Before we plunge into the sea of ​​sources from which the Greek text is reconstructed, let's first stick our foot in the water and check its temperature! And then, leaning out of the water, a monster named “Septuagint” (LXX) looks at the future servant. What is the Septuagint?

This question is usually answered like this: “The Septuagint is authorized a translation of the Old Testament into Greek by 72 Jewish scholars in Alexandria around 250 BC. It was made by order of Ptolemy II."

After such a comprehensive answer (without any evidence in his favor), the future minister will draw the following conclusions for himself:

1. A complete translation of the Old Testament existed before Jesus Christ.
2. This translation was used by Jesus and the apostles.
3. If this translation contains the Apocrypha, it means that Jesus and the apostles approved of the Apocrypha (!).

More cautious souls 1 have additional information.

1. The entire legend of the Septuagint is based on labor, which is called "Letters to Aristaeus". 2
2. There is only one mention of the Pentateuch, translated into Greek under Ptolemy of Philadelphia. (Eusebius quotes Aristovelius (Praep. Ev. XIII 12,664b), and the text itself is rather dubious). 3
3. Philo of Alexandria (20-50?), a Jewish Gnostic who rejected the Bible, mentions translation (2) and asserts that the translators were “inspired by God.” 4
4. The author of the Letters to Aristaeus was NOT who he claimed to be (i.e., a courtier of Ptolemy II). He was a Jew who professed Greek philosophy rather than Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament. (See Rev. Humphrey Hody, De Bibliorum Textibus 705, 1684)
5. Professor Kali (1875-1964) states, that there was no pre-Christian “Septuagint”! 5

But a Christian aware of the works of a true textual critic (Gen. 3:1) is unlikely to trust the research of people who do not believe that Satan is interested in biblical matters. Let the believer take the Letters to Aristaeus and read. 6 Without reading four pages, he will understand what he is reading! He reads "Stoa" of Epicurus and Zeno! The questions that “Ptolemy of Philidelphia” asked the translators to test their competence coincided with those that the student asked Socrates or Plato. During the entire dialogue, not a single question was raised related to Bible translation, Bible doctrines, Bible truths, Bible languages, or the preservation of the Bible.. “Philadelphia” from the “Letters to Aristaeus” (if he ever existed, of course!) was a complete idiot. He entrusted the word of God to 72 Jewish Gnostics who were hardly familiar with the book of Job or Ecclesiastes! 7

Further study of the “Letters to Aristaeus” provides the following interesting information for thought:

1. There were 72 translators, but the “translation” is called the “Septuagint” (i.e. 70 elders). Hence: L=50, X=10, X=10. Where did the other TWO go? From the “Letters of Aristaeus” it is known that six elders from each tribe were chosen for translation. Why SIX? (We read about "seventy men of the elders of Israel" (Numbers 11:16), but not about 72! Did the author of the Letters to Aristaeus realize that he had made a “blunder” after he wrote something incomprehensible and gave it a title? literally meaning 70?) The letter talks about "72". How many were there: 70 or 72? This error caused Greek theologians to look for it in the text of the King James Bible! Could Aristeas cope with it?
2. How could Aristaeus know about the 12 tribes? Only God knew where the 12 tribes of Israel were in 250 BC. In 200 BC. there was not even a priest who could compile the geneology of the 10 scattered tribes in 2 Kings 17. How do we know they weren't in Britain? (According to G.T. Armstrong and H.W. Armstrong!) What could the 12 tribes do in Jerusalem?

So let's stop flirting with our learned friends. Let us finally swing the ax of truth over the tree of error!

Why on earth would a group of translators from the “12 tribes” gather to translate the Old Testament into Greek if only the tribe of Levi (and ONLY the tribe of Levi) was given the responsibility of “keeping the Scriptures”(Mal. 2:7; Deut. 31:25, 26; 17:18)? The “scribe who was versed in the law” of Ezra 7:6 was a LEVITE!

B. If he was a Greek, he would not have known the truths of the Bible.

C. If even one scribe had arrived in Alexandria who was not a Levite, God would not have allowed himself to be fooled by his labor. (Augustine 354-430 and Jereneus 130-202 believed in the “inspiration” of the Septuagint!) 8 Is God the creator of disorder?

3. Ironically, every quotation from the Septuagint (in any journal, book, commentary, treatise, textbook or reference book) is a quotation from a manuscript, written 100-300 years AFTER the ascension of Jesus Christ! The impression given to the would-be minister is that, regardless of the authenticity of the Letters to Aristaeus, those real Greek manuscripts of the Old Testament that are quoted were created before Jesus Christ. Those manuscripts (if you get to the bottom of their words) were created from the fourth to the ninth centuries, starting with Origen and Eusebius.

When reference literature, for example, says: “The Septuagint says...”, then this quotation is taken from manuscripts written 200 (or more!) years after the death of Paul and John. 9

To this day, no theologian has presented a single copy of the Old Testament in Greek written before 300 AD. The entire legend of the Septuagint is based on the naive assertion that the manuscripts created during the period 200-400 A.D. AFTER the death of Jesus Christ coincide with New Testament quotes.

All translators already had the New Testament at hand. 10

The method by which A.T.s are selected. Robertson, Driver (1846-1914), Trench, Alford, Tregelles (1813-1875), Tischendorf (1815-1874), Wyss (1825-1918), Latchmann (1793-1851), Gesenius (1786-1842), Keil (1807-1888), Warfield, Westcott and Hort from this trap is to claim that the Vatican manuscript ( called the Septuagint, referring to quotes from the Old Testament!) was revision revision(Hexaploy, see next chapter) which was revision of the original Septuagint. But, you know, it's just as funny as watching stand-up comedians, which doesn't require a lot of brains.

Rushing frantically across the dunes and covering their tracks, the chosen circle takes the following tactic: they claim that the Septuagint (which no one has ever seen) has created so much antagonism among devout Jews that the Jews have decided to make a critical revision of their text. 11 There is no evidence anywhere that a "revision" took place, except for the Lucian "revision" of which Westcott and Hort spoke so much. 12 No revision (or any "missing link" in Darwin's theory, Matthew's Q Document, Deuteronomy, Prester John, the Septuagint, or the Loch Ness monster) has been discovered, and there is no reason to believe that he ever -either was. 13 But how important it is to maintain your own reputation and approval from teachers of conservative educational institutions to be able to prove that the Septuagint was the “Bible of Christians.” So, the fairy tale continues!

It was the one "revision". This revision differed slightly from the Hebrew text so that there would be NO overlap with the "Septuagint" since the Septuagint was adopted by New Testament Christians. 14 Thus, the student gets the impression that the Septuagint represents the true Hebrew "original", and the Massoretic Hebrew text is corrupt and subject to correction where it differs from the Septuagint. Philo and Origen wanted to impose this impression on the Body of Christ and, it must be said, they succeeded.

Typical of such mental gymnastics are the words of scripture cited to prove this connection. For example, in Hebrew in Gen. 15:15 says, “AND YOU WILL BE BURIED.” This is the correct translation, which is preserved in this form in the text of the Authorized Translation of 1611. In the Septuagint (or whatever it is!) there is the word “τραφεις” instead of “ταπεις”. It's like "groomed" instead of "buried." Here Sweetie (1835-1917) and Thackery (and others like them) 15 take a strange position. Since the Septuagint says “well-groomed” (in 40 AD), this proves the existence of a completely translated Old Testament into Greek before the birth of Christ. However, this position bifurcates like a serpent's tongue, since this text is not taken from the Septuagint or anything like that. This assumption is based on the fact that Philo (a Jewish Gnostic) simply said that someone replaced "τραφεις" with "ταπεις". How might this be related to the Septuagint? If two Germans argued in 1500 about how to translate 1 Samuel from the Hebrew. 6:1, then does this really prove the existence of a German translation before 1200? Would you believe that if an unsaved pagan in 40 AD. translated one Hebrew word from the 15th chapter of the book of Genesis, then this proves the existence of the entire translated Old Testament in Greek, distributed in those years in Palestine? According to Sweetie and Thackery, it was. 16

Here are four more passages that purport to prove that the apostles were deceived into accepting the Gnostic Bible containing Apocrypha. These Scripture verses are: Matt. 1:21; Acts 7:43, 15:12-18 and Heb. 10:5-7. 17 None of them require special knowledge of Greek and English. They are self-explanatory and do not require unnecessary comments. Compare Acts. 15:16 with Amos 9:11, and Heb. 10:5 with Ps. 40:6, you just have to admit one bitter truth - the translator of the Septuagint lived much later, how the canon of the New Testament was written, and distorted the word of God so that modern theologians thought that “the Greeks had it before our era.” The student might explore how the fourth century Greek Gnostic who wrote σωμα δε κατηπισω in Ps. 40:6 did this with Heb. 10:5.

You will say: “Prove it!”

Every manuscript that quotes Ps. 40:6 is found in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, volume 4, page 2728. The oldest one was written 250 YEARS AFTER THE NEW TESTAMENT WAS COMPLETED.

Is it true that Aleph, B, C, D, F and L (Sinaiticus, Ephraim, Cottonian, Ambrosian and Purpurea Vindobonenissus) were written in 200 BC? No. In 150 BC? No. In 100 BC? No. You can fool A.T. Robertson, Thayer, Trench, Alford, Westcott and Hort, but not God.

The uncial Greek manuscripts (see chapters 5 and 6) that form part of the Septuagint in Sweety's edition (1887-1894) or any other edition were written after the third century AD. Until now, the circle of the elect and the theological union believes that the author of Acts (Luke) used the Watkan copy of Amos 9:11 instead of the Hebrew text. To do this, Dr. Luke had to be born between 370-400 AD! Of course, this “offends” the circle of the chosen ones, because, having found themselves in a difficult situation, most of them will say: “You, brother, accuse us falsely. We believe that the authors of Acts 15:16 and Hebrews 10:5 used the Greek Septuagint, which does not survive today, but is preserved in the Vatican manuscript (350-370 AD).” But if this is so, is it not true that the Textus Receptus, which Erasmus printed in 1516 "from relatively early manuscripts", is authentic Greek original, which “has not survived to this day”, but preserved in the Greek Receptus?(If this is true in the first case, it must be true in the second!) “Most theologians” agree that the Vatican MS is a copy of a text that was written 500 years before the Vatican MS itself. But they do NOT agree that the Receptus manuscript ( copies of which date back to the third century AD!) is text written 200 years before its creation which brings us to the original manuscripts of the apostles themselves!! 18

Evidence that the Septuagint preserved part of the original Old Testament, "which, of course, was lost, etc." are in Gen. 4:8; 1 Sam. 14:41; and 3 Kings. 8:12.

The reader will see that the corrupted text of the Septuagint implies that there is no book in the canon, which is very typical of the Alexandrian theologians! The incorrect text says: "Behold, is it not written in the book of the song?" But, God, how this smells of apocrypha! The problem is what constitutes the greater half of Origen's problems. He could not find a cross-reference to the words of the Lord: “Dwell in the thick darkness” (1 Kings 8:12; 1 Kings 8:12), that's why he made up his exile. (Note his judgment in Matt. 19:9 in Origen's Werke, Berlin, volume 10, pp. 385-388, where Origen removed one commandment because he could not reconcile the text with Rom. 13:10!)

1 Samuel 14:41 has the same problem. The “correct text” (written 200 years after the death of Christ!) supposedly reads: “And Saul said, O Jehovah, God of Israel, why hast thou not answered thy servant this day? If the iniquity be in me or in Jonathan my son, Jehovah, God of Israel, give Urim; but if thou shouldest say that the iniquity is in thy people Israel, give Thummim. And Saul and Jonathan were taken by lot, and the people escaped."

This distorted passage from the Old Testament is full of nonsense. In the first place, the expression "taken by lot" (preserved by Origen and Eusebius in verse 41) indicates that the lot has been cast. This had nothing to do with the ephod. Ephod served to “clarify the truth.” (See 2 Kings 21:1; 1 Kings 23:2,4, 6,9; and Exodus 28:30.) No one cast any lots(“casting lot”).

The “lots” were pebbles thrown into the floor (Proverbs 1:14, 16:33), so the author of the Septuagint made a grave mistake: “Not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God.” And regarding the “Urim and Thummim” in the Septuagint text, one can say that this is a spectacular demonstration of the ignorance of the Alexandrian scribes. Next, the reader will find the following:

1. Saul never called myself“your servant” (as revealed by God) in the first book of Samuel. Only David called himself that.
2. The mangled text of this verse is three times longer than the Authorized Version of 1611 (Masoretic Text) and therefore must be shortened on the basis that the American Standard Version (1901) deleted Matt. 23:14!
3. Saul never addressed God in prayer like this: “Thy people Israel.” So applied to God David. Someone (like Saul) tried to make “David” out of Saul, just as someone once tried to make “Apostle Paul” out of Origen or St. Augustine out of John Calvin (1509-1564).

Correction in Gen. 4:8 is just funny. In Hebrew (as in the King James Bible) it says “in the field.” But since Origen and Eusebius (and the rest of the Septuagint writers) were eager to know, What Cain said to Abel, then in verse 8 they came up with a quote that fits well with this verse: “And Cain said to his brother, Let us go into the field.” The most early the manuscripts containing this text are by Origen (230 AD) and Eusebius (330 AD). (See International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. 4, p. 2313.) This is not a reproduction of the "original" nor is it a Septuagint (250 BC) or anything like that. This is a papal Vatican text (370 AD), written 30-50 years after the Council of Nicaea.

The only proof the existence of a translation of the Old Testament into Greek before 350 AD located in the Hexaple (see next chapter). Hexapla could not have been written before the New Testament was written. Anyone who honestly seeks the truth regarding the preservation of the true text of the Bible is met at every step by this web of counterfeit Greek Bibles that never existed. Like a web, it stuck to the heads of Greek theologians of every century, and as soon as they tried to figure it out, it suddenly disappeared somewhere. Despite the many works of all the great luminaries of theology on the Septuagint, there is no evidence that did it ever exist before, during, or after the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ.

The earliest manuscript that can be called a translation of the Old Testament into Greek is the Ryland Papyrus (no. 458), which contains several chapters from Deuteronomy 23-28. But even this piece of papyrus dates back to 150 BC. That is, he appeared a hundred years after writing the so-called Septuagint. What theologians call the "Septuagint papyri" are 24 papyrus sheets that appeared through 200 years after the death of Christ. Below is a list of these papyri.

1. Passages from Genesis, 200-400 AD. AD (Berlin Genesis, Amherse, British Museum, Oxyrhyncus).
2. Bodlean papyrus leaf, containing part of the Book of Song of Solomon, written between 600-750 AD.
3. Amherst papyrus, contains a passage from Job 1 and 2, dates from 600-700. AD
4. Amherst papyrus, contains part of chapter 5 of the Psalms, dates from 400-550. AD
5. Fragment Londinensia, in the British Museum, containing passages from Psalms 9:22-39, 17, 19-33, dating from 600-750. AD
6. British Museum “230”, contains Psalm 11:8-14:4, dates from 220-300 AD. AD
7. Berlin papyrus, contains Psalms 39:17-40:5, dates from 250-400 AD AD
8. Oxyrhyncus papyrus “845”, contains portions of Psalms 67 and 69, dates from 300-500 AD. AD
9. Amherst papyrus, contains a passage from Psalms 107, 117, 134, 138 and 139, dating from 600-700. AD
10. Leipzig papyrus, contains passages from the Psalms, dates from 800 AD
11. Heidelberg Codex, contains Zechariah 4:6; Malachi 4:5, dates from 600-700. AD
12. Oxyrhyncus “846”, contains an excerpt from chapter 2 of the book of Amos, dates back to 500-600 AD. AD
13. Rainer papyrus, contains part of Isaiah 38, dated to 200-300 AD
14. Bodlean papyrus, contains passages from Ezekiel 5 and 6, dated to 200-300 CE. AD
15. Rylands papyri:
    A. Deuteronomy 2 and 3, dated 1300-1400 AD
    b. Job 1, 5 and 6, dated to 550-700 AD. AD
16. The volumes of Oxyrhyncus contain passages:
    A. Exodus 21, 22 and 40, dated to 200-300. AD
    b. Genesis 16, dated 200-300 AD
    V. Genesis 31, dated 300-400 AD

You don't need a master's degree to understand what a select few call the Septuagint papyri. This is a set of papyri that dates back to 200-800 CE. AD They are too late to be passed off as Septuagint. People who believe that the Septuagint existed before Christ live in the realm of dreams. Believing Jews (from 4 BC until the conversion of Apostle Paul) had the complete Bible in Hebrew, which God entrusted to them (Rom. 3:1-4). Matthew, Luke, Mark, John, Paul and others wrote the New Testament in Greek for Christian believers. Since Gentile believers outnumbered Jewish believers 10,000 times over the last 19 centuries, they were given the PAGAN Bible. The Septuagint is an attempt by some people, as mentioned in Romans 11:20, 25 and Jeremiah 33:24, replace the inspired “Prophecies of God” with conjectures of Greek philosophy of the Alexandrian model.

Sometimes scraps of papyrus surface containing passages of the Old Testament that date back to 30 AD. But to use them (for example, Rylands 458, the origin of which is in question) as evidence that Luke in Acts. 15:12-18 quotes from the Greek Old Testament, too cool for simple decent person.

Any manuscript containing passages from the Old Testament in Greek is instantly assigned by the theological society to the Septuagint “LXX”. 19 That is in favor The Old Testament in Greek, translated by 70 Jews before the birth of Christ. Now re-read the first two paragraphs of this chapter again. Seventy is "LXX" and seventy-two is NOT "LXX". This play on words is similar to telling a student, “The originals say...”, “The originals say...”, “The originals have a different word,” etc., until he stops believing in the King James Bible. And finally, he begins to understand that there are no “originals”! The future minister comprehends these two terrible discoveries and, as once happened to Altaizer, he no longer has a revelation, no authority, no call to serve and no service.

And early in his career, the young preacher adopts the style of his professors, realizing that the basis for which they replaced the King James Bible with such counterfeits as the RV, ASV and RSV is flimsy. At the time of writing, the only "manuscript evidence" for the Greek translation of the Old Testament (pre-Christian) is is a piece of papyrus with passages from five chapters of Deuteronomy.

The odds are one in twenty-four. Although this is not yet a complete picture, for recently (in addition to the Grenfell, Petrie and Hunt papyri) 20 papyri were found, which the theological society immediately attributed to the Septuagint.

These are the papyri:

1. Passages from the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy, dated to 150 AD.
2. Excerpts from the book of the prophet Isaiah, dating back to 230 AD.
3. Passages from the book of Genesis, chapter 8, 24-25, 30-47, dated to 350 AD.
4. The passage is from Genesis 9:1-44:22, dating back to 350 AD.
5. Papyrus 911, containing a passage from Genesis 1-35, dates back to 390. AD

Any schoolchild can see that this collection of Chester Beatty papyri proves nothing except that someone after the writing of the New Testament, tried to translate the Bible from Hebrew into Greek. 21 Now our chances are reduced to one in twenty-nine.

But even if there are thousands of papyri with passages from the Old Testament in Greek, written before 100 BC, then this is unlikely to be good evidence of the Septuagint, for the real proof that it is a forgery is in the Vatican documents already found and the Sinaitic manuscripts.

Here is a classic example of Bible fraud.

The "Young Helpers", theologians from Alexandria (100-300 AD), added the "75" of Acts 7:14 to Genesis 46:26-27, and then, Realizing that the numbers didn't match (!), they added NINE more made-up names to Genesis 46:20 to settle the discrepancy!

It is hard to believe that such high-flying birds as Dr. A. T. Robertson, J. J. Machen, Benjamin Warfield and Kenneth West fell for a fairy tale that was invented by a theological society, including the works of Origen in English translation.

The tale you have to believe is the tale that Stefan, full of the Spirit, speaking like a Jew to the Jews in the Sanhedrin, to the enemies of Christ, quoted the text of Genesis in Greek (which appeared 200 years after the death of Stephen!), in which nine names were added, which was contrary to Jewish laws regarding Bible translation(Proverbs 30:6)

In order to believe, you need reasons, and reasons show that there was never any number “75” in Genesis 46:26-27, until 200 years have passed since Stephen's death.

If you believe that this figure was there, you are a fool.

Another classic example of Alexandrian buffoonery is found in Genesis 47:31. To justify the use of images (statues) as a “material for worship,” the North American College transferred Heb. 11:21: " προσεκυνησεν επι το ακον της ραβδου αυτου " - in Genesis 47:31, so that teachers at Bob Jones University and Tennessee Temple would think that the writer of Hebrews was "quoting the Septuagint." But what a pity! The perverted pen of the perverted scribe who distorted the text did not notice that the context of Heb. 11:21 does not match the context of Genesis 47!!

Context to Heb. 11:21: “When he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph,” is Genesis 48:12!

The reader will immediately see that the author of the post-apostolic Septuagint led the author of Hebrews into a contradiction which he never allowed, because he wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. However, the myth of the Septuagint is so tenacious that even the blatant contradiction did not touch the attention of Calvin, Keil, Delitzsch, Hengstenberg, Murphy, Rosenmuller, Kennicott, De Rossi, De Witt, Berkhof, Machen, West, Wyss, Tischendorf, Treggeles, Nestel, Diessmann, Sweetie, Westcota, Horta and Gesenia! (Apparently there is something in “higher education” itself, for even in conservative Christian educational institutions a person is turned away from believing the Bible, no matter who you are: Evangelical, Orthodox, Catholic, Jew, Agnostic, Atheist, Conservative, Neo-Orthodox or Fundamentalist!) Still 99.99% of these superstitious people believe that the author of Heb. . 11:21 rewrote the Greek text of Gen. 47:31, which does not coincide with it in context!

These are just two examples of the "modern theology" approach to solving the "original text" problem. At the same time, they show a pathological lack of common sense, incredible gullibility and an absurd belief in the knowledge of the Greek language, which Christians such as Peter, James, John and Andrew (part-time fishermen!!) were well versed in.

Here is the first lesson about manuscript evidence that the Bible-believing Christian must learn:

1. Manuscript evidence shows that not a single New Testament Christian spent five minutes reading the Old Testament in Greek, whether it came out of Alexandria or anywhere else.
2. There is no evidence in favor of the theory that some handful of theologians translated the Old Testament into Greek during 250-150 AD. BC.
3. All documents related to the Septuagint, in 90% of cases, are corrupted Vatican manuscripts (350 AD) or Sinai manuscripts (350 AD), which contain the books Bel and the Dragon, Tobit , "Judith", etc. These books were written by Eusebius or Pamphilius 22 (or some deceiver like them!). They were preserved in good condition because all Bible-believing Christians knew that they related to the Bible in the same way as Mickey Mouse stories. 23 The Septuagint was written 250 years after the New Testament canon was created and is the only Septuagint in existence.
4. In view of the fact that the “Letters to Aristaeus” is a fabricated forgery (possibly from the pen of Philo himself), in view of the fact that the Septuagint contradicts the text of the Old Testament in Hebrew, in view of the fact that “Greeks seek wisdom” and do not tolerate God's revelations given to Israel, in view of the fact that the “seekers of wisdom” (Gen. 3:1-6) continue to live with us and inherit the sins of their fathers (Matt. 23:30-31), then the first rule that The following must be studied by the Christian in the evidence of the manuscripts: if the so-called Septuagint contradicts the text of the Old Testament of the King James Bible, throw it in the trash.

The serious student of Scripture rather than Greek mythology will find that the order of the books of the Old Testament of the King James Bible does NOT correspond to the order of the books of the Septuagint, however, some may not notice the difference. The fact is that the unconverted Jew was given a revelation from God in the Hebrew Bible calling him (in the last verse of the last chapter of the last book, 2 Chronicles 36:23) get up and go to Jerusalem. This is God's command to Israel for the end times. The order of the books of the King James Bible does not coincide at all with the order of the books of the mythological Septuagint, since the "copies of the Septuagint" that theologians quote" contain apocrypha as part of the Old Testament! 24 Neither the Bible of Martin Luther (1532-1545) nor King James Bible(1611) never contained the Apocrypha as inspired books. 25 Martin Luther and Dr. Reynolds (1611) had more common sense than Westcott and Hort, who lived 240-320 years later. 26

M. G. Seleznev
Russian Bible Society,
Institute of Oriental Cultures and Antiquity, Russian State University for the Humanities

The report analyzes the relationship between the Hebrew (Masoretic) and Greek (Septuagint) texts of Scripture. The author talks about the impossibility of restoring the protographs of the Septuagint and Masoretic texts, and also notes the existing discrepancies between the analyzed sources. The author takes the position that the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint are not competitors to each other, for they are monuments of two different cultures, and their merits lie on different planes.

One of the topics discussed today at the biblical section is “The problem of the textual basis of biblical translation.” In relation to the Old Testament, the question is usually posed as follows: do we need a translation of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament? or translation of the Greek text (Septuagint). Before moving on to consider this dilemma (I will try to show that it is incorrect), let us recall some information about the textual nature of both Old Testament texts “competing” with each other.

Hebrew text of the Old Testament

The canonical books of the Old Testament were written in Hebrew with some Aramaic inclusions, but neither protographs (that is, the original author's manuscripts) nor copies close in time to the protographs have reached us.

The text of modern printed editions is based on medieval Hebrew manuscripts, which, it should be noted, are strikingly unified. Medieval Jewish scholars, known as Masoretes, developed special techniques to prevent accidental errors when creating a new manuscript, so the differences between manuscripts are minor; If you do not pay attention to the vowels, then the discrepancies are literally isolated. This is a unique case for medieval manuscript practice; suffice it to say that the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament show several thousand discrepancies among themselves; the same variability is observed in the handwritten transmission of classical authors (only incomparably fewer manuscripts of classical authors have reached us than biblical manuscripts). The text of medieval Jewish manuscripts is called Masoretic. Some Hebraists of the past considered the striking unity of the Masoretic manuscript tradition to be evidence of its divine inspiration.

However, in the middle of the twentieth century. The Qumran manuscripts were discovered and published, much earlier (2nd century BC - 1st century) than all Jewish copies of the Bible known until then. The Qumran copies, which in a number of places diverge from the Masoretic text, as well as from each other, show that in the very origins of the Jewish manuscript tradition, before the introduction of strict control by the Masorites over the copying of biblical books, the Hebrew text was subject to corrections and distortions as often as other texts. handwritten texts of antiquity and the Middle Ages, be it Greek manuscripts of the New Testament or ancient Russian chronicles.

Thus, the Masoretic text is not identical to the protographs of the Hebrew Bible.

Some passages of the Hebrew text already in ancient times (before the establishment of the Masoretic tradition, before the translation of the Bible into Greek, before the Qumran scrolls) were distorted during rewriting so much that they cannot be understood. Unfortunately, a 100% convincing reconstruction of the protograph of such places based on the material available to us is impossible. Textualists can approach the protograph, but cannot reach it.

It is very important to avoid terminological confusion. When we talk about the “Hebrew text of the Old Testament”, what do we mean: a protograph that has not reached us, but is being reconstructed? Or the standardized, but in places clearly erroneous Masoretic text that has come down to us? One must always clearly distinguish between these two things.

Greek text of the Old Testament

As for the Septuagint (Greek Bible), it is generally accepted that the Pentateuch was translated into Greek in the first quarter of the 3rd century. BC under Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–246). A little later - the rest of the books. This is the oldest translation of the Bible into any language. The role of the Septuagint in reconstructing the Jewish protograph is enormous - and would be even greater if we could unambiguously reconstruct the protograph of the Septuagint itself.

The fact is that, since ancient times, the Septuagint has been constantly edited, verified with the Hebrew text, and influenced by later translations of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek (translations of Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, which appeared at the beginning of our era). Therefore, the discrepancies between different Septuagint manuscripts are almost more numerous than the discrepancies between the Septuagint and the Masoretic text. And the task of recreating the Septuagint protograph is as difficult to accomplish as the task of recreating the Jewish protograph.

The stabilization of the Septuagint text was observed only with the advent of printed editions. It is characteristic that the printed editions of the Greek Old Testament, used in the Greek Orthodox Church, are very different from the text of the scientific, critical editions of the Septuagint. Publications of the Greek Church are based on late medieval manuscripts. Critical publications strive to restore the text from the Hellenistic era.

When they talk about the Septuagint, what do they mean? Protograph of the Hellenistic era that textual critics seek to restore? Modern publications of the Greek Orthodox Church? Byzantine lectionaries? It is advisable whenever you say “Septuagint” or “Greek Bible” to clarify which manuscript (family of manuscripts) or which edition is meant.

Hebrew original Septuagint and Masoretic text

What are the reasons for the differences between the Masoretic text and the Septuagint? (In this case, by “Septuagint” I will mean the original translation of the Bible into Greek, as modern critical editions, for example Ralphs or the Göttingen Septuagint, try to restore it.)

One of the most important reasons is that the Hebrew original of the Greek Bible was different from the text that later became established in the Jewish tradition as canonical. In some cases it is even safe to assume that the Hebrew original of the Greek Bible is closer to the protograph than the Masoretic text. Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, Hebrew texts have been found reflecting such readings as were previously considered characteristic of the Septuagint; This became a sensation for biblical textual criticism.

The sensation migrated from scientific literature to popular books and discussions, where they began to claim that “the Qumran manuscripts proved the superiority of the Septuagint over the Masoretic text.” A myth has arisen that wherever, or almost everywhere, the Septuagint differs from the Masoretic text, it goes back to the protograph. This is wrong. In most of those cases where there are discrepancies between the Septuagint and the Masoretic text, we must admit that the Masoretic text is still closer to the protograph. Anyone can glean details, for example, from the works of E. Tov.

But it is important to say that, as recent textual studies show, the picture is not exhausted by these two cases. The books of the Old Testament have gone through a complex history of editing, combining different traditions, different legends into a single whole. It seems, for example, that among the disciples of the prophet Jeremiah, two editions of Jeremiah’s prophecies developed: a short one (which formed the basis of the Septuagint) and a complete one (which formed the basis of the Masoretic text). If this hypothesis is correct, then the question of which text of the book of Jeremiah is more authentic: Masoretic or Greek - loses its meaning. Before us are two equal versions of the book of Jeremiah. Both have a right to exist.

The greatest divergence between the Jewish and Greek traditions occurs in the second half of the book of Exodus. Here again, these discrepancies seem to go back to the era of the editing of the book of Exodus. One version of the book is reflected in the Septuagint, the other in the Masoretic text.

In such cases, one cannot talk about what is “correct”. Before us are two editions of the biblical book, both “more correct.”

The Septuagint is a translation not only from one language to another, but also from one culture to another

Most often, the difference between the two texts arose during the process of translation from Hebrew to Greek. First of all, due to the fact that the meanings of Greek words do not exactly coincide with the meanings of Hebrew words, and the constructions of Hebrew syntax cannot be conveyed by means of Greek syntax. In general, the translators had a good knowledge of the original language; in some cases, they even remember those ancient meanings that were forgotten by subsequent Jewish tradition and restored only in our time by modern Hebraic studies thanks to the comparative historical analysis of Jewish vocabulary. But often in the Septuagint there are obvious errors and misunderstandings of the Hebrew text (especially when it comes to rare words).

However, the most interesting thing for us is not random errors, but conscious editing: the translators of the Septuagint considered themselves at the same time editors, they sought (like the authors of the Targums - Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Bible) to make the text clearer, more understandable and more logical, to complement the “unsaid”. Many discrepancies arose as a result of theological reinterpretation: translators restored the “true” meaning of the translated text in their understanding - that is, the meaning that their contemporaries, the Jews of the Hellenistic era, put into it.

The Jewish translators of the Old Testament - the creators of the Septuagint - lived in a world where strict observance of the Torah was already something taken for granted for a Jew. From this point of view, many passages of Scripture are edited and corrected.

In Deuteronomy (16.22) it is forbidden to erect “steles” (mazzevot): this is a pagan custom. However, in the book of Exodus (24.4) we read (Hebrew text) that Moses built an altar under the mountain and twelve mazzevot according to the number of the twelve tribes of Israel. The translators of the Septuagint correct this passage: Moses of the Greek Bible erects not “steles,” but simply “stones.” The Hebrew word which in Deuteronomy 16:22 is translated into Greek as "steles" is here translated as "stones."

Not only the actions of Moses, but also the actions of God are corrected in the Septuagint according to the Torah.

The laws of the Pentateuch prohibit working on the Sabbath. The Hebrew text tells us that God, having created the world, “finished on the seventh day the work on which he had labored” (). This expression is somewhat ambiguous in the eyes of later exegetes: what does “finished on the seventh day” mean? Would anyone think that God worked on the Sabbath? In the Septuagint (and also in the Samaritan Pentateuch) the text is corrected: God finishes the work “on the sixth day.”

During the Hellenistic era, the concept of God changed. The Hebrew Old Testament speaks of God in “human, all too human” terms. God “speaks,” “sees,” “breathes,” “hears,” “walks in the garden,” “sits in heaven,” “the earth is a bench under His feet”: all these are images from the Jewish Old Testament. This is normal for religious texts of the ancient Near East. But the translators of the Septuagint, people of the Hellenistic era, are clearly confused by all this, and they (albeit inconsistently) strive to avoid too anthropomorphic expressions when it comes to God - after all, He is invisible, has no image, and is not limited by place.

In the Hellenistic era, the idea of ​​a person, the nature of religious experience, and the emotional mood of religious life changed. An example is the replacement in Exodus (58.14) of the words “you will rejoice in Yahweh” (Hebrew text) with the words “you will believe in the Lord” (Greek text). In other places (,), the place of joy is taken by amazement “ecstasy” (Êξτασις).

Amazement, “ecstasy” (Êξτασις) is generally one of the most characteristic words for the Septuagint. According to the observations of G. Bertram, who in 1956 published an article with the characteristic title “Praeparatio Evangelica in der Septuaginta” (“Preparation of the Gospel in the Septuagint”), this word is used in the Greek Bible (together with the corresponding verb) 89 times, corresponding to 30 various Jewish roots.

Much can be said about the influence of Greek philosophy on the Septuagint, particularly in such key passages as or.

The Judeo-Hellenistic background of the Septuagint has been (and undoubtedly will be) the subject of numerous historical and philological studies.

We see that the difference between the Masoretic text and the Septuagint cannot be reduced simply to the fact that in some verses the Masoretic text is closer to the protograph, and in others the Septuagint is closer to the protograph. The differences cannot be adequately described by any textual apparatus. The textual apparatus does not operate with such units as style, intonation, vision of the world, a different understanding of man, a different theology, a different piety...

The Hebrew Bible and the Greek Bible: Different Ages, Different Worlds

The Masoretic Text and the Septuagint do not diverge from each other in the same way that, say, the Alexandrian and Codex Sinaiticus diverge from each other. They belong to different eras, different worlds.

The chief virtue of the Hebrew Old Testament (as far as we can reconstruct it) is that it is original. This is a voice from the world in which the Old Testament was written. The Masoretic text, for all its differences with the protograph, retains its ancient Near Eastern flavor.

The main advantage of the Greek Old Testament is not that it can serve as a source for editing the Hebrew text in several dozen or even hundreds of places. The Greek Bible (more precisely, Greek Bibles, if we take into account the variability of the Greek tradition) is evidence of how the Bible sounded and was understood in the Hellenistic-Roman world, in the era of the New Testament. This is the first Bible of the Christian Church, the Bible of the Fathers, the Bible of our liturgy.

Each of these two textual traditions is important to us in its own way, and this duality is rooted in the dual nature of the Old Testament itself in the Christian canon. On the one hand, the Old Testament is a Hebrew text that came to us from the world of the ancient Near East, pre-Christian, even pre-Hellenistic. On the other hand, the same Old Testament is part of the Christian Holy Scripture.

From this point of view, even those readings of the Greek Bible that are the result of cultural or theological editing by translators are still valuable and interesting for us.

The principle “the earlier, the more important,” characteristic of Protestant textual criticism, is by no means indisputable for the Catholic and Orthodox traditions. The Creed dates back to the 4th century; this does not bother anyone in the Orthodox Church, and it does not occur to anyone to “defend” the Creed by trying to prove that its author is Jesus Himself. The text of the Creed is later than the confession of faith of the Ante-Nicene fathers. What of this? Our religious tradition lives in time. And Scripture lives in time.

Our faith in its religious depth goes beyond the boundaries of history. But its verbal expression lives in history. A theologian could speak in this case about the divine-human nature of Scripture and the Church, draw analogies with Christological dogmas... But I am not a theologian, but a philologist.

The place of the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Bible in the history of biblical translations

In the Greek-speaking Christian world, in the Byzantine area, the Septuagint little by little begins to be perceived, in fact, as the original of the Word of God. It was from Greek manuscripts that the first translations of the Bible into Slavic were made.

In the west, on the contrary, starting from the blj. Jerome, the dominant Vulgate is a direct translation of the Hebrew Bible into Latin, practically ignoring the Septuagint tradition (except in theologically significant passages, for example). However, the Psalter in the Latin tradition exists in two parallel translations - from the Masoretic text and from the Septuagint, as the saint knew it. Jerome.

All Protestant translations of the Old Testament into modern languages, and since the mid-20th century (after the Second Vatican Council) all Catholic translations of the Old Testament into modern languages, are made directly from the Hebrew text. The “Hebrew text” refers to the Masoretic text, but in a number of places translators correct it in accordance with how modern science sees its protograph. Often, it must be said, in these corrections the Septuagint plays an important role - but not in its integrity, but precisely as a collection of potential conjectures.

The closeness to the Masoretic text varies among modern translations. Thus, the New International Version, a translation of conservative American Protestants, tries not to deviate from the Masoretic text (except for those places where it is completely beyond intelligible reading, as well as such theologically significant passages as). The Anglican translation, the New English Bible, on the contrary, is famous for its numerous conjectures and attempts to reconstruct the pre-Masoretic protograph.

Following the Slavic manuscripts, the printed Slavic Bible follows the Septuagint, although in some places the influence of the Latin tradition is very noticeable.

The Synodal translation is the first translation from the Masoretic text in the Orthodox world. Deviations from the Masoretic original are few. In popular literature I have come across statements that the Synodal translation depends equally on the Masoretic text and on the Greek, and even more so - statements that the Synodal translation is based on the Septuagint, with little regard for the Masoretic tradition. This is wrong. A comparison of the Synodal Translation with the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint makes it clear that:

1. The translation of the canonical books of the Old Testament was done from the Hebrew Bible (Masoretic text).
2. The prophecy was transmitted in accordance with the Septuagint.
3. In isolated cases, quite unsystematically, translators break through readings of the Greek (more precisely, Church Slavonic) Bible.
4. In those cases where the relationship between the Greek (Church Slavonic) Bible and the Masoretic text can be described by the simple formula “in the Church Slavonic Bible there are one or more words that have no analogue in the Masoretic text,” these words are translated from Greek and inserted in parentheses inside the translated text from the Hebrew original. (In the Protestant editions of the Synodal Translation, these “Septuagint insertions” are removed.)
5. Where the relationship between the Greek (Church Slavonic) Bible and the Masoretic text is more complex than the simple formula given in (4), translators, as a rule, do not pay attention to the Septuagint.

Apart from the above-mentioned “insertions according to the Septuagint” (which, we note, are highlighted in brackets as foreign material in Orthodox editions), the Synodal Translation is, in fact, a translation of the Masoretic text of the Bible.

This orientation towards the Masoretic tradition is the merit of St. . However, the decision of St. Philaret to take the Hebrew rather than the Greek text of the Old Testament as the basis for the translation was criticized in the 19th century. (for example, St.), and later. In contrast to the Synodal Translation (1856–1921), he undertakes the translation of a number of books of the Old Testament from Greek. Yungerov's translations are not the only experience of this kind, but we do not have a complete translation of the Septuagint into modern Russian.

The place of the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Bible in modern Christianity

Today, as we have already said, all Christian denominations, except the Orthodox Church and the Eastern (“pre-Chalcedonian”) Churches, follow the Jewish tradition with regard to translations of the Old Testament. Therefore, the fact that our Synodal translation unites representatives of different Russian confessions (Orthodox, Catholics, Protestants) is due precisely to the fact that once, at the insistence of St. Philaret, the creators of the Old Testament part of the Synodal Translation followed the Jewish textual tradition.

His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II wrote in a letter addressed to the consultation of representatives of the United Bible Societies and Orthodox Churches in El Escorial (1999): “In Russia, the biblical text united and did not separate Christians of different confessions, and in this regard, the Synodal Translation of the Holy The Scriptures still perform this great task.”

This could not have happened if the Synodal text had been translated from the Septuagint.

At the same time, both the Orthodox liturgy and the patristic tradition are so closely connected with the Greek textual tradition of the Old Testament that we cannot part with this tradition or change it.

This situation reflects the special position of the Orthodox Church in the Christian world. On the one hand, we are heirs to the early Christian and Byzantine traditions. On the other hand, we are part of world Christianity. Attention to the Septuagint is a testament to our fidelity to the early Church and Byzantium. Attention to the Masoretic text is evidence of our unity with the rest of the Christian world.

The question seems to be, “Do we need a translation of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament or a translation of the Greek text?” - simply incorrectly delivered. If some books of the Old Testament existed from the very beginning in two editions, then it is desirable to have translations both editorial staff Since the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek Old Testament are monuments of two different worlds (ancient Eastern Israel and Hellenism of the beginning of our era), then, since we are the heirs of both of these worlds, we should talk about two translations: for one the original must be the Masoretic text (as for the Synodal), for the other - the Septuagint (as for the Slavic). And these translations are not competitors to each other. They reflect different eras in the history of our tradition - and in today’s Church they are called to play different roles, to occupy different places.

In contact with

Often denoted LXX (the number seventy written in Roman numerals).

The Septuagint is the oldest known translation of the Old Testament into Greek. Quotations from it are found in the New Testament.

The Septuagint played an important role in the history of the Christian church, essentially becoming the canon of Holy Scripture in Greek, from which translations were subsequently made into other languages, including the first translation into Church Slavonic.

Today, along with the Masoretic version, the Septuagint is one of the two oldest testimonies to the biblical text.

Tradition

The Greek legend, which is based on the pseudepigraphic “Epistle of Aristaeus to Philocrates” (the time of the discovery of the letter is approximately the 1st century BC; the lifetime of Aristaeus is approximately the 3rd century BC), tells of the fact that King Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-246 BC) wished to acquire the Holy Scriptures of the Jews in Greek translation for his famous library in Alexandria, for which he turned to the Jewish high priest Eleazar. In response, the high priest sent seventy-two learned interpreters (scribes) to the king. These seventy-two men, each independently, working in a separate cell, were supposed to translate the five books of the Torah, which constitute the most important part of the Jewish book (Pentateuch). According to a later tradition, also contained in the Talmud, they not only completed the translations at the same time - all the resulting texts sounded exactly the same. After which the translation received its name - the Septuagint or “Translation of the Seventy (Interpreters).”

The history of this first translation of the Torah into a non-Jewish language is recorded in barayte, given in . The fundamental difference from the ancient Greek legend is that the daring king Ptolemy (called Talmai in Hebrew) did not want to purchase a translation of the Torah for money, but wanted to get the text that the Jews under his rule were proud of, in the simplest way - he forced polyglot Jewish rabbis translate the Torah. Fearing a preliminary agreement between 72 learned rabbis, he first placed each one in a separate cell, and only then the conditions of what was happening were explained to the prisoners.

Differences between the Septuagint and the Masoretic Bible

Septuagint contains translations of all the books of the Jewish canon. The titles of some of them, and sometimes the order of the chapters (especially in Jeremiah), differ from the Hebrew ones; some books have additional sections (Esther, Jeremiah, Daniel).

The Septuagint also included some non-canonical works (Judith, Tobit, I and II Maccabees, the Wisdom of Solomon, Ben Sira, the Book of Baruch, I Ezra, III and IV Maccabees, Odes, Psalms of Solomon). They are arranged in the following order: law, history, poetry, prophecy.

in the Septuagint

In the Septuagint text, the name of God יהוה Yahweh in Exodus 3:14 is rendered in ancient Greek as ο ων - literally: “Existent.” Literally, the phrase εγο ειμι ο ων is translated “I am the Existing”:

• “I Am Who I Am” (January translation),
• "I Am That I Am" (Modern WBTS translation),
• “I Am Who I Am” (New Russian translation by IBS),
• “I am the One who remains” (Tanakh, Hebrew translation by David Yosiphon),
• “I am the Being who abides forever!” (Torah, translation of the Sochino edition).

It was long believed that the name of God יהוה Yahweh did not appear in the Septuagint in the form of the Tetragrammaton, but was replaced by Greek words κύριος (Lord) and θεός (God). The basis for this was the complete texts of the Septuagint contained in manuscripts of the 4th-5th centuries AD. BC: Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus.

But made in caves near the Dead Sea coast, they refuted this generally accepted opinion. In fragments of a leather scroll discovered there, dating back to 50 BC. e. - 50 AD e., which contain the text of the 12 minor prophets, wherever the Tetragrammaton (יהוה Yahweh) stood in the Hebrew text, it was also preserved in the Greek text.

unknown, Public Domain

In the Fouad papyrus (LXX P. Fouad Inv. 266), dating from the 1st century BC. er..., which was found in Egypt, and contains the text of Deuteronomy in the Septuagint translation, this name of God appears in the form of the Tetragrammaton (יהוה)‎, in all those cases where it is replaced by the words κύριος (Lord) and θεός (God) in its later copies.

Rudolf Kittel's successor, Paul Kahle, a specialist in Hebrew who worked on the publication of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, wrote on this occasion:

“The distinctive feature of this papyrus is that the name of God is conveyed in the Tetragrammaton, written in square Hebrew script. Having examined, at my request, the published fragments of this papyrus, Father Vaccari came to the conclusion that this papyrus, most likely written about 400 years before the Vatican Codex, contains perhaps the most accurate text of Deuteronomy in the Septuagint translation that has come down to us.”

This is confirmed by the commentary of one of the church fathers - Origen (2nd-3rd centuries AD) - on Psalm 2:2 from the Septuagint, which is found in the work Hexapla, completed approximately 245 AD. e.:

“And in the most accurate manuscripts the NAME is found written in Hebrew letters, but not in today’s Hebrew letters, but in the most ancient ones.”

As a consequence of these findings, the New International Theological Dictionary of the New Testament states: “Recent textual discoveries have cast doubt on the idea that the compilers of the LXX translated the Tetragrammaton of YHWH as kyrios.

The oldest copies of the LXX MSS translation (fragments) now available to us contain the Tetragrammaton written in the Greek text in Hebrew letters. Later, in the first centuries of our era, this tradition was followed by Jewish translators of the Old Testament.” One of these translators was the Jewish proselyte Akiva, who translated the Old Testament into Greek in the 2nd century AD. e.

In this translation he retained the name of God in the form of the Tetragrammaton (יהוה). And apparently, such translations with the name of God in Hebrew existed until the 5th century AD. e., when the priest and secretary of the Pope Jerome, translator of the Latin Vulgate, in the preface to the books of Kings said:

“And we find the name of God, the Tetragrammaton, in some Greek scrolls even hitherto, depicted in ancient letters.”

Meaning of the Septuagint

The perception of the Septuagint by contemporaries was ambiguous. For some Jewish communities, this translation acquires the same sacred meaning as the Hebrew original (pseudo-Aristaeus, Philo of Alexandria), while others fundamentally reject any translations of sacred texts (rabbinic tradition).

Together with the New Testament, the Septuagint became the Bible of the Christian Church. It is this translation that is used by the authors of the New Testament and many writers of the patristic era. For example, the Genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke mentions Cainan, son of Arphaxad, who is not mentioned in the Hebrew text, but is present in the Septuagint.

The Septuagint is considered one of the most authoritative texts of the Old Testament by the Orthodox Church, although it is not approved as an official "canonical" text having the same meaning as the Vulgate in the Roman Catholic Church. For this reason, there are a significant number of copies of the Septuagint: more than 30 manuscripts of the 4th-9th centuries. and 350 manuscripts of the 9th-15th centuries. Recently, fragments of the Septuagint were found on papyrus (mostly from the 2nd to 9th centuries).

Books

Greek name	Russian name
Legal books
Γένεσις	Being
Ἔξοδος	Exodus
Λευϊτικόν	Leviticus
Ἀριθμοί	Numbers
Δευτερονόμιον	Deuteronomy
Historical books
Ἰησοῦς Nαυῆ	Joshua
Κριταί	Judges
Ῥούθ	Ruth
Βασιλειῶν Αʹ	1 Samuel
Βασιλειῶν Βʹ	2 Kings
Βασιλειῶν Γʹ	1 Kings
Βασιλειῶν Δʹ	2 Kings
Παραλειπομένων Αʹ	1 Chronicles
Παραλειπομένων Βʹ	2 Chronicles
Ἔσδρας Αʹ	Ezra (1st book of Ezra)
Ἔσδρας Βʹ	Nehemiah (2nd book of Ezra)
Ἐσθήρ	Esther
Ἰουδίθ	Judith
Τωβίτ	Tobit
Μακκαβαίων Αʹ	1 Maccabees
Μακκαβαίων Βʹ	2 Maccabees
Μακκαβαίων Γʹ	3 Maccabees
Educational (poetry) books
Ψαλμοί	Psalter
Ψαλμός ΡΝΑʹ	Psalm 151
Προσευχὴ Μανάσση	Prayer of Manasseh
Ἰώβ	Book of Job
Παροιμίαι	Proverbs of Solomon
Ἐκκλησιαστής	Ecclesiastes
Ἆσμα Ἀσμάτων	Songs of Songs
Σοφία Σαλoμῶντος	Wisdom of Solomon
Σοφία Ἰησοῦ Σειράχ	Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach
Ψαλμοί Σαλoμῶντος	Psalms of Solomon
Prophetic books
Δώδεκα	Minor Prophets (Twelve)
Ὡσηέ Αʹ	I. Hosea
Ἀμώς Βʹ	II. Amos
Μιχαίας Γʹ	III. Micah
Ἰωήλ Δʹ	IV. Joel
Ὀβδίου Εʹ	V. Avdija
Ἰωνᾶς Ϛ"	VI. Ions
Ναούμ Ζʹ	VII. Nahuma
Ἀμβακούμ Ηʹ	VIII. Habakkuk
Σοφονίας Θʹ	IX. Zephaniah
Ἀγγαῖος Ιʹ	X. Haggai
Ζαχαρίας ΙΑʹ	XI. Zechariah
Ἄγγελος ΙΒʹ	XII. Malachi (Messenger)
Ἠσαΐας	Isaiah
Ἱερεμίας	Jeremiah
Βαρούχ	Varucha
Θρῆνοι	Lamentations
Επιστολή Ιερεμίου	The Message of Jeremiah
Ἰεζεκιήλ	Ezekiel
Δανιήλ	Daniel
Application
Μακκαβαίων Δ" Παράρτημα	4 Maccabees

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Helpful information

Septuagint
translation of seventy interpreters
lat. Interpretatio Septuaginta Seniorum - “translation of the seventy elders”

Historical background

It is believed that Aristaeus' story about the translation of the Pentateuch in Alexandria at the beginning of the 3rd century, commissioned by the Greek ruler. BC e. is not fiction, since these facts are confirmed by other sources. However, it is assumed that the initiative for the translation came from the Greek-speaking Alexandrian Jewish community, which needed its version of the Pentateuch for worship and study. In the last centuries before the beginning of the new era in Egypt, especially in Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great in 332 BC. e., many Jews lived. They spoke Greek, while a significant part of them no longer spoke Hebrew.

Pseudo-Aristaeus does not report anything about the translation of other books of the Old Testament. These translations were probably carried out at a later date and were completed by 130 BC. e. (the author of the preface to the biblical Book of Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach, writing around this time, mentions Greek translations of all three parts of the Tanakh: Torah, Prophets and Scriptures). The name Septuagint was subsequently transferred to the entire corpus of Old Testament Greek texts, both translated from Hebrew and original (see Bible).

P. E. Kale put forward a hypothesis according to which the Septuagint was compiled and edited from free (Targum-like) translations of Scripture into Greek, which, in his opinion, had their source in free translations into Aramaic. The translation of the Pentateuch and the books of the Later Prophets was followed by the translation of the historical books of the Early Prophets in the 2nd century. BC e. The books of Scripture were separately translated in the 1st century. BC e. or even later. Some researchers believe, however, that all the books of the Prophets were translated before the end of the 3rd century; at least the translation of some parts of Scripture was done already at the beginning of the 2nd century. BC e., since in the prologue of the book of Ben Sira (132 BC) in Greek, an already existing version of the “Law, the Prophets and other Scriptures” is mentioned. Thus, one of the editions of a complete translation of the Bible from Hebrew into Greek existed already at the very beginning of the first century of the new era.

- (lat. seventy LXX). This lat. The numeral denotes the ancient Greek. translation of the OT. The name of S. goes back to the legend, expounded. in the epistle of a certain Aristaeus (about 100 BC), as well as in the writings of Josephus. acc. this legend, King Ptolemy II... ... Brockhaus Biblical Encyclopedia

SEPTUAGINT- (lat. Septuaginta, translation of the seventy) (translation of the seventy interpreters, Alexandrian translation), translation of the Pentateuch (see PENTATEUCH) into Greek, performed in Alexandria for the kings of the Ptolemaic dynasty. According to legend, ... ... took part in the work. encyclopedic Dictionary

SEPTUAGINT- [gr. Septuaginta seventy] translation of the Old Testament Bible along with the apocrypha (non-canonized texts) into ancient Greek, made by 70 Jewish scholars in the 3rd-2nd centuries. BC. in Alexandria. Dictionary of foreign words. Komlev N.G., 2006 ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

Septuagint- noun, number of synonyms: 1 translation (62) ASIS Dictionary of Synonyms. V.N. Trishin. 2013… Synonym dictionary

Septuagint- (translation of the seventy elders) the name of the Bible translated into ancient Greek. According to legend, 72 scientists invited to Alexandria from Jerusalem by Ptolemy II Philadelphus (BC) made an exemplary translation of the Pentateuch,... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary of World History

Septuagint- (lat. seventy) translation of the Old Testament into other gr. language developed in the 3rd and 2nd centuries. During the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285,246) in Egypt, the Jewish community in Alexandria 70 (72) translators were entrusted with the translation of the Pentateuch of Moses. By… … Ancient world. Dictionary-reference book.

Septuagint- Septuag inta, s... Russian spelling dictionary

Septuagint- translation of the Old Testament from other Hebrews. language in Greek Was carried out, according to legend, 70 translators, arrived. from Jerusalem to Alexandria, in the 3rd 2nd centuries. BC. for Jews living in the Diaspora. S. contains nine texts... Ancient world. encyclopedic Dictionary

Septuagint- (lat. Septuaginta seventy), translation of the Old Testament from other Hebrew. language in Greek It was carried out, according to legend, by 70 translators who came from Jerusalem to Alexandria in the 3rd 2nd centuries. BC e. for Jews living in the Diaspora. S. contains... ... Dictionary of Antiquity

Septuagint- (lat. Septuaginta sedumdeset) naziv for grchkot translation on the Stariot testament od 3rd century spored legend, go prevele 72 teachings Jews in Alexandria, according to naredba in Egyptian stole Ptolemy Philadelphus ... Macedonian dictionary

Books

• Septuagint. The ancient Greek text of the Old Testament in the history of religious thought. Monograph Buy for 2638 UAH (Ukraine only)
• Septuagint The ancient Greek text of the Old Testament in the history of religious thought, Vevyurko I.S.. The Septuagint, as the first written translation of the Bible, is also early evidence of the tradition of understanding the sacred text, not inferior in antiquity to the manuscripts of Qumran and ...