S. Michael Houdmann Supporter Got Questions Ministries

The Septuagint (also known as the LXX) is a translation of the Hebrew Bible into the Greek language. The name "Septuagint" comes from the Latin word for seventy. The tradition is that 70 (or 72) Je...

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July 01 2013 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report

Jack Gutknecht Supporter Arizona Bible College & Dallas Seminary graduate, Pentair

I have used this translation with joy. I got it from the public library, and it was useful to me to review the verses in the Old Testament that I had memorized. Of course, it's helpful if you know Greek. I'd taken 2 years of Greek @ Dallas Seminary.

The Septuagint is a translation of the Hebrew Bible and some related texts into Koine Greek. As the primary Greek translation of the Old Testament, it is also called the Greek Old Testament. This translation is quoted in the New Testament, particularly by Paul, and also by the Greek Church Fathers. The title and its Roman numeral acronym LXX refer to legendary seventy Jewish scholars who solely translated the Five Books Of Moses as early as the late 2nd century BC.

This English translation by Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton, published in 1851, is considered a long-time standard. For most of the years since its publication, it has been the only one readily available and has continually been in print. It is based primarily upon the Codex Vaticanus and contains the Greek and English texts in parallel columns.

The Brenton translation of the Septuagint is in the public domain.

August 10 2019 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report

Jeffrey Johnson Supporter

What is the Septuagint?

The Septuagint is the earliest translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, produced for Greek-speaking Jews. The translation was begun in Egypt in the third century B.C.E. and was completed in the following century.

According to tradition, about 70 Jewish scholars embarked on the project—thus the designation Septuagint from the Latin Septuaginta, meaning "70." The translation is commonly referred to as LXX, the Roman numerals for 70.

One of the oldest extant manuscripts of the Greek Septuagint is Papyrus 957, the Rylands Papyrus iii. 458, preserved in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, England. 

The Septuagint also helped millions of non-Jewish, Greek-speaking people learn what the Bible taught. How? "From the middle of the first century," says Professor W. F. Howard, "it became the Bible of the Christian Church, whose missionaries went from synagogue to synagogue 'proving from the scriptures that the Messiah was Jesus.'" (Acts 17:3, 4; 20:20) 

That was one reason why many Jews soon "lost interest in the Septuagint," according to Bible scholar F. F. Bruce.

Summarising the query in simple terms:

The Septuagint is the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. It came about because many Jewish communities outside Israel no longer spoke Hebrew fluently. 

It was made long before Jesus' time, when many Jewish communities lived outside Israel and spoke Greek more easily than Hebrew. They still wanted their Scriptures, so translators put the Hebrew text into the everyday Greek people were using.

A few things give it its character:

It was not a single project done in one moment. Different books were translated at different times, by different people, but all with the same goal: make the Scriptures readable for Greek‑speaking Jews.

It became widely used, especially in places like Alexandria, where Greek was the main language. By the time of the early church, many believers read Scripture in this Greek form.

The Septuagint also shaped how some New Testament writers quoted the Old Testament. When they cited Scripture, the wording often matches the Greek version rather than the Hebrew one, simply because that was the version many people knew.

8 days ago • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report