| The Septuagint, derived
from the Latin word for "seventy" and denoted as LXX, refers to the Greek
translation of the Hebrew Old Testment. Translated around 282 BC, the Septuagint
was the Bible that Jesus and the first-century Jews and Christians read
and, thus, is the Bible most often quoted in the New Testament.
The history of the translation of the Septuagint is shrouded in myth
and legend. The earliest, and best known, source for the story of the Septuagint
is the Letter
of Aristeas, which recalls how the Egyptian Pharoah Ptolemy (285–247
BC) commissioned a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek to add
to the library in Alexandria. Ptolemy wrote to the chief priest, Eleazar,
in Jerusalem, and arranged for six translators from each of the twelve
tribes of Israel. The seventy-two (altered in a few later versions to seventy
or seventy-five) translators arrived in Egypt and translated the Torah
(or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures) in
seventy-two days.
At the present time, the Septuagint is the official Old Testament text
used by the Greek Orthodox Church. Some modern Bible translations use the
Septuagint along side Hebrew manuscripts as their source text.
"The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands
forever.” (Isaiah
40:8, NKJV)
To learn more:
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