The LXX and the MT in Protestant Bibles
Ruth Magnusson Davis2020
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A comparison of English Bibles from 1537 to today, and how they chose between the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint to translate key passages in the Old Testament. Also considers the Orthodox Study Bible, which is translated from the Septuagint.
Related papers
231. “Septuagint and Other Ancient Greek Translations,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible, ed. Michael D. Coogan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 305–17 (submitted ms, now published)
The Septuagint, also known as the LXX, is a Greek translation of Jewish scripture that was prepared in Alexandria and Palestine. The Hebrew source of the LXX differed from the other textual witnesses (the Masoretic Text [MT] and many of the Qumran texts), and this accounts for its great significance in biblical studies. The LXX is the main ancient witness that occasionally reflects compositional stages of books of the Hebrew Bible that are different from the MT and from other sources. Moreover, the LXX is important as a reflection of early biblical exegesis, Greek-speaking Judaism, and the Greek language. Finally, the LXX is also of major importance for understanding early Christianity since much of the vocabulary and some religious ideas of the New Testament are based on it. The name of the LXX reflects the tradition that seventy-two elders translated the Torah into Greek (thus Sof. 1.7 and parallels, and the Letter of Aristeas, a late first-millennium B.C.E. Jewish composition describing the origin of the LXX). In the first centuries C.E. this tradition was expanded to include all the translated biblical books, and finally it encompassed all the Jewish scriptures translated into Greek as well as several works originally composed in Greek. The translation of the Torah may reflect an official translation, as narrated in the Letter of Aristeas and Jewish sources, but it was not created by seventy-two individuals as narrated in these sources. The books of the Torah were probably rendered by five different translators. The subsequent biblical books were similarly translated by different individuals, although some of them translated more than one book. The collective name Septuagint(a) now denotes both the original translation of Hebrew and Aramaic scriptures into Greek and the collection of sacred Greek writings in their present, canonical form. Neither usage is completely accurate, since the collection contains original translations, late revisions (recensions) of those translations, and compositions originally written in Greek. For this reason, scholars usually use the " Septuagint " for the collection of sacred Greek writings and the Old Greek (OG) for the reconstructed original translation. The name is often put in quotation marks (" LXX ") when it is necessary to stress the diverse nature of the books included in the collection. The " LXX " contains two types of books: (a)The Greek translation of the twenty-four canonical Hebrew-Aramaic books. The translation of these books contributes significantly to biblical studies, in particular to the textual transmission and exegesis of the Bible.
Modern English Bible Translations
2011
he work of translation from one language to another is always fraught with difficulties—philological, contextual, and even procedural difficulties. If a word has numerous meanings, as most do, how does the translator decide which one to use? Should the translation reflect a wordfor-word translation (i.e., formal equivalence), or should it reflect the idiomatic language of the receptor language (i.e., functional/dynamic equivalence)? The major benefit of a formal-equivalence approach is that the translation maintains a feel for the language and format of the original text. The construction of Hebrew and Greek words and sentences is maintained, as much as possible, in the translation. But one needs only to use a basic computer translation program to realize that this approach can sometimes lead to a stilted translation. A functional-equivalence approach, on the other hand, is more concerned with how the translation flows in the receptor language than with how it was written in the ori...
Emergence of the Tyndale–King James Version tradition in English Bible translation
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies
In this essay, it is demonstrated that the inception of the English Bible tradition began with the oral–aural Bible in Old English translated from Latin incipient texts and emerged through a continuous tradition of revision and retranslation in interaction with contemporary social reality. Each subsequent translation achieved a more complex state by adapting to the emergence of incipient text knowledge (rediscovery of Hebrew and Greek texts), emergence of the (meaning-making) knowledge of the incipient languages (Latin, Hebrew and Greek), language change (Old, Middle and Modern English), mode of communication (hearing-dominant and text-dominant), style (literal or word-for-word) and products (oral-aural Bible, handwritten manuscript Bible and printed Bible). Historical sources indicate that there were translations of portions of the English Bible since 700 CE as handwritten manuscript Bibles in Old and Middle English and in print in Modern English – even before the retranslation ass...
Hermeneutics of 16th-Century Latin Bible Translations
Hermeneutik oder Versionen der biblischen Interpretation von Texten/1, 2023
The 16th was the century of the Latin Bible translations” (John M. Lenhart). We know of 438 different Latin Bible editions between 1501 and 1600. The translation into vernacular languages was the culmination of a process that began with the need for a better understanding of the Bible and continued in the creation of new Latin Bible translations other than the Vulgate. According to Josef Eskhult, denominational characteristics can be discerned: revisions of the Vulgate according to Latin manuscripts were mostly done by Roman Catholics, revising the Vulgate according to Hebrew and Greek manuscripts was a Lutheran enterprise, while completely new Latin translations were typically a Calvinist approach. For the theologians of the Reformed tradition, it was important to translate the Bible into Latin anew because they had abandoned three of the four meanings of medieval literary hermeneutics (literary, allegorical, moral, and anagogic) and had only focused on the first one, thus trying to emphasize the prophetic and Christological meaning of the Bible. To do this, they needed translations that reflected the meaning of the Hebrew text as accurately as possible, allowing scholars to compare their exegetical observations and translation solutions.
A New English Translation of the Septuagint
2007
The Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of Jewish sacred writings) is of great importance in the history of both Judaism and Christianity. The first translation of the books of the Hebrew Bible (plus additions) into the common language of the ancient Mediterranean world made the Jewish scriptures accessible to many outside Judaism. Notonly did the Septuagint become Holy Writ to Greek speaking Jews but it was also the Bible of the early Christian communities: the scripture they cited and the textual foundation ...
The 1537 Matthew Bible: More Anglican than Not
The Matthew Bible, like any good Anglican, found itself caught between the Roman Catholics and the Puritans. Neither group liked it. Find out why, and why its spirit is more consistent with early Anglicanism than anything else.
The LXX and the MT in Protestant Bibles
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1
Philo, cited in Nina L. Collins, The Library in Alexandria and the Bible in Greek, Supplements to Vetus
testamentum; Volume 82 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 153. Viewed on googlebooks.ca.
2
Jerome in the late 4th century wrote that the apostles used the LXX, but “only however in places where it does not
disagree with the Hebrew.” Jerome, ed., Kevin Knight, “To Pammachius on the Best Method of Translating,” 8, as
cited at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001057.htm. This suggests the MT made changes to the early Hebrew text.
However, Jerome reviews many of the complexities of Old Testament quotations in the New Testament, which show
that the issues are not simple.
3
See Martin Luther, “On the Jews,” LW, Vol. 47, 231, note 29.
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Talmud, quoted in Bishop Nathanael Lvov, “About the Holy Bible,” www.orthodoxphotos.com/readings/bible2/
septuagint. Accessed June 21, 2019.
6
The rabbis added this fast to their annual Tenth of Tevet fast. According to a modern Jewish source the primary
purpose of the fast was to mark “‘the beginning of the end’ of the first Temple. Nebuchadnezzar, the wicked King of
Babylonia, besieged Jerusalem. The Holy City had no food or water, and the weakened Jewish soldiers were unable to
protect the city any longer. This siege began on the tenth day of the month of Tevet. To mark the start of the downfall
of Jerusalem, the prophets enacted this as a day of fasting and mourning.” https://www.aish.com/jl/jewish-law/dailyliving/41-Rabbinic-Fast-Days.html. Accessed June 22, 2019.
7
Rabbi Jay Kelman, torahinmotion.org., “The Fast of the Eighth of Tevet: Lost in Translation,”
www.torahinmotion.org/discussions-and-blogs/fast-eighth-tevet-lost-translation, 2014. Accessed June 21, 2019. It
appears that this fast sometimes extends three days, from the Eighth to the Tenth of Tevet.
8
Ibid., https://www.torahinmotion.org/discussions-and-blogs/asara-btevet-torah-translation, 2012.
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For example, Luther said he was unwilling to consider the LXX authoritative, and that there were passages in which
the translators “talked idly either out of ignorance or dishonesty.” “Lectures on Genesis,” LW, Vol. 8, 88.
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Ibid., 142.
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See note 25, chapter 7.
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