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The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek title derives from the story recorded in the Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates that "the laws of the Jews" were translated into Koine Greek at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–247 BC) by seventy-two Hebrew sofer—six from each of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.Tractate Megillah 9 (9a)Tractate Soferim 1 (1:7-8)
Biblical scholars agree that the Torah were translated from Biblical Hebrew into Koine Greek by Jews living in the Ptolemaic Kingdom, centred on the large community in Alexandria, probably in the early or middle part of the 3rd century BC. The remaining books were presumably translated in the 2nd century BC. Some translating or paraphrasing the Bible into Aramaic were also made during the Second Temple period.
Few people could speak and even fewer could read in the Hebrew language during the Second Temple period; Koine Greek and Aramaic were the lingua franca at that time among the Jewish community. The Septuagint, therefore, satisfied a need in the Jewish community.
Philo of Alexandria writes that the number of scholars was chosen by selecting six scholars from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Caution is needed here regarding the accuracy of this statement by Philo of Alexandria, as it implies that the twelve tribes were still in existence during King Ptolemy's reign, and that the Ten Lost Tribes of the twelve tribes had not been forcibly resettled by Assyria almost 500 years previously. Although not all the people of the ten tribes were scattered, many peoples of the ten tribes sought refuge in Jerusalem and survived, preserving a remnant of each tribe and their lineages. Jerusalem swelled to five times its prior population due to the influx of refugees. According to later rabbinic tradition (which considered the Greek translation as a distortion of sacred text and unsuitable for use in the synagogue), the Septuagint was given to Ptolemy two days before the annual Tenth of Tevet fast.Tur Orach Chaim 580, quoting Simeon Kayyara.
According to Aristobulus of Alexandria's fragment 3, portions of the Law were translated from Hebrew into Greek long before the well-known Septuagint version. He stated that Plato and Pythagoras knew the Jewish Law and borrowed from it.A. Yarbro Collins, Aristobulus (Second Century B.C.). A New Translation And Introduction, in James H. Charlesworth (1985), The Old Testament Pseudoepigrapha, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company Inc., Volume 2, (Vol. 1), (Vol. 2), p. 831.
In the preface to his 1844 translation of the Septuagint, Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton acknowledges that the Jews of Alexandria were likely to have been the writers of the Septuagint, but dismisses Aristeas' account as a pious fiction. Instead, he asserts that the real origin of the name "Septuagint" pertains to the fact that the earliest version was forwarded by the authors to the Jewish Sanhedrin at Alexandria for editing and approval.
The Jews of Alexandria celebrated the translation with an annual festival on the island of Pharos, where the Lighthouse of Alexandria stood—the location where the translation was said to have taken place. During the festival, a large gathering of Jews, along with some non-Jewish visitors, would assemble on the beach for a grand picnic.
The translation process of the Septuagint and from the Septuagint into other versions can be divided into several stages: the Greek text was produced within the social environment of Hellenistic Judaism, and completed by 132 BC. With the spread of Early Christianity, this Septuagint in turn was rendered into Latin in a variety of versions and the latter, collectively known as the Vetus Latina, were also referred to as the SeptuagintCornelia Linde, How to Correct the Sacra Scriptura? Textual Criticism of the Bible between the Twelfth and Fifteenth Century, Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature 2015 pp.9ff,29ff. Life after death: a history of the afterlife in the religions of the West (2004), Anchor Bible Reference Library, Alan F. Segal, p.363Gilles Dorival, Marguerite Harl, and Olivier Munnich, La Bible grecque des Septante: Du judaïsme hellénistique au christianisme ancien (Paris: Cerfs, 1988), p.111 initially in Alexandria but elsewhere as well. The Septuagint also formed the basis for the Slavonic, Syriac, Old Armenian, Old Georgian, and Coptic language versions of the Christian Old Testament.Ernst Würthwein, The Text of the Old Testament, trans. Errol F. Rhodes, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. Eerdmans, 1995.
The Septuagint may also clarify pronunciation of pre-Masoretic Text Hebrew; many are spelled with Greek in the translation, but contemporary Hebrew texts lacked Niqqud. However, it is unlikely that all Biblical Hebrew sounds had precise Greek equivalents.Paul Joüon, SJ, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, trans. and revised by T. Muraoka, vol. I, Rome: Editrice Pontificio Instituto Biblico, 2000.
The Hebrew Bible, also called the Tanakh, has three parts: the Torah ("Law"), the Nevi'im ("Prophets"), and the Ketuvim ("Writings"). The Septuagint has four: law, history, poetry, and prophets. The books of the Apocrypha were inserted at appropriate locations. Extant copies of the Septuagint, which date from the 4th century AD, contain books and additions not present in the Hebrew Bible as established in the Jewish canon and are not uniform in their contents. These copies of the Septuagint include books known as anagignoskomena in Greek and in English as deuterocanon (derived from the Greek words for "second canon"), books not included in the modern Jewish canon. These books are estimated to have been written between 200 BC and 50 AD. Among them are the first two books of Maccabees; Tobit; Judith; the Wisdom of Solomon; Sirach; Baruch (including the Letter of Jeremiah), and additions to Esther and Daniel. The Septuagint version of some books, such as Daniel and Esther, are longer than those in the Masoretic Text, which were affirmed as canonical in Rabbinic Judaism.Rick Grant Jones, Various Religious Topics, " Books of the Septuagint", (Accessed 2006.9.5). The Septuagint Book of Jeremiah is shorter than the Masoretic Text. The Psalms of Solomon, 1 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, the Letter of Jeremiah, the Book of Odes, the Prayer of Manasseh and Psalm 151 are included in some copies of the Septuagint.
The Septuagint has been rejected as scriptural by mainstream Rabbinic Judaism for a couple of reasons. First, the Septuagint differs from the Masoretic Text in many cases (particularly in the Book of Job). For example, according to Heinrich Guggenheimer, intentional mistranslations in Deuteronomy 6 make reference to ancient sources of the Haggadah. Second, the translations appear at times to demonstrate an ignorance of Hebrew idiomatic usage. A particularly noteworthy example of this phenomenon is found in , in which the Hebrew word (, which translates into English as "young woman") is translated into the Koine Greek as παρθένος (, which translates into English as "virgin").
The Septuagint became synonymous with the Greek Old Testament, a Christian canon incorporating the books of the Hebrew canon with additional texts. Although the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church include most of the books in the Septuagint in their canons, Protestantism usually do not. After the Reformation, many began to follow the Jewish Biblical canon and exclude the additional texts (which came to be called the Apocrypha) as noncanonical. The Apocrypha are included under a separate heading in the King James Version of the Bible.
| + Deuterocanonical and apocryphal books in the Septuagint |
| Prayer of Manasseh |
| 1 Esdras |
| Tobit |
| Judith |
| Esther (with additions) |
| 1 Maccabees |
| 2 Maccabees |
| 3 Maccabees |
| 4 MaccabeesOriginally placed after 3 Maccabees and before Psalms, but placed in an appendix of the Orthodox Canon. |
| Psalm 151 |
| Wisdom or Wisdom of Solomon |
| Sirach or Ecclesiasticus |
| Baruch |
| Letter of Jeremiah |
| Daniel (with additions) |
| Psalms of Solomon |
Some books which are set apart in the Masoretic Text are grouped together. The Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings are one four-part book entitled Βασιλειῶν (Basileon, 'Of Reigns') in the Septuagint. The Books of Chronicles, known collectively as Παραλειπομένων (Paraleipoménon, 'Of Things Left Out') supplement Reigns. The Septuagint organizes the minor prophets in its twelve-part Book of Twelve, as does the Masoretic Text.
Some ancient scriptures are found in the Septuagint, but not in the Hebrew Bible. The books are Tobit; Judith; the Wisdom of Solomon; Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach; Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah, which became chapter six of Baruch in the Vulgate; the additions to Daniel (The Prayer of Azarias, the Song of the Three Children, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon); the additions to Esther; 1 Maccabees; 2 Maccabees; 3 Maccabees; 4 Maccabees; 1 Esdras; Odes (including the Prayer of Manasseh); the Psalms of Solomon, and Psalm 151.
Fragments of deuterocanonical books in Hebrew are among the Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran. Sirach, whose text in Hebrew was already known from the Cairo Geniza, has been found in two scrolls (2QSir or 2Q18, 11QPs_a or 11Q5) in Hebrew. Another Hebrew scroll of Sirach has been found in Masada (MasSir). (1999). 9780060600648, HarperOne. ISBN 9780060600648 Five fragments from the Book of Tobit have been found in Qumran: four written in Aramaic language and one written in Hebrew (papyri 4Q, nos. 196-200). Psalm 151 appears with a number of canonical and non-canonical psalms in the Dead Sea scroll 11QPs(a) (also known as 11Q5), a 1st-century AD scroll discovered in 1956., and slightly revised in . The scroll contains two short Hebrew psalms, which scholars agree were the basis for Psalm 151. The canonical acceptance of these books varies by Christian tradition.
Several factors led most Jews to abandon the Septuagint around the 2nd century AD. The earliest gentile Christians used the Septuagint out of necessity, since it was the only Greek version of the Bible and most (if not all) of these early non- could not read Hebrew. The association of the Septuagint with a rival religion may have made it suspect in the eyes of the newer generation of Jews and Jewish scholars. Jews instead used Hebrew or Aramaic Targum manuscripts later compiled by the Masoretes and authoritative Aramaic translations, such as those of Targum Onkelos and Targum Jonathan.
Perhaps most significant for the Septuagint, as distinct from other Greek versions, was that the Septuagint began to lose Jewish sanction after differences between it and contemporary Hebrew scriptures were discovered. Even Greek-speaking Jews tended to prefer other Jewish versions in Greek (such as the translation by Aquila), which seemed to be more concordant with contemporary Hebrew texts.
In the early Christian Church, the presumption that the Septuagint was translated by Jews before the time of Christ and that it lends itself more to a Christological interpretation than 2nd-century Hebrew texts in certain places was taken as evidence that "Jews" had changed the Hebrew text in a way that made it less Christological. Irenaeus writes about that the Septuagint clearly identifies a "virgin" (Greek παρθένος; bethulah in Hebrew) who would conceive. The word almah in the Hebrew text was, according to Irenaeus, interpreted by Theodotion and Aquila (Jewish Proselyte), as a "young woman" who would conceive. Again according to Irenaeus, the Ebionites used this to claim that Joseph was the biological father of Jesus. To him that was heresy facilitated by late anti-Christian alterations of the scripture in Hebrew, as evident by the older, pre-Christian Septuagint.Irenaeus, Against Herecies Book III.
Jerome broke with church tradition, translating most of the Old Testament of his Vulgate from Hebrew rather than Greek. His choice was sharply criticized by Augustine, his contemporary.Jerome, From Jerome, Letter LXXI (404 AD), NPNF1-01. The Confessions and Letters of St. Augustin, with a Sketch of his Life and Work, Philip Schaff, Ed. Although Jerome argued for the superiority of the Hebrew texts in correcting the Septuagint on philological and theological grounds, because he was accused of heresy he also acknowledged the Septuagint texts.Rebenich, S., Jerome (Routledge, 2013), p. 58. Acceptance of Jerome's version increased, and it displaced the Septuagint's Vetus Latina.
The Eastern Orthodox Church prefers to use the Septuagint as the basis for translating the Old Testament into other languages, and uses the untranslated Septuagint where Greek is the liturgical language.
Critical translations of the Old Testament which use the Masoretic Text as their basis consult the Septuagint and other versions to reconstruct the meaning of the Hebrew text when it is unclear, corrupted, or ambiguous. According to the New Jerusalem Bible foreword, "Only when this (the Masoretic Text) presents insuperable difficulties have emendations or other versions, such as the ... LXX, been used."New Jerusalem Bible Readers Edition, 1990: London, citing the Standard Edition of 1985 The translator's preface to the New International Version reads, "The translators also consulted the more important early versions (including) the Septuagint ... Readings from these versions were occasionally followed where the Masoretic Text seemed doubtful""Life Application Bible" (NIV), 1988: Tyndale House Publishers, using "Holy Bible" text, copyright International Bible Society 1973
| + Books ! Greek name ! Transliteration ! English name |
| Genesis |
| Exodus |
| Leviticus |
| Numbers |
| Deuteronomy |
| Joshua |
| Judges |
| Ruth |
| Kings I (I Samuel) |
| Kings II (II Samuel) |
| Kings III (I Kings) |
| Kings IV (II Kings) |
| Chronicles I |
| Chronicles II |
| 1 Esdras |
| Ezra-Nehemiah |
| Esther |
| Judith |
| Tobit |
| Maccabees I |
| Maccabees II |
| Maccabees III |
| Psalms |
| Psalm 151 |
| Prayer of Manasseh |
| Odes |
| Proverbs |
| Ecclesiastes |
| Song of Songs or Song of Solomon or Canticle of Canticles |
| Job |
| Wisdom or Wisdom of Solomon |
| Sirach or Ecclesiasticus or Wisdom of Sirach |
| Hosea |
| Amos |
| Micah |
| Joel |
| Obadiah |
| Jonah |
| Nahum |
| Habakkuk |
| Zephaniah |
| Haggai |
| Zachariah |
| Malachi |
| Isaiah |
| Jeremiah |
| Baruch |
| Lamentations |
| Letter of Jeremiah |
| Ezekiel |
| Daniel |
| Maccabees IV |
| Psalms of Solomon |
Although much of Origen's Hexapla (a six-version critical edition of the Hebrew Bible) is lost, several compilations of fragments are available. Origen kept a column for the Old Greek (the Septuagint), which included readings from all the Greek versions in a critical apparatus with diacritical marks indicating to which version each line (Gr. στίχος) belonged. Perhaps the Hexapla was never copied in its entirety, but Origen's combined text was copied frequently (eventually without the editing marks) and the older uncombined text of the Septuagint was neglected. The combined text was the first major Christian recension of the Septuagint, often called the Hexaplar recension. Two other major recensions were identified in the century following Origen by Jerome, who attributed these to Lucian (the Lucianic, or Antiochene, recension) and (the Hesychian, or Alexandrian, recension).
| Genesis 4:7, Latin Vulgate and English Translation (Douay-Rheims) |
| nonne si bene egeris, recipies : sin autem male, statim in foribus peccatum aderit? sed sub te erit appetitus ejus, et tu dominaberis illius. If thou do well, shalt thou not receive? but if ill, shall not sin forthwith be present at the door? but the lust thereof shall be under thee, and thou shalt have dominion over it. |
The differences between the Septuagint and the MT fall into four categories:See Jinbachian, Some Semantically Significant Differences Between the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint, [8].
The textual sources present a variety of readings; Bastiaan Van Elderen compares three variations of Deuteronomy 32:43, the Song of Moses:
| Deuteronomy 32.43, Septuagint | ||
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One of those exceptions was related to a specific group of onomastic terms for the region of Aram and ancient Arameans. Influenced by Greek onomastic terminology, translators decided to adopt Greek custom of using "Syrian" labels as designations for Arameans, their lands and language, thus abandoning endonymic (native) terms, that were used in the Hebrew Bible. In the Greek translation, the region of Aram was commonly labeled as "Syria", while Arameans were labeled as "Syrians". Such adoption and implementation of terms that were foreign (exonymic) had far-reaching influence on later terminology related to Arameans and their lands, since the same terminology was reflected in later Latin and other translations of the Septuagint, including the English translation.
Reflecting on those problems, American orientalist Robert W. Rogers (d. 1930) noted in 1921: "it is most unfortunate that Syria and Syrians ever came into the English versions. It should always be Aram and the Aramaeans".
was translated by Lancelot Brenton in 1854. It is the traditional translation, and most of the time since its publication it has been the only one readily available. It has also been continually in print. The translation, based on the Codex Vaticanus, contains the Greek and English texts in parallel columns. It has an average of four footnoted, transliterated words per page, abbreviated Alex and GK.
The Complete Apostles' Bible (translated by Paul W. Esposito) was published in 2007. Using the Masoretic Text in the 23rd Psalm (and possibly elsewhere), it omits the apocrypha.
A New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included Under that Title (NETS), an academic translation based on the New Revised Standard version (in turn based on the Masoretic Text) was published by the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS) in October 2007.
The Apostolic Bible Polyglot, published in 2003, features a Greek-English interlinear Septuagint. It includes the Greek books of the Hebrew Bible (without the apocrypha) and the Greek New Testament; the whole Bible is numerically coded to a new version of the Strong numbering system created to add words not present in the original numbering by Strong. The edition is set in Greek diacritics. The version includes a Bible concordance and index.
The Orthodox Study Bible, published in early 2008, features a new translation of the Septuagint based on the Alfred Rahlfs' edition of the Greek text. Two additional major sources have been added: the 1851 Brenton translation and the New King James Version text in places where the translation matches the Hebrew Masoretic text. This edition includes the NKJV New Testament and extensive commentary from an Eastern Orthodox perspective.
Nicholas King completed The Old Testament in four volumes and The Bible..
Brenton's Septuagint, Restored Names Version (SRNV) has been published in two volumes. The Hebrew-names restoration, based on the Westminster Leningrad Codex, focuses on the restoration of the Divine Name and has extensive Hebrew and Greek footnotes.
The Holy Orthodox Bible by Peter A. Papoutsis and The Old Testament According to the Seventy by Michael Asser are based on the Greek Septuagint text published by the Apostoliki Diakonia of the Church of Greece.
In 2012, Lexham Press published the Lexham English Septuagint (LES), providing a literal, readable, and transparent English edition of the Septuagint for modern readers. In 2019, Lexham Press published the Lexham English Septuagint, Second Edition (LES2), making more of an effort than the first to focus on the text as received rather than as produced. Because this approach shifts the point of reference from a diverse group to a single implied reader, the new LES exhibits more consistency than the first edition. "The Lexham English Septuagint (LES), then, is the only contemporary English translation of the LXX that has been made directly from the Greek." (2025). 9781683593447, Lexham Press. ISBN 9781683593447
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