COSC2U2%JANE@uhvax1.uh.edu (10/03/89)
The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament
An informative but off-the-beaten path Version
As many of you already know, the Current Bible Versions go back a
few generations (example: Revised Standard, King James, Erasmus, the Jerome's
Vulgate, the Hexapala, and finally Alexander the Great's Septuagint). There is
an English translation of the Septuagint from Zondervan which is of Historic
significance, as of the early 1980s. If you are into history and prophecy like
I am, this is well worth looking up.
Historically, Alexander the Great locked up 72 Jewish Scholars, 6 from
each tribe, into a think tank (as we say today), for the purpose of compiling
the Hebrew Scripture for Alexander's Library at his favorite city, cleverly
named Alexandria. The version was named after the seventy scholars (although
there were 72), the Septuagint, or the 70.
The Zondervan edition takes a nineteenth century English translation of
this work and the Greek text, and aranges them in "Duoapala" format, i.e.,
left page English, right page Greek.
I had a lot of fun examining the differenced between this version and
some of the other versions ( The Jerusalem Bible, The New Jerusalem Bible,
The Confraternity Bible, the Amplified Bible, etc.). "I AM THAT I AM" is
translated "THE BEING". Genisis 49 relates the blessings that Jacob bestows
upon his sons. Napthali, the Tribe of Poets and Scholars, is described as
"a spreading stem" in the Septuagint, wheras he drops beautiful fawns in
others (I think the Jerusalem version), where tha footnote says that fawn is
a pun for verse.
Anyway, I like this version so that I can compare with other versions
so that I can get a bigger picture of what is going on. (By the way, no two
versions seem to agree on what happens to Reuben. Is he always first but never
foremost? Is he as unstable as boiling water removed from the fire? etc., etc.
To which I answer: "All of the above")
I repeat, my purpose is to compare scripture with scripture to capture its
meaning. The Septuagint has been my best comparison tool.
CONSTANTULUS
[Many of the places where the NT quotes the OT, it apparently quotes
from the LXX (Septuagint) rather the Hebrew text. If you want to see
the implications of this, take a look at the Good News Bible. Its
footnotes identify places where OT quotations apparently came from the
LXX. It has an appendix that gives translations of all the LXX
passages mentioned in the footnotes. Scholars have realized this for
a long time, but as far as I know this is the only translation done
for the general public that shows how the LXX was used. --clh]