Creationism and the Septuagint
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Why should we care about the Septuagint?
An early depiction of the Hebrew Bible translated into Greek as the Septuagint. Image credit: Photo by Xerones, CC BY 2.0 via Flickr.Even though the Bible is one of the most widely read books in history, most readers of religious literature have no knowledge of the Septuagint—the Bible that was used almost universally by early Christians—or how it differs from the Bible used as the basis for most modern translations.
Timothy Michael Law, author of When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible, explains what the Septuagint is, and why it is so important to the study of Christianity.
What is the Septuagint?
The name Septuagint refers to what is mostly a collection of ancient translations. The Jewish scriptures were translated from Hebrew and Aramaic into Greek from about the third century BCE in Alexandria, a place booming with Hellenistic learning, to perhaps as late as the second century CE in Palestine. Originally the translation was of the Hebrew Torah alone.
A legend was written in the second century BCE to explain how the collection came about. In the legend, seventy learned men from the twelve tribes of Israel came to Alexandria to translate, so later when this tradition was passed down, the name “Septuagint” (seventy) was given to the entire collection of books that make up what Christians call the Old Testament.
The ancient world had known about translation activity, but there had never been a project this size and certainly not one for religious motives on this scale. I’ve always thought it’s one of the most important cultural artifacts of antiquity, but it often gets discarded as interesting only to those concerned with biblical studies. But there is also information in the Septuagint about the Greek language of the period, the socio-religious context of the Jewish Diaspora, and the very science of translation.
To me, the story of the Septuagint’s creation—what it tells us about the growth of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament, and its role in the birth and early development of Christianity—is absorbing.
Not much is known about the Septuagint outside of the academy. Why do you think that is?
In the West, we have a cultural tradition dominated by Protestant and Catholic Christianity. An early Latin version of the Bible was made as a translation of the Septuagint, but by the end of the fourth century Jerome began to argue that the Bible was in need of revision. He thought the Old Testament should be translated from the Hebrew so that it would match the Bible of the Jews. Jerome’s new translation, later called the Vulgate, was the first significant challenge to the position of the Septuagint as the “Bible of the Church.” As the Latin Church grew apart from the Greek East in the next half millennium, Jerome’s Vulgate finally became the standard Bible. The Protestant Reformers basically accepted Jerome’s position on the authority of the Hebrew Bible, and for that reason the vernacular translations were made from the Hebrew. So for the last 1500 years, the Septuagint has struggled to find readers in the West, although it is still read in the Greek Orthodox Church. The same bias for the Hebrew Bible affects scholars, too. Because the Reformation spread throughout Europe and left its imprint on the creation of the modern European (and then the American) university, the Hebrew Bible has been studied and the Septuagint has been seen as a mere “witness” to the Hebrew text. It was thrown in the Bible scholar’s toolbox to use only when the Hebrew was difficult to understand.
A photograph of the War Scroll, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Photographed by Eric Matson of the Matson photo service, 21 May 2012. From the Library of Congress. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.When we think about biblical manuscripts, the Dead Sea Scrolls have of course gained a lot of attention since their discovery in the 1940s. In some ways the Septuagint benefitted from the Scrolls.
The Septuagint is commonly treated only as a translation of the known Hebrew Bible text, and in some places a very bad one! But the discoveries in the Judean Desert provided a boost to interest in the Septuagint. Up to that time, the Hebrew Bible texts that were studied were the medieval editions. The Dead Sea Scrolls for the first time revealed many biblical texts that were a millennium older than the medieval editions. More spectacularly, these manuscripts showed significant divergences with the standard medieval text in some well-known biblical books.
The Scrolls proved that some books of the Hebrew Bible were still being edited, supplemented, reduced, etc., well into the Common Era. But if you were reading the Septuagint before the 1940s, you knew that it was produced in the Hellenistic period, and so you still might have concluded—even without the help of actual Hebrew manuscripts—that the Bible was in flux at this time based on the way these books appear in Greek in such alternative forms.
Imagine if you knew Russian, and when you were reading Dostoevsky in English you suddenly discovered that there was an entire extended passage, or one that was significantly abbreviated. You have two options. You either conclude the translator exercised a tremendous, even scandalous, amount of freedom, or you believe the English translator had a manuscript different to any others you ever knew existed in Russian.
Those were the two basic options for understanding the Septuagint, and most scholars chose the first route. But when the Dead Sea Scrolls showed these divergent text forms in Hebrew, and when some of these were represented verbatim in translation in the Septuagint, the calculus suddenly changed. Now that we had the Dead Sea Scrolls, we knew the Septuagint translators were in many of these cases translating actual biblical texts.
Septuagint scholars are about as grateful as any for the discovery of the Scrolls. The biblical texts from the Judean Desert now confirm what those familiar with the Septuagint already suspected: the divergences in some biblical books give a window into the Bible’s early formation history.
What role did the Septuagint play in the formation of Christianity?
Beginning with the New Testament itself, we see the influence of the Septuagint because these writers of what would become Christian scripture are writing in Greek. It’s natural that they turn to the Greek Jewish scriptures, but in some cases we can see how the Septuagint provided the perfect phrase—different to the same passage in the Hebrew—for them. The apostle Paul, for example, builds much of his magnum opus, the Book of Romans, with quotations from the Septuagint, not the Hebrew Bible.
Most of the early Christian movement was a Greek-speaking movement, so they too adopted the Greek Jewish scriptures as their new “Old Testament.” The early development of theological, homiletical, and liturgical language is almost exclusively indebted to the Septuagint. More needs to be done in this area, but it is clear that the Septuagint lies at the foundation of early Christianity.
Timothy Michael Law is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of The Marginalia Review of Books. He is the author of When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible and tweets @TMichaelLaw.
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Do the Dead Sea Scrolls Support the Masoretic Text or Septuagint?
The “Original” Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls
Can the scrolls help expose the original Bible language within the Masoretic Text and Septuagint?
The Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32:8) in the Masoretic Text describes the Most High dividing the nations according to number of “the sons [children?] of Israel.” This Dead Sea Scroll fragment (4QDeutj) and the third-century B.C.E. translation of the Hebrew Pentateuch into Greek (the Septuagint [LXX]), however, say the nations were divided according to the “sons of Elohim” (God). What did the original Bible text say? Photo: IAA.
Which is the “original” Bible? How do we decide which of these two ancient texts is more authoritative? In “Searching for the ‘Original’ Bible” in the July/August 2014 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Hebrew University of Jerusalem scholar and long-time editor-in-chief of the Dead Sea Scrolls publication team Emanuel Tov suggests we turn to the Dead Sea Scrolls to help us compare the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint.
Interested in the history and meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls? In the free eBook Dead Sea Scrolls, learn what the Dead Sea Scrolls are and why they are important. Find out what they tell us about the Bible, Christianity, and Judaism.
Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls actually have more in common with the Greek Septuagint than the traditional Hebrew Masoretic Text. This suggests that the Greek translators must have been translating from Hebrew texts that resembled the Dead Sea Scrolls. Are the Dead Sea Scroll texts as trustworthy as these other two sources? Are they as close to the text of the original Bible?
The Great Isaiah Scroll is one of the most iconic of the Dead Sea Scrolls, yet it does not reflect the original language of the Bible. Tov calls it “a classroom example of what an inferior text looks like, with its manifold contextual changes, harmonizations, grammatical adaptions, etc.” Photo: John C. Trevor, Ph.D. Digital Image: James E. Trevor.
Some turn to the Dead Sea Scrolls simply because they are older: 2,000-year-old texts were less likely to be subjected to scribal corruption; they should reflect a more original Bible language. Tov supplements this chronological reasoning with a logical—and admittedly subjective—approach: He examines which text makes the most sense in a given context. Tov examines a number of textual discrepancies between Bible versions (Did God finish work on the sixth or seventh day before resting on the seventh day? How were the nations divided according to the number of the sons of God?) in his search for the original Bible.
The Dead Sea Scrolls have been called the greatest manuscript find of all time. Explore the BAS Dead Sea Scrolls page for dozens of articles on the scrolls’ significance, discovery and scholarship.
As an example, Tov asks: Did Hannah bring one bull or three bulls as an offering at Shiloh? (1 Samuel 1:24):
When the infant Samuel had been weaned and his mother, Hannah, finally came to Shiloh with her son, she also brought with her an offering for the Lord that is described in two ways in our textual sources. According to the Masoretic Text, she brought “three bulls,” but according to the Septuagint and a Qumran scroll (4QSama from 50–25 B.C.E.) she brought one “three-year-old bull.”
I believe that Hannah probably offered only a single bull (as in the Septuagint and 4QSama); supporting this choice is the next verse in the Masoretic Text which speaks about “the bull.” I believe the Masoretic Text was textually corrupted when the continuous writing (without spaces between words) of the original words prm/shlshh (literally: “bulls three”) underlying the Septuagint was divided wrongly to pr mshlsh (“three-year-old bull”).*
The evidence of the Septuagint, being in Greek, always depends on a reconstruction into Hebrew, and consequently the Qumran scroll here helps us decide between the various options. Incidentally an offering of a “three-year-old bull” is mentioned in Genesis 15:9. It shows that a Hebrew text underlying the Septuagint once existed in which Hannah brought only one three-year-old bull.
Tov uses the Dead Sea Scrolls to elucidate the original language of the Bible not only because they are the oldest Bible manuscripts, but also because they provide additional logical clues. He concludes: “In finding our way in the labyrinth of textual sources of the Bible, we must slowly accumulate experience and intuition. When maneuvering among the sources, we will find much help in the Dead Sea Scrolls. But they must be used judiciously.”
This Bible History Daily article about ancient translations of the Bible was originally published on June 27, 2014.
The Septuagint - The Old Testament Used by the New Testament Writers
The original written Hebrew did not have vowels included. By changing the vowels, the later Jewish translators at the time of the birth of Christianity, could very easily have changed the text. Why would they do that? They wanted to hide the specific references to Jesus in the Old Testament used by the early Christians as proofs that Jesus fulfilled those prophecies. The early Church Fathers in their writings accuse the Jews of doing just that, of doctoring the Scriptures to hide the Christ spoken of by the prophets.
Matthew, Luke, and Paul quote from the Septuagint translation. The Septuagint had been accepted as an accurate translation around 280 BC. It was translated by some 70 Jewish scholars, around 2 from each tribe who went and lived in Alexandria where the great library of ancient books existed. That library was later destroyed by the Moslem invaders in the 600s AD.
Who were some of the early Church Fathers that claimed that the Jews had doctored the Scriptures? Justin Martyr, who was martyred 165 A.D., was one. Irenaeus, also, in the second century, a disciple of Polycarp who had been a disciple of Apostle John, wrote, "If they (the Jews) had known the Christians would have risen and brought such testimonies from the Scriptures against them, they would have made no scruple to have burnt their own Scriptures." Tertullian who lived from 155 A.D. to 220 A.D. stated the same.
Origen who wrote in the third century (200+ A.D.) continued with the same accusation. Origin spent some 28 years comparing the various versions of Holy Scripture. Eusebius, who compiled his Ecclesiastical History in the fourth century, also repeats the accusation of Justin Martyr and said, Justin "records certain prophetic declarations, in his discussions with Tryphon, showing that the Jews had expunged them from the Scriptures." Josephus also quoted from the Septuagint. Jerome, who was favorable to the Jews and wrote around 400 A.D., prefered the Greek text, though he was responsible for translating the Hebrew into Latin.
The age of the earth is also different in the Septuagint from that of the Hebrew text. From the time of Adam to the Flood in the Hebrew Bible there are 1,656 years; while in the Septuagint there are 2,262 years. Josephus records 2,256 years. From the time of Shem to the time of Abraham in the Hebrew Bible are only 292 years, while the Septuagint states 1072, and Josephus 993 years.
Why do we find such a difference since the Septuagint was a translation of the Hebrew Bible from around 280 B.C.? 19th century Historian George Smith writing in 1854 believed that the Septuagint was an accurate translation of the original Hebrew Bible at the time of its translation. Philo-Judaeus a famous Jewish scholar around the time of the apostles himself claimed that the Septuagint was an accurate and inspired translation which had entered into the very sentiments of Moses. If we believe the early Church Fathers, then after the birth of Christianity and the fall of Jerusalem, the unbelieving Jews thought it was necessary to change the Scriptures to save their belief system. They therefore corrupted the Scriptures in an attempt to stop the flood of Jews departing to Christianity.
Why is our Kings James Version translated from the Hebrew Scripture over the Greek? We must remember that the Reformers in the 1500s ended up rejecting much of what the Catholic Church espoused. Doctrine had to be reevaluated. I thought the Latin Bible used by the Church had been translated from the Septuagint, but it was Jerome that translated the Hebrew Bible into Latin. The Reformers, in the 1500s also chose the abridged Hebrew Bible to use as their original document, or used Jerome's Latin Hebrew translation. As a result most modern Evangelicals will stay with the Hebrew as their core authority, rather than the Greek Septuagint which we in fact have older extant copies of.
Some scholars agree that the 780 years difference from the time of Shem to the time of Abraham would give more time for the development of the various empires believed to be co-existent at the time of Abraham. In secular history the civilizations would include both China and Indus River Valley. We see, therefore, that arguments from history can support a longer time period than what we find in the present Hebrew text.
From the time of Shem to the time of Peleg, when the earth was divided, we find 131 years in the Hebrew text, while we find 661 years in the Septuagint. 530 years longer would give ample time for the various kinds of animals that came off the Ark to reproduce and repopulate the earth. After the division of the earth into continents at the time of Peleg the animals could speciate and adapt to their new climatic situation.
Some creation scientists like the longer dates in the Septuagint because it gives more time for the production of the many mammoths found frozen in the Russian tundra. The mammoths suddenly freezing in the tundra is believed by the creation scientists to have taken place at the time of the division of the continents.
The longer dates give the ancient civilizations more time to develop. The longer dates also give more time for the reproduction of kinds of animals which came off the Ark, some of which have been found frozen to death in the northern hemisphere. Therefore the geological and archaeological evidence seem to support the longer dates.
(Source material: George Smith's The Patriarchal Age: or, The History and Religion of Mankind From the Creation to the Death of Isaac, 1854) https://archive.org/details/patriarchalageo00smitgoog
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