Solparvus
Puritan Board Senior
My understanding of the LXX is limited. A few things I do understand:
- There is not "The" Septuagint--what we have is a best guess on what was the Septuagint (I can submit to being wrong here), Origen's Hexapla being one of our chief sources
- Its faithfulness to the Hebrew strongly varies
- The apostles quoted it, and the early church used it
The LXX really varies in its quality. The Pentateuch is highly accurate. The Writings are wooden. Job is a bit longer(?) and has an added ending. Jeremiah is missing extensive passages. Psalms has a count of 151 (there is no way that last one is an original Psalm!). Esther has an added prayer.
Yet who would doubt that it was serviceable? The apostles quote it. The early church no doubt used it. And unlike us, they can't so quickly get together an LXX 2.0 committee and update the translation so quickly as we can today. There wasn't the easy possibility of examining manuscripts like we do today.
What, practically, are we supposed to learn from this?
I'd rather avoid textual critical debates here, but I suppose my desire is to understand that while ALL Scripture is breathed by God, use for teaching, reproof, correction, training in righteousness, not one jot or tittle disappears, yet the Lord has considered such situations to be suitable in their times and places.
But then, the church was not universally agreed until late 300's on the final Table of Contents for the New Testament, so perhaps lessons for today are rather limited, unless you are in an overseas situation where the Word is coming to new regions?
- There is not "The" Septuagint--what we have is a best guess on what was the Septuagint (I can submit to being wrong here), Origen's Hexapla being one of our chief sources
- Its faithfulness to the Hebrew strongly varies
- The apostles quoted it, and the early church used it
The LXX really varies in its quality. The Pentateuch is highly accurate. The Writings are wooden. Job is a bit longer(?) and has an added ending. Jeremiah is missing extensive passages. Psalms has a count of 151 (there is no way that last one is an original Psalm!). Esther has an added prayer.
Yet who would doubt that it was serviceable? The apostles quote it. The early church no doubt used it. And unlike us, they can't so quickly get together an LXX 2.0 committee and update the translation so quickly as we can today. There wasn't the easy possibility of examining manuscripts like we do today.
What, practically, are we supposed to learn from this?
I'd rather avoid textual critical debates here, but I suppose my desire is to understand that while ALL Scripture is breathed by God, use for teaching, reproof, correction, training in righteousness, not one jot or tittle disappears, yet the Lord has considered such situations to be suitable in their times and places.
But then, the church was not universally agreed until late 300's on the final Table of Contents for the New Testament, so perhaps lessons for today are rather limited, unless you are in an overseas situation where the Word is coming to new regions?