Choosing the Septuagint?

Dok Bantis said:

Hello everyone.

I’ve been a Christian for a long time, but I’m sorry to admit that I backslid pretty terribly. I ended up traveling through some very dark places. Very dark places. But of course I reached the point at which I could no longer deny the truth of God. So, like the prodigal, I’ve returned, though much worse for wear. I already know that God exists and I believe that I’ve felt his hand in my life and I believe that he has called my stiff-necked self back to him and what he wants me to be.

I’m returning to scripture and am trying to do it in the best way. I’ve already read the entire Bible, but I need to do it again with these new eyes. Thus begins my present quest.

(Be warned; this might be long and boring.)

1. I decided to begin with the Old Testament. Since it seemed to me that the Jews are the authorities on their own scriptures, I intended to begin by reading an Orthodox translation of the Tanakh (the Jewish word for their scriptures – what we call the Old Testament). So I began looking at the very few translations available.

But, I soon encountered what seemed to me some curious things. I knew that the New Testament authors sometimes quoted the Hebrew scriptures, and that their quotes don’t always match up with the Hebrew scriptures as I’ve encountered them.

This caused me to encounter the idea of the Septuagint. If I’m understanding things correctly, the first five books of Moses (the Torah) were translated into Greek by over seventy Jewish scholars as the first Septuagint. This Greek-language Torah was in use by first century Jews, and was definitely in use by the Apostles. This is proven by the fact that they quoted from the Septuagint, as contained within the New Testament. Sometime later, the rest of the Old Testament was also translated into Greek and joined with the earlier translation of the Torah.

The Septuagint is therefore extremely valuable document in that it demonstrates the most widely accepted meaning of the Hebrew text extant during the first century A.D. By translating the Hebrew into Greek, these orthodox Jewish translators had to convey their own accepted meaning of the text into another language. This is an amazing thing to have!

Changes.

• We know that, in order to exclude those Jews who had accepted Christ and his Gospel, the first century Jews changed their own liturgy to include prayers which denied Christ. Therefore, early Jewish believers could not participate in the standard liturgy. Why is this point important? Because it demonstrates the fact that the Jews were willing to make changes to sacred texts in order to exclude believers.
• We also know that the written Hebrew language did not originally include vowels. This means that some words within the Tanakh can have different meanings depending on their pronunciation. When vowels were later added (via the Masoretic text), decisions were made regarding which pronunciation each word should have. Based on their willingness to change their own liturgy in order to fend off the small but growing group of believers, we might also at this point be willing to believe that the Jews might change the pronunciation of some words in order to stop the believers from using the Tanakh as prooftext.

Do we have proof that such changes were made? I think so. For two reasons:

1. We know that some OT quotations found in the NT do not match the Masoretic text. This seems to indicate to me that changes were made AFTER the Septuagint was produced.

2. We know that the Septuagint differs from the Masoretic text, which follows from the first point.

This immediately changed my mind about using a Jewish translation of the Tanakh. It seemed to me that the currently orthodox Jewish translation of the Tanakh/Old Testament has been modified from the time of Christ and the Apostles and the early church.

I realize that this makes me sound like some kind of conspiracy theorist, blaming the Jews for messing with the OT. But I don’t think this is even a mildly surprising idea. I certainly don’t mean it to denigrate the Jews. In the first century A.D., the Jewish believers must have been viewed as a competing Jewish sect, just as the Pharisees and Sadducees were competing sects within Judaism.

In addition, it seems to me the Judaism which emerged from the ashes of the Second Temple was somewhat of a new faith, in at least some ways. This was the birth of Rabbinical Judaism and the faith changed in order to survive. This may be a controversial statement, but I see both Rabbinical Judaism and Christianity as children of Biblical Judaism.

So that’s a very long story I’ve just told. I’ve told it so that others may see my reasoning and offer critiques as well as correction in the event I’ve gotten any facts wrong.

The conclusion I’ve reached as a result of the above reasoning is that I must use the Septuagint or a translation based upon the Septuagint in my own reading/studies.

Have I gotten anything wrong in my understanding or reasoning? Agreements and disagreements welcome!

Click to expand...

Dok Bantis said:

Hello everyone.

I’ve been a Christian for a long time, but I’m sorry to admit that I backslid pretty terribly. I ended up traveling through some very dark places. Very dark places. But of course I reached the point at which I could no longer deny the truth of God. So, like the prodigal, I’ve returned, though much worse for wear. I already know that God exists and I believe that I’ve felt his hand in my life and I believe that he has called my stiff-necked self back to him and what he wants me to be.

I’m returning to scripture and am trying to do it in the best way. I’ve already read the entire Bible, but I need to do it again with these new eyes. Thus begins my present quest.

(Be warned; this might be long and boring.)

1. I decided to begin with the Old Testament. Since it seemed to me that the Jews are the authorities on their own scriptures, I intended to begin by reading an Orthodox translation of the Tanakh (the Jewish word for their scriptures – what we call the Old Testament). So I began looking at the very few translations available.

But, I soon encountered what seemed to me some curious things. I knew that the New Testament authors sometimes quoted the Hebrew scriptures, and that their quotes don’t always match up with the Hebrew scriptures as I’ve encountered them.

This caused me to encounter the idea of the Septuagint. If I’m understanding things correctly, the first five books of Moses (the Torah) were translated into Greek by over seventy Jewish scholars as the first Septuagint. This Greek-language Torah was in use by first century Jews, and was definitely in use by the Apostles. This is proven by the fact that they quoted from the Septuagint, as contained within the New Testament. Sometime later, the rest of the Old Testament was also translated into Greek and joined with the earlier translation of the Torah.

The Septuagint is therefore extremely valuable document in that it demonstrates the most widely accepted meaning of the Hebrew text extant during the first century A.D. By translating the Hebrew into Greek, these orthodox Jewish translators had to convey their own accepted meaning of the text into another language. This is an amazing thing to have!

Changes.

• We know that, in order to exclude those Jews who had accepted Christ and his Gospel, the first century Jews changed their own liturgy to include prayers which denied Christ. Therefore, early Jewish believers could not participate in the standard liturgy. Why is this point important? Because it demonstrates the fact that the Jews were willing to make changes to sacred texts in order to exclude believers.
• We also know that the written Hebrew language did not originally include vowels. This means that some words within the Tanakh can have different meanings depending on their pronunciation. When vowels were later added (via the Masoretic text), decisions were made regarding which pronunciation each word should have. Based on their willingness to change their own liturgy in order to fend off the small but growing group of believers, we might also at this point be willing to believe that the Jews might change the pronunciation of some words in order to stop the believers from using the Tanakh as prooftext.

Do we have proof that such changes were made? I think so. For two reasons:

1. We know that some OT quotations found in the NT do not match the Masoretic text. This seems to indicate to me that changes were made AFTER the Septuagint was produced.

2. We know that the Septuagint differs from the Masoretic text, which follows from the first point.

This immediately changed my mind about using a Jewish translation of the Tanakh. It seemed to me that the currently orthodox Jewish translation of the Tanakh/Old Testament has been modified from the time of Christ and the Apostles and the early church.

I realize that this makes me sound like some kind of conspiracy theorist, blaming the Jews for messing with the OT. But I don’t think this is even a mildly surprising idea. I certainly don’t mean it to denigrate the Jews. In the first century A.D., the Jewish believers must have been viewed as a competing Jewish sect, just as the Pharisees and Sadducees were competing sects within Judaism.

In addition, it seems to me the Judaism which emerged from the ashes of the Second Temple was somewhat of a new faith, in at least some ways. This was the birth of Rabbinical Judaism and the faith changed in order to survive. This may be a controversial statement, but I see both Rabbinical Judaism and Christianity as children of Biblical Judaism.

So that’s a very long story I’ve just told. I’ve told it so that others may see my reasoning and offer critiques as well as correction in the event I’ve gotten any facts wrong.

The conclusion I’ve reached as a result of the above reasoning is that I must use the Septuagint or a translation based upon the Septuagint in my own reading/studies.

Have I gotten anything wrong in my understanding or reasoning? Agreements and disagreements welcome!

Click to expand...

Dok Bantis said:

Hello everyone.

I’ve been a Christian for a long time, but I’m sorry to admit that I backslid pretty terribly. I ended up traveling through some very dark places. Very dark places. But of course I reached the point at which I could no longer deny the truth of God. So, like the prodigal, I’ve returned, though much worse for wear. I already know that God exists and I believe that I’ve felt his hand in my life and I believe that he has called my stiff-necked self back to him and what he wants me to be.

I’m returning to scripture and am trying to do it in the best way. I’ve already read the entire Bible, but I need to do it again with these new eyes. Thus begins my present quest.

(Be warned; this might be long and boring.)

1. I decided to begin with the Old Testament. Since it seemed to me that the Jews are the authorities on their own scriptures, I intended to begin by reading an Orthodox translation of the Tanakh (the Jewish word for their scriptures – what we call the Old Testament). So I began looking at the very few translations available.

But, I soon encountered what seemed to me some curious things. I knew that the New Testament authors sometimes quoted the Hebrew scriptures, and that their quotes don’t always match up with the Hebrew scriptures as I’ve encountered them.

This caused me to encounter the idea of the Septuagint. If I’m understanding things correctly, the first five books of Moses (the Torah) were translated into Greek by over seventy Jewish scholars as the first Septuagint. This Greek-language Torah was in use by first century Jews, and was definitely in use by the Apostles. This is proven by the fact that they quoted from the Septuagint, as contained within the New Testament. Sometime later, the rest of the Old Testament was also translated into Greek and joined with the earlier translation of the Torah.

The Septuagint is therefore extremely valuable document in that it demonstrates the most widely accepted meaning of the Hebrew text extant during the first century A.D. By translating the Hebrew into Greek, these orthodox Jewish translators had to convey their own accepted meaning of the text into another language. This is an amazing thing to have!

Changes.

• We know that, in order to exclude those Jews who had accepted Christ and his Gospel, the first century Jews changed their own liturgy to include prayers which denied Christ. Therefore, early Jewish believers could not participate in the standard liturgy. Why is this point important? Because it demonstrates the fact that the Jews were willing to make changes to sacred texts in order to exclude believers.
• We also know that the written Hebrew language did not originally include vowels. This means that some words within the Tanakh can have different meanings depending on their pronunciation. When vowels were later added (via the Masoretic text), decisions were made regarding which pronunciation each word should have. Based on their willingness to change their own liturgy in order to fend off the small but growing group of believers, we might also at this point be willing to believe that the Jews might change the pronunciation of some words in order to stop the believers from using the Tanakh as prooftext.

Do we have proof that such changes were made? I think so. For two reasons:

1. We know that some OT quotations found in the NT do not match the Masoretic text. This seems to indicate to me that changes were made AFTER the Septuagint was produced.

2. We know that the Septuagint differs from the Masoretic text, which follows from the first point.

This immediately changed my mind about using a Jewish translation of the Tanakh. It seemed to me that the currently orthodox Jewish translation of the Tanakh/Old Testament has been modified from the time of Christ and the Apostles and the early church.

I realize that this makes me sound like some kind of conspiracy theorist, blaming the Jews for messing with the OT. But I don’t think this is even a mildly surprising idea. I certainly don’t mean it to denigrate the Jews. In the first century A.D., the Jewish believers must have been viewed as a competing Jewish sect, just as the Pharisees and Sadducees were competing sects within Judaism.

In addition, it seems to me the Judaism which emerged from the ashes of the Second Temple was somewhat of a new faith, in at least some ways. This was the birth of Rabbinical Judaism and the faith changed in order to survive. This may be a controversial statement, but I see both Rabbinical Judaism and Christianity as children of Biblical Judaism.

So that’s a very long story I’ve just told. I’ve told it so that others may see my reasoning and offer critiques as well as correction in the event I’ve gotten any facts wrong.

The conclusion I’ve reached as a result of the above reasoning is that I must use the Septuagint or a translation based upon the Septuagint in my own reading/studies.

Have I gotten anything wrong in my understanding or reasoning? Agreements and disagreements welcome!

Click to expand...

Dok Bantis said:

Now, I have to say that while I may not exactly "reject the MT out of hand," I must acknowledge that I reject any deference towards Jews as regards the determination of OT canon. I believe that the Eastern Orthodox Church and Catholic Church are likely more reliable in that regard - simply because of the anti-Christian agenda which we know to have been operating within Jewish circles. That is my firmly-held belief.

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Dok Bantis said:

Before I reply to your much appreciated comment, I feel that I must share with you all that I am of Jewish ancestry. I share this because I have seen too many accusations of antisemitism when it comes to topics like this. So when I criticize theological decisions made by Jews, I am not condemning Jews or pursuing conspiracy theories against Jews. They are my ancestors.

Click to expand...

Dok Bantis said:

No, I didn't think you were acccusing me of anything at all, and I apologize if I came across that way. I think I understand what you were saying, and I appreciate your input very much.

I am not aware of when the Jewish canon was finalized and didn't realize that it happened prior to the birth of Christ. Thank you for making me aware of that fact. I also don't believe that Christ spoke historical untruth and I certainly hope that I did not imply such. My own ignorance must be showing! This is why I'm discussing this with people more knowledgeable than I and why I welcome correction. Thank you again!

I am very interested in the Eastern Orthodox Church because of the facts in my initial post in this thread. I would love to learn more, but will need recommendations of reliable beginner's books to read.

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Dok Bantis said:

I have never heard this before. Which Jews "retain the full OT"?

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Dok Bantis said:

Thanks for that additional information. My guess is that, as the Ethiopian Jews need approval from the mainstream Rabbinical authorities (for emigration to Israel, etc.), they may be pushed into accepting the mainstream Jewish canon. But that's just my guess.

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