Changes

The "Translation of the Seventy" (from the Greek Ἡ μετάφρασις τῶν Ἑβδομήκοντα), better known as the '''Septuagint''' (a name derived from the Latin word for ''septuaginta'' or "seventy", also referred to as by the Roman numeral for seventy, '''LXX''') is originally referred to a 3rd century B.C. translation of the [[Old Testament|Hebrew ScripturesPentateuch]] into [[Koine Greek]]. By the time of [[Justin Martyr]] (+ c. 160), the term has come to refer to the other scriptural and related texts translated from Hebrew and Aramaic into Greek in the next century. It is the basis of the canonical [[Old Testament]] of the [[Orthodox Church]].

The differences with the Protestant canon are based on the 16th century misunderstanding of Martin Luther's opinions about the Old Testament. His argument was that St [[Jerome]] distinguished the Hebrew Old Testament from the Greek Old Testament and that only the texts in Hebrew should be considered canonical, while the others may be good to read. When he was translating the Old Testament into German, he mistakenly believed that used the oldest source for common Hebrew text available at the Old Testament would be in Hebrewtime, so he found and used the so-called Masoretic Text (MT), which contains a 9th century Jewish smaller canon compiled largely in reaction to Christian claims that the Old Testament Scriptures belonged to and is based on another manuscript tradition from the ChurchLXX. The Other reformers followed suit, so the MT is thus also the basis for the Old Testament text of the 17th century Authorized Version in English (the "King James Version"). There are multiple differences between the LXX and MT. The MT lacks the following texts: [[I Esdras]], the portion of [[II Esdras]] (which the MT simply calls "Ezra") called the "[[Prayer of Manasseh]]," [[Tobit]], [[Judith]], portions of [[Book of Esther|Esther]], [[Wisdom of Solomon]], [[Wisdom of Sirach]] (Ecclesiasticus), [[Baruch]], the [[Epistle of Jeremiah]], the so-called "additions to Daniel" (The [[Prayer of the Three Holy Children|Song of the Three Children]], [[Susanna (Book of Daniel)|Susanna]], and [[Bel and the Dragon]]), the 151st Psalm, and all four Maccabees books. The Psalms are also numbered and divided up differently.

There are multiple internal variations between the LXX and the MT. The texts read differently in many places, giving a much more [[Christology|Christological]] tone to the LXX which was deliberately avoided when the Masoretes were putting together their anti-Christian canon. These differences in wording are the evidence that the Apostles were using the LXX. Here follow several examples of radical differences in wording:

The Septuagint has been translated a few times into English, the first one (though excluding the Apocrypha) being that ''The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Covenant'' of Charles Thomson in 1808; his translation was later revised and enlarged by C. A. Muses in 1954under the title ''The Septuagint Bible''. The Thomson's Translation of the Old Covenant is a direct translation of the Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament into English, rare for its time. The work took 19 years to complete and was originally published in 1808.The Lancelot Brenton's ''The Septuagint version of the Old Testament: according to the Vatican text, translated into English Translation : with the principal various readings of the Septuagint Alexandrine copy, and a table of comparative chronology'' was published in 1851 1844 and for most of the time since its publication it has been the only one readily available, and has continually been in print. There is The creator of the ''World English Bible'', Michael Paul Johnson, has produced a translation version of the Septuagint based on Brenton's translation in American English Translation of the Septuagint, called entitled ''LXX2012: Septuagint in English 2012 that is being developed by the creator of the World English Bible, Michael Paul Johnson''. The ''[[Orthodox Study Bible ]]'' was released in early 2008 with a new translation of the Septuagint based on the Greek text of Alfred Rahlfs edition of the Greek text. To this base they brought two additional major sources. First ''Septuaginta'', and with reference to the Brenton translation of the Septuagint from 1851. Second, Thomas Nelson Publishers granted use of the New King James Version text in the places where the translation of the LXX would match that of the Hebrew Masoretic text. This edition includes the New Testament as well, which also uses the New King James Version. It also includes extensive commentary from an Eastern Orthodox perspective.<ref> http://orthodoxstudybible.com/index.html</ref>''The Eastern / Greek Orthodox Bible '' (EOB) is an extensive revision and correction of Brenton’s translation which was primarily based on Codex Vaticanus. Its language and syntax have been modernized and simplified. It also includes extensive introductory material and footnotes featuring significant inter-LXX and LXX/MT variants.''The New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included Under that Title'' (NETS), published in 2007 (with corrections and emendations issued in 2009 and 2014), is a major scholarly translation based on the critical texts available at the time from Gottingen and Rahlfs semi-critical ''Septuaginta''.Kevin Mayhew Publishers has printed the translation by Peter King, SJ, in four volumes (''The Pentateuch'' 2010, ''The Historical Books'' 2012, ''The Wisdom Literature'' 2008, and ''The Prophets'' 2013), which are now available (along with King's translation of the New Testament) as ''The Bible''. King's work, however, is difficult to obtain in the US.

The scholarship based upon However, Emanuel Tov <ref>Tov, Emanuel. Textual Criticism of the new information provided in Hebrew Bible. 2nd Rev. Ed. Fortress Press: Minneapolis, 2001., 114-117.</ref> summarizes the contents of the Dead Sea Scroll thus supports the millennial old tradition on use of Scrolls biblical manuscripts with the following percentage breakdown: * Qumran-specific texts – 20%* Proto-Masoretic texts – 35%* Proto-Samaritan texts – 5%* Proto-Septuagint by the Orthodox Church.texts – 5%* Non-Aligned texts – 35%

* [http://adw-goe.de/en/research/research-projects-within-the-academies-programme/septuaginta-unternehmen/ Septuaginta-Unternehmens Institute] in Gottingen, Germany. The Septuaginta-Unternehmen is a special research institute that was founded in 1908 in Göttingen under the auspices of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences. Its purpose was to conduct sound scientific investigation into the Septuagint and to trace the history of evolution of the Septuagint text, on the basis of the mass of manuscript data, and ultimately to establish a text which could be claimed to be for all intents and purposes identical with the Septuagint in its pristine form, a proto-Septuagint.([http://www.humboldt-stiftung.de/de/netzwerk/veranstalt/hoersaal/doc/muraoka.pdf 1]) The institute made Göttingen the nerve centre of Septuagint studies. The first director of the Institute, '''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Rahlfs Alfred Rahlfs]''', published ''Septuaginta, 2 volume edition in 1935'' (Septuagint in Greek). Rahlf's semi-critical edition of the Septuagint for the book of Genesis rests on a foundation of some 140 manuscripts (nine pre-dating the fourth century CE), ten 10 daughter-versions, plus biblical citations in Greek and Latin literature. It However, his two-volume, semi-critical edition ''Septuaginta'' has been supplanted by the fully critical Göttingen ''Septuaginta Vetus Testamentum Graecum'', in 23 volumes covering approximately two-thirds of the LXX text, along with a supplementary series.

*[[Aristobulus of Paneas]], the earliest write writer to give an account of the Septuagint version.