The New Testament was originally written in Greek, and modern English versions have this Greek text as the basis for their translation. The Old Testament, however, is a bit more complex. Originally it was written in Hebrew (and Aramaic for some small sections). Some time later a translation was made into Greek (the Septuagint) for the benefit of those for whom Greek was their mother tongue.
So originally, the Septuagint was a translation from the Hebrew or Aramaic Vorlage, but at some point in time it shed its subservient connection with its source to stand independently as Scripture in its own right. In modern research on the nature of the Septuagint as a translation, however, there is discussion about the intent of the translators: were they consciously producing liturgical documents that could stand apart from the source material, or were they producing something closer to an educational document, serving ‘as a semantic bridge, bringing the reader to the real object of study’?[1] The latter, school-setting inception history is likely, evident from the textual-linguistic make-up of the LXX, however this should not be confused with its reception history.[2]
A shift in status of the Septuagint over time is clear. This is shown by the defence of the Greek Pentateuch against those who would ‘correct’ it given in the letter of Aristeas,[3] and its status as Christian Scripture in the early church.[4] It moved from a position of dependence on the Semitic source texts to ‘an independent, free-standing replacement of this Semitic parent text “without experiencing any modification of its textual-linguistic make-up”’.[5] Throughout the Jewish Diaspora in the Hellenistic Period, and certainly by the time of the writing of the New Testament, the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures was the commonly-used version of the Jewish Scriptures.[6]
When New Testament authors quote or allude to Old Testament texts, they often have a preference for using the LXX text over the Hebrew. The Septuagint, therefore, is an important source for understanding the theology of the New Testament writers, and, relevant to what we’re doing here, their hermeneutical approach to the Old Testament as the words of Scripture.
[1] Cameron Boyd-Taylor, ‘In a Mirror, Dimly—Reading the Septuagint as a Document of Its Times’ in Septuagint Research: Issues and Challenges in the Study of the Greek Jewish Scriptures (ed. Wolfgang Kraus and R. Glenn Wooden; Leiden: Brill, 2006), 22. ↩
[2] Johann Cook, ‘Translating the Septuagint: Some Methodological Considerations’ in Translating a Translation: The LXX and its Modern Translations in the Context of Early Judaism (ed. Hans Ausloos et al.; Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters, 2008), 21. ↩
[3] Sebastian Brock, ‘To Revise or Not to Revise: Attitudes to Jewish Biblical Translation’ in Septuagint, Scrolls and Cognate Writings: Papers Presented to the International Symposium on the Septuagint and Its Relations to the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Writings (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991), 308. ↩
[4] Martin Hengel, The Septuagint as Christian Scripture: Its Prehistory and the Problem of Its Canon (trans. Mark E. Biddle; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2004), 44. ↩
[5] Cook, ‘Translating the Septuagint’, 21. ↩
[6] Karen H. Jobes and Moisés Silva, Invitation to the Septuagint (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2000), 20. ↩
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