was only during the reign of Ptolemy Soter who succeeded Alexander that Jews were brought to Egypt as captives. It was hardly enough time for the Jews who were very protective of their language and still are, to have simply “forgotten” it in such a short period of time.

We also have a problem with the claim regarding Demetrius of Phalerum (ca. 345-283). Demetrius served in the court of Ptolemy Soter the Father of King Ptolemy Philadelphus and NOT of the son who actually banished Demetrius as Demetrius had voted against him and instead voted for the King's brother to succeed the father Ptolemy Soter. Demetrius died in 283 bc just 2 years into the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus.

When we look at the secondary claims we get even more problems. Philo wrote that King Ptolemy Philadelphus had such a passionate desire for the laws of Moses that he sent ambassadors to the High Priest of Judea who Philo also describes as being the king of Judah. Philo also claimed that the translators sat in secret and that they produced interpretations that were the same using the same words and phrases as if they had been prompted by an invisible force. He further added that they exactly defined every Hebrew word with the corresponding Greek . He said that they were called prophets.

This goes against the letter of Aristeas which says the translators worked together to come to the agreement over the wording. Philo in his version while changing the story from a cumulative collaboration to separate translations also appealed to divine inspiration upon all the translators. Now as I earlier stated that It wasn’t impossible or implausible that the Jews would have gone against God and translated the texts even though it was forbidden for 66 of them (who were not of the tribe of Levi to have done so) but how likely was it that God would have then supernaturally inspired them to come up with the exact same translation while they were disobeying him?  I shall leave that to you to decide. We also have the added claim here that the translators were prophets.

Justin Martyr also called them prophets. Justin however further claimed that Ptolemy sent to Herod who was king of the Jews….which obviously contradicts both Philo and the letter of Aristeas as Philo stated that the High priest was also King but the letter of Aristeas said that the high priest was Eleazer. Historical records show there was no King Herod of the Jews at the time of the “supposed” translation of the Septuagint. Martyr also claimed that it was Herod, the king and NOT the high priest who responded back. If Aristeas was personally sent to the high priest and not the king and the high priest was Eleazar then Justyn Martyr and Philo were BOTH in error with their facts. Which simply makes their testimony unreliable at best. Historical records also show that Eleazer did not become high priest until 260 bc, so if the letter is correct then the translation could not have started until after this time.

Irenaeus  claimed in his writings that it was Ptolemy the 1st who arranged for the translation moving the story BACK in time to Ptolemy Philadelphus’ father. He just happens to be the only person source that does this. Again facts somewhere are incorrect and so the witness becomes unreliable.

Clement of Alexandria claimed that Ptolemy asked for the law and the prophets to be interpreted, he was the first person to make claim to such a fact. Justin Martyr had claimed that just the Prophecies had been translated. Clement combines Justin and the other sources.

Eusebius of Caesarea claimed that it was God that wanted the prophecies of the saviour to be accurately translated and put in public libraries before the saviour came to earth. He said that God put it in the mind of King Ptolemy to accomplish this and that the translation was dispensed by divine providence. Again an appeal to the divine inspiration of the Greek texts.

All of these accounts vastly differ from one another and do not accurately match the story as told by Aristeas.

The letter of Aristeas is very clear that it was ONLY the books of the law, the Torah or Pentateuch in Greek that was translated.

Now it is claimed by some that the rest of the books were translated at a later date (well if they were not translated at the time the Torah was translated but they had been translated by the time Jesus was preaching as Jesus quoted from them then there is no option but to believe they were translated, they simply MUST have been translated sometime in between as there would be no other explanation as to how Jesus could have quoted them. This understanding however is despite there not being ONE single piece of evidence referencing this separate translation  ANYWHERE stating that this later date translation had occurred. The by WHO and WHEN the translation of the remainder of the books has NOT one single piece of evidence to support it. It has only the necessity that it simply had to have been done in order to support the belief that it actually was. This is not in any way supporting evidence that it indeed was.

Let's examine more claims. Aristeas also claims that the King sent a letter to the High priest in Jerusalem, requesting 6 elders out of every tribe, noble men well learned in the law.

So it is claimed that 72 Jewish elders 6 from each tribe were requested (6 x 12 tribes = 72) .

The high priest, Eleazar, who as I stated became high priest in 260 bc responds that he will send as requested 6 elders from each tribe.

So the total elders sent according to the letter of Aristeas is 72 and not 70, Septuagint and LXX both refer to 70. Clement of Alexandria stated that there were 70 translators. This was also stated by St John Chrysostom,  however he also stated that this was done a mere 100 years or so before the coming of Christ some 150 or so years after the “supposed” translation had taken place.

Justyn Martyr also claimed there were 70 translators in his writings.

Epiphanius of Salamis claimed that the 72 translators were in 36 cells, 2 in each cell and all the cells were locked by day. He claimed that each pair was given 1 book at a time, the complete hebrew Bible plus the apocrypha to translate. So in the end there were 36 copies of every book. They all slept separately so they could not talk to one another. Yet he claims at the end when they were checked every single one was exactly the same. Not one word was different. This has taken the story to completely new levels and again this appeals to a supernatural intervention. God inspiring the Greek translation.

This goes against the letter of Aristeas. Remember it is this letter that claims to be from the man who was sent to obtain the translators, “first hand”, “eye witness” evidence.

Aristeas had stated in his letter that the men were taken to the island of Pharos where they stayed in a house together. They compared their results and made them agree. Whatever they agreed upon was written down. They met together daily and the work was completed in 72 days. It was proclaimed an excellent and sacred translation and that NO alteration should be made to it.

It is mainly because of these claims to inspiration that some people have proclaimed that the Greek text is actually superior to the Hebrew.

The letter said that the Greek agreed with the Hebrew and was checked and all agreed. There was no mention at all of the Greek being superior to the Hebrew.

This for anyone that understands scripture is a totally ridiculous claim. To even imagine that God gave an inferior text, God’s word to his chosen people through Moses and the rest of the prophets written in Hebrew was inferior to his word in the Greek is beyond imagination and should be dismissed out of hand by anyone that believes in the word of God and that God’s word is true.

Jerome who said there were 70 translators stated he did not know who the lying author was who constructed the 70 cells at Alexandria in which they were separated yet all wrote the same words (70 cells as asserted by Philo and not 36 as claimed by Epiphanius. Jerome continued Aristeas and later after him Josephus have said nothing of the sort but that they were assembled in a single hall and conferred together not that they prophesied, for it is one thing to be a prophet and another to be an interpreter. He also stated that both Aristeas and Josephus assert that only the 5 books of Moses were translated by the 70.

Also Josephus in his writings said NOTHING new from the letter of Aristeas. In fact he simply paraphrased the letter over 100 times. He simply changed “I” as in I Aristeas to “he”. The evidence of Josephus is nothing more than the assertion of the letter itself. It does not authenticate the letter. It offers no further evidence to attest to the letter. His work simply attests to the fact by his time the letter of Aristeas was known and being used.

Now the 70 from 72 could simply be a “rounding down” of the number to refer to the translators, however there is no particular reason or explanation given as to why this would have been done.  It would seem that those that state 70 believed that the number of translators was 70 as they make no reference to 72 or that 70 is the rounding down of the 72.

The 72 names are also listed in the letter of Aristeas , and further attests that it was 72 in all, although many of the names are from a completely different time period and some are Greek names certainly not Jewish ones. There seems to be a complete mish mash in the list.

12 Tribes

We must note that the sending of these elders by the Jewish high priest would have been a direct violation of the very law that the translators  would have been translating. By Jewish law ONLY the tribe of the Levites were the keepers of God’s word and only they were given authority to copy the sacred texts. The other 11 tribes had no authorisation from God to do such a thing. Now while it is highly unlikely that the elders of the other 11 tribes would embark on such a task, it isn't totally implausible that they would have done so. The Jews were well renowned for disobeying God.

We also are told in the letter that money and gifts were bestowed upon the Jews and this may have had some influence on their decision and the agreeing to the translation, but we are not told this,  it is only an assumption that it may have had an influence. Just as it is assumption that the Jews would have gone against the law they were to translate and translated the texts that they were so protective of.  “The” Septuagint also contains the Apocrypha. Books that the Jews did not and do not hold as authoritative or part of scripture. Some of which had not even been written by this time. Again its highly unlikely they would have translated these books that they themselves didn’t hold to or even know about as they were not yet written.  And remember the letter very clearly says ONLY the law was translated.

For Jesus to have used “the” Septuagint this would have meant that “the” Septuagint had it existed,  would have had to have found its way back from Egypt into Israel, into the Synagogues and the Jewish people who spoke Hebrew would have had to have accepted it and used it over their own scriptures in their own language. ALL of which is purley assumptive based on the fact this HAD to have happened. Yet another appeal to necessity as evidence.  There has NEVER been any copy of a Greek translation found in ANY Synagogue in Israel.

Jesus did not use “the” Septuagint because “the” Septuagint didn’t exist for Jesus to have even been able to use let alone choose to quote “the” Septuagint then it had to have existed, which it didn’t. Although there may or may not have been a book or even the Torah translated into Greek during his time on earth. It is FAR FAR FAR more likely seeing the dated codices and manuscripts that we have available to us today that the words of Jesus and the writings of Paul in the New Testament have been retrospectively inserted back into the Old Testament to make the words of Jesus and Paul fit more “accurately” with the Old Testament by people who did not understand why there were differences between the quotes of Jesus from the Old Testament that didn’t perfectly match the Old Testament writings. Rather than Jesus quoted “the” Septuagint, “the” Septuagint, or rather the Greek translation of the Old Testament was changed to match that of the words of Jesus.

In Part 2 we will look at some of these quotes from Jesus and Paul and show the reasons why they don’t perfectly match the Old Testament writings yet are in fact correct and why changing the Old Testament writings to match the New Testament actually means that the quotes of Jesus and Paul become inaccurate and incorrect.

It needs to be asked if Jesus was quoting the Greek rather than the Hebrew and the Greek had been inspired of God and had overtaken the Hebrew why was this NEVER mentioned in the New Testament by ANYONE. Nobody attested to this feat that had been miraculously carried out some 250+ years earlier. Nobody stated anything of the sort. 

Also this event, this historic event where the Hebrews translated their sacred texts into Greek cannot be found.....in ANY  BC ancient Jewish writings. There are a few little mentions in some AD writings however nobody at the time of this translation or for the next 300 plus years says a single thing about it. The Jewish and Biblical silence over the translation, a translation of such importance and magnitude is deafening. 



The evidence for an “authorised” Greek Septuagint just doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. There are far too many inconsistencies, variations, appeals to divine inspiration, contradictions, assumptions, must have beens, historical inaccuracies, blatant elaborations and more than likely flat out lies in the supporting sources. NOT even ONE of the secondary sources offers ANY further source than the letter of Aristeas as evidence. Apart from the letter of Aristeas all these other writers simply reiterate and expand on the information in the letter. The letter of Aristeas IS the sole source of evidence and it isn’t even regarded as authentic. There simply just is not enough evidence to be able to assert the translation happened when and as is claimed.

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