A. The Old Testament Text
For the Old Testament, the two textual traditions that the Church has preserved are that of the Greek Septuagint and the Syriac Peshitta. The Latin Vulgate played an important role in the pre-schism western Church, and so it too is a translation is worthy of consultation. The Orthodox Church is of course well aware of the fact that most of the canonical Old Testament books were written in Hebrew and Aramaic (the Deuterocanonical books having mostly been written in Greek), however, the Hebrew text that we have today is not the same text that existed during the Old Testament period or at the time of Christ. This is seen in the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as in the Septuagint, Peshitta, and Latin Vulgate -- which were all translated from the Hebrew, and yet reflect a Hebrew original that often differs from that which we have today.
The Hebrew Text that has served as the basis for most translations of the Old Testament into English is based almost entirely on the Leningrad Codex, which dates from 1008 A.D. In comparison to the textual evidence that we have for the New Testament Greek text, this is a very late manuscript. It is an example of the Masoretic recension, which is usually dated to have been shaped between the 6th and 10th centuries A.D. This is well after the Septuagint was translated (3rd century before Christ), the Peshitta (1st and 2nd Centuries A.D.), or the Vulgate (4th Century A.D.). According to Christian tradition, the non-Christian Jews began making changes in the Old Testament text to undercut the Christian use of Old Testament prophecies concerning the coming of Christ. In any case, the Hebrew Text that we now have was preserved outside the Church. The Septuagint and Peshitta texts were preserved within the Church, and so the Church believes that the text of the Old Testament was been authoritatively preserved in these textual traditions.
Furthermore, it is clear that the text that Christ and the Apostles used matches the Septuagint rather than the Masoretic text. For example, in Acts 7:43, the Protomartyr Stephen quotes from the book of Amos as follows:
Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them (KJV).
But when you look this quote up in Amos 5:26 in most translations, you will find that the quotation doesnt match:
You also carried Sikkuth your king and Chiun, your idols, the star of your gods, which you made for yourselves. (NKJV).
Compare the above with the Latin Vulgate:
But you carried a tabernacle for your Moloch, and the image of your idols, the star of your god, which you made to yourselves (Douay-Rheims translation of the Vulgate).
And then with the Septuagint:
Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Raephan, the images of them which y made for yourselves (Sir Lancelot Brenton translation of the Septuagint).
Also, there are several sections of the Hebrew text that are simply unreadable without keeping one eye on the Hebrew text and one eye on the Septuagint. For example, if you look at the footnotes for the book of Habakkuk in the NRSV there are 5 places in which it states that the Hebrew text is uncertain, and 3 times in which they state that they are simply translating from the Septuagint, Peshitta, and/or the Vulgate, because the Hebrew text is so unclear.
Another example of a clearly corrupt reading in the Masoretic text is 1st Samuel 14:41, which reads as follows:
Therefore Saul said unto the LORD God of Israel, "Give Thummim". And Saul and Jonathan were taken: but the people escaped.
Several modern translations correct this clearly erroneous text based on the Septuagint and Vulgate to read:
Therefore Saul said, "O LORD God of Israel, why have you not answered your servant this day? If this guilt is in me or in Jonathan my son, O LORD, God of Israel, give Urim. But if this guilt is in your people Israel, give Thummim." And Jonathan and Saul were taken, but the people escaped.
The Masoretic text simply makes no sense, and obviously at some point a scribe skipped and entire line or two of the text. This is obvious because of the reference to the Urim and Thummim, which were two objects used by the priest of the Old Testament for discerning the will of God on matters such as that described in 1st Samuel 14.
Another example is the text quoted in Hebrews 1:6 (And let all the angels of God worship him) which is nowhere to be found in the Masoretic text, but is found in both the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls Hebrew text in Deuteronomy 32:43.
It should be pointed out that the Hebrew text should not be ignored entirely. Particularly when the Septuagint and the Hebrew text are in agreement, we will better understand the Septuagint as a translation if we compare it with the Hebrew text that it is clearly a translation of. It is extremely helpful to understand the range of meaning of the original Hebrew text (when we clearly have it). For example, it is helpful to know that Hebrew does not have a past or future tense, but only a perfect and imperfect tense
and so just because an English translation is clearly in either past, present, or future tense, it does not necessarily mean that this is what is implied by the Hebrew original. One often encounters the use of the prophetic perfect, where a prophecy of something that has not yet come to pass is in the perfect tense, and so is often translated with the English past tense, e.g.
with His stripes, we were healed (Isaiah 53:5), when from the perspective of the prophet, he was speaking of something in the future.
There are at present only limited options available in terms of English translations of the Septuagint. There is the translation of Sir Lancelot Brenton, which is often awkward and wooden. For the Psalms there is the Psalter According to the Seventy, published by Holy Transfiguration Monastery. There are also various editions of the Old Testament readings that are used liturgically. The complete Orthodox Study Bible is due to be published around Pascha of 2007, and it will be a translation of the complete Septuagint in the style of the New King James Version.
There are also some translations based on the Latin Vulgate that are closer to the Septuagint text than are text based on the Masoretic Hebrew Text. The Douay-Rheims version is a translation of the complete text of the Vulgate, and the Coverdale Psalter, which is found in the older editions of the Book of Common Prayer is also translated from the Vulgate.