Introduction
Alfred Rahlfs
History of the Septuagint text
The Septuagint is the ancient Jewish translation of the Old Testament into Greek. The Pentateuch, the earliest and the fundamental part of the Old Testament Canon, was translated first of all, and, according to the Letter of Aristeas, this took place during the rule of Philadelphus (285–247 B. C.). The story is told that this translation was made in Alexandria by 70 — or to be more accurate 72 — Jewish scholars; hence it received the name of “Septuagint” (LXX). This title, though it originally applied only to the translation of the Pentateuch, was eventually transferred to the whole of the Old Testament. The translation of the Pentateuch was followed by that of the other books. The translation of these latter was evidently the work of a great number of different hands. This we know, in the first place, from the variations in rendering, which range from the most literal to the most free, and in the second place from the differences in the Greek style which led H. St. J. Thackeray (A Grammar of the O. T. in Greek Vol I [1909], pp. 12–16) to make classifications of the books and sections of books in the LXX. As the Prologue to the Book of Ecclesiasticus shows towards the end of the 2nd century B. C., there was in existence a Greek translation of the whole, or at least of the essential parts, of the O. T. There is no reason for us to doubt that the LXX text of that period was in general agreement with our present-day LXX text.
Still, it could only be accounted a matter of general agreement. As far as details were concerned, it may well be that several kinds of alterations have taken place. For the LXX went through an eventful history from the time of its origin up to the 4th century A. D., when our most ancient complete manuscripts were produced. From a date previous to the 4th century A. D. we only possess fragments, but the history of the LXX before that century cannot but have had a lasting influence upon our MSS.
2. The LXX was a Jewish work, and was at first held by the Jews in high esteem. According to the Letter of Aristeas, the translation of the Pentateuch was accorded official recognition by the Jewish community in Alexandria, and Jewish writers such as Philo and Josephus used it preferably, if not exclusively. The LXX proved of supreme importance in the work of the preservation and expansion of Judaism. The Jews who, in the dispersion, dwelt far from the land of their fathers, came to be less and less acquainted with Hebrew, yet the LXX caused them to remain continuously faithful to the Law and to other Sacred Scriptures, while it also enabled those who were not Jews to study these writings.
The LXX, in addition, paved the way for later Christian missions. For in the first days of Christianity the Old Testament was the Holy Scriptures κατ᾿ ἐξοχήν for the Christians, just as it was for the Jews, and the Christian missionaries were able to discover a ready point of contact wherever there had already spread a knowledge of the Old Testament. Thus it came about that the earliest Christian communities were formed to a large extent from Jews of the dispersion, while the LXX, being already everywhere wide-spread and well-known, was simply adopted by the Christians as the Church’s Bible.
3. The Jews became alienated from the LXX a short time after its adoption by the Christian Church. The following circumstances appear especially to have contributed to this:
(a) In the frequent disputations that took place between the Jews and the Christians, the latter often made quotations from the LXX, which the former could not regard as conclusive. These were, in part, concerned with inaccurate translations, of which a well-known example is the rendering of עלמה Is. VII. 14. by παρθένος, which has been ever-recurring in all polemical writings against the Jews. The Christians justifiably maintained that this rendering originated from the old Jewish translators themselves, whereas the Jews with equal justification rejected it as being inaccurate. The points at issue were, however, in part, a mere matter of Christian additions, introduced into the LXX merely by the naïve lack of discrimination shown by the early Christians, as was, for instance, the case with regard to Ps. XCV. 10. (Ps. XCVI. 10. in Hebrew), in which ὁ κύριος ἐβασίλευσεν was supplemented by ἀπὸ ξύλου. These words “From the Cross” were regarded by Justin Martyr as so evidently belonging to the original text of the Bible, that he was able, in all sincerity, to accuse the Jews of having maliciously expunged them.
(b) There is every likelihood that, towards the end of the first century A. D., the text and canon of the Old Testament were definitely fixed by the Jewish scholars in Palestine. The LXX, which was produced in an earlier and less rigidly regulated period, did not in many points conform to so strict a ruling. It included books and portions of books which did not belong to the Palestinian Canon, and which sometimes also assumed a different Hebrew text. As the rulings which at that time prevailed in Palestine, came to be accepted as determinative for the whole of the dispersion, the LXX naturally lost its former authority.
(c) Owing to the influence of Akiba, in the first thirty or so years of the 2nd century A. D., there became predominant a school of Rabbinic interpretation which laid emphasis upon every letter of the sacred text, and which drew the most far-fetched and often the most singular conclusions from the most unimportant of details. In this context we need only mention one instance of Akiba’s methods; and this only because we shall have cause to refer to it again later. He interpreted the accusative particle את appearing in Genesis I. 1. in front of השמים and הארץ as meaning “with”. Thence he inferred that God created “along with the heaven and the earth” other things as well, namely, with the heaven the sun, the moon, and the constellations, and with the earth trees, plants, and the Garden of Eden. It is quite evident that this type of interpretation, adhering firmly, as it does, to every single letter, could not rest satisfied with such a manifestly free translation as the Septuagint.
4. As a result, the Judaism of this period fashioned an entirely new Greek translation of the Old Testament. Aquila, a Greek proselyte and a disciple of Akiba, rendered every detail of the sacred text as precisely as possible into Greek, and he did not shrink from perpetrating the most appalling outrages to the whole essence of the Greek language.
In the very first verse of the Bible we are provided with a classical example of his translating. The LXX had rendered it into correct and good Greek by ἐν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν. This translation was, however, very far from being accurate enough for Aquila’s tastes. The etymology of the Hebrew ראשית did not find expression in ἀρχή; Aquila, however, aimed at providing a rendering of all Hebrew derivatives which should be accurate, even in regard to etymology. He therefore translated ראשית as a derivative of ראש by κεφάλαιον, being a derivative of κεφαλή. It did not matter that the Greek word κεφάλαιον did not mean “beginning” but “chief point” or “sum” etc. Neither was Aquila able to use the classical Greek word ἐποίησεν; for he used different renderings in Greek for different Hebrew words, and, consequently, ποιεῖν being to him the equivalent of עשה, he sought for another translation for ברא, and this he found in κτίζειν, a word already frequently used in the LXX to render ברא. The next word in the LXX was ὁ θεός = אלהים; Aquila omitted the article, his reason being that it was not there in the Hebrew text. Finally, there came in the LXX the words τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν; Aquila, in order to have a special Greek rendering even for את, wrote σὺν τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ σὺν τὴν γῆν. At this point he was plainly influenced by his teacher Akiba, who, as has been mentioned above, had taken את in this context as meaning “with”. All the same, in order to contradict previous inaccurate statements of the fact, it needs emphasising that Aquila does not in every case render את by σύν, but only on occasions when in the Hebrew text את is followed by the article; should, however, a Hebrew word have no article preceding it, as, for example, in the case of a status constructus, or of a proper name, then Aquila translates את by the Greek article.
I have put together other characteristic examples of Aquila’s art of translation in the Mitteilungen des Septuaginta-Unternehmens 1, p. 240 Note 2. There I have shown how Aquila has, whenever possible, rendered different derivatives of the same Hebrew root, even though entirely synonymous in meaning, by different derivatives of the same Greek root, as for example (1) אֹמֶר or אֵמֶר λόγος, but אִמְרָה λόγιον, (2) חַטָּאת ἁμαρτία, but חֵטְא ἁμάρτημα, (3) חֹק ἀκριβασμός, but חֻקָּה ἀκρίβεια, (4) יַחַד ἅμα, but יַחְדָּו ὁμοῦ, (5) יְשׁוּעָה or תְּשׁוּעָה σωτηρία, but יֵשַׁע σωτήριον, (6) כְּ ὡς, but כְּמוֹ ὁμοίως or ὅμοιος, (7) מִכְשׁוֹל σκάνδαλον, but מַכְשֵׁלָה σκανδαλισμός, (8) צְדָקָה δικαιοσύνη, but צֶדֶק δίκαιον, (9) קֵץ τέλος, but קָצָה ,קָצֶה ,קֵצֶה τέλεσμα or τελευταῖον, (10) רַע κακόν, but רָעָה κακία. Two principles appear, in these instances, to have played an especially prominent part in the choice of Greek equivalents: (1) the gender of the Hebrew words was reproduced in Greek; Greek masculine and neuter both corresponding to the Hebrew masculine (as in Nos 2, 3, 5, 8, 10 above). (2) A lengthier Hebrew word was rendered by a correspondingly long Greek word (as in Nos 1, 4, 6–9). The climax of the translator’s ingenuity is, however, reached in No. 4, where ἅμα and ὁμοῦ correspond completely with יחד and יחדו respectively, even with regard to the number of letters, and, moreover, ὁμοῦ ends with the same letter as יחדו (u = ו). — The extraordinary consistency with which he made these distinctions, deserves our genuine admiration. Aquila must have possessed not only an inflexible will, but also an incredible memory, as is demonstrated by the way in which he regularly provided a uniform rendering for each Hebrew word as it occurred. But before he began his translations, he may perhaps have drawn up a Hebrew-Greek glossary, in which he fixed, according to a complete system, the Greek translation for every Hebrew word.
Aquila’s translation of the Bible must on occasions have proved altogether incomprehensible to Non-Jews, and it is not to be wondered at that Jerome made fun of peculiarities such as σὺν τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ σὺν τὴν γῆν. The Jews, however, held this translation in highest esteem, and they came to use it for centuries, employing it even in their religious services. Indeed it was not until it was required of all Jewish communities throughout the length and breadth of the Byzantine Empire, that they should study the original Hebrew text, that Aquila’s translation lost its authority, and consequently there came a time when all that remained of it were a number of rather meagre fragments.
5. Soon after Aquila, and also in the course of the 2nd century A. D., two other Greek translations were produced, those of Theodotion and of Symmachus.
Theodotion did not provide an entirely new translation, but, taking the LXX as his basis, he corrected it according to the original text. I have dealt with two passages of his work in my essay “Über Theodotion-Lesarten im N. T. und Aquila-Lesarten bei Justin” (Zeitschrift f. d. neutest. Wissenschaft 20 [1921], pp. 182–199), in order to investigate whether the New Testament writers, as has been repeatedly suggested, used Theodotion’s translation, or rather that of an “original Theodotion”. As these two passages may be taken as typical of his method, I will make reference to them here. In Is. XXV. 8. the LXX had rendered בלע המות לנצח by κατέπιεν ὁ θάνατος ἰσχύσας. Theodotion took over κατέπιεν ὁ θάνατος without change, and merely replaced the all too inaccurate LXX translation of לנצח by εἰς νίκος. In Zech. XII. 10. the LXX had rendered והבימו אלי את אשר דקרו by καὶ ἐπιβλέψονται πρός με ἀνθ᾿ ὧν κατωρχήσαντο; Theodotion retained καὶ ἐπιβλέψονται πρός με, but replaced ἀνθ᾿ ὧν κατωρχήσαντο, which was supported by another Hebrew text (רקדו instead of דקרו) by ὃν ἐξεκέντησαν. As to εἰς νίκος in the first passage, 1 Cor. XV. 54. appears to be in harmony with Theodotion and also John XIX. 37. with ὃν ἐξεκέντησαν in the 2nd passage. As I have pointed out, this conformity will not, however, justify the conclusion that there had existed an original Theodotion older than Paul and John.
Symmachus provided an entirely new translation of the O. T. In common with all later translators he kept closely to the Hebrew text. He was, however, anxious to make his translation good Greek, and this is illustrated, among other instances, by his preference for participial constructions, by which he turned the Hebrew main clauses into subordinate clauses, as, for example, in 1 Kings II. 46 – III. 1. והממלכה נכונה ביד שלמה ויתחתן שלמה וגו׳ τῆς δὲ βασιλείας ἑδρασθείσης ἐν χειρὶ Σαλωμων ἐπιγαμίαν ἐποιήσατο Σαλωμων κτλ.
Some further translations were made of single books of the O. T. Of these later translations only fragments are preserved, and that practically exclusively through the agency of Origen’s Hexapla, which we must now consider.
6. All this painstaking work upon the text of the O. T. has had a powerful influence upon the Christian Church, and particularly so, subsequent to the foundation of the Christian school in Alexandria. The Christian additions were now removed from the text of the Bible. Our oldest Greek Manuscripts, B, S, and A, had already dispensed with the addition of ἀπὸ ξύλου to Ps. XCV. 10, an addition which is still preserved only in the Coptic and Latin transmissions.
But, above all, Origen, the greatest scholar of the Alexandrian School, had devoted himself to the most intensive study imaginable of the O. T. text. In his famous and voluminous work, the Hexapla, which he produced in Palestine about the 4th decade of the 3rd century A. D., he placed side by side in 6 parallel columns the original O. T. in Hebrew characters, and in Greek transcription, together with the 4 Greek translations. It is clear from the very arrangement of the Hexapla that to him, being a scholar, not the LXX, but the original text was ultimately the primary authority, for he put the original text first, and then had next to it the translations of Aquila and of Symmachus, since they furnished the most accurate renderings of the original text. The LXX followed next, and then Theodotion as a revised version of it. The same method is discernible in the way in which Origen adapted the LXX to bring it into line with the original text. In order to indicate matter in the LXX, which did not appear in the original text, he employed obelisks (−, ⨪, ÷), symbols that were used in textual criticism by the Alexandrian Philologists, and especially in dealing with Homer, in order to brand a passage as spurious. Origen also made use of the obelisk in this same sense, for he declares in his commentary on Matthew (Opera ed. Delarue III 672) that he has marked with an obelisk those words which were not in the Hebrew, since “he did not dare to erase them entirely”. This is an obvious indication that he would have expunged them completely, had he been willing to be absolutely consistent. Conversely, Origen, as he himself says in the same passage, added “from out of the other editions (i. e. translations) in agreement with the Hebrew” whatever was missing from the LXX, characterising it with an asterisk (※), a symbol which he likewise borrowed from Alexandrian philology. (cf. Field, Origenis Hexaplorum quae supersunt I, p. LII f.) But, besides these, in many passages Origen, without any indication, made further alterations to the LXX after the pattern of the original text and the later translations that were in agreement with it. Above all, he corrected in this way the forms of proper names, for which he had had an especial interest from an early date. He also made corrections in the LXX word order, in so far as it showed any important departure from the Hebrew order; this latter alteration had already, as a matter of fact, been necessitated, since he intended that words that were on the same line of each of the 6 columns, should correspond one with another, while every line contained, however, on the average only about 1–2 words in both the Hebrew columns, and 2–3 words in the four Greek columns.
Origen’s Hexapla was designed only for the use of scholars. He intended, as he himself said in his letter to Julius Africanus, that it should serve, in particular, as armour for the Christian controversialist in his conflict with the Jews, who were continuously invoking their Hebrew O. T., and pouring ridicule upon their opponents’ manoeuvres with the LXX. The object of the Hexapla was thus to enable the Christians to defeat the Jews with their own weapons and win their respect.
On the other hand, however, where it was a matter using the Old Testament in church, it was Origen’s wish that the Church should retain the traditional LXX text. To justify this he quoted the saying, “Remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set”. It happened also that the Hexapla and the Tetrapla (with the two Hebrew columns omitted) were prevented by their gigantic size from gaining any wider circulation, and hence they exercised, for the time being, no effective influence upon the formation of the Bible text.
7. Not long after Origen, and presumably during the last quarter of the 3rd century A. D., a similar revision of the LXX was made by the presbyter Lucian, who died a martyr’s death on Jan. 7th, 312, and who was the founder of the exegetical school at Antioch. Sometimes Lucian’s revision, in a similar way to that of Origen, followed the original text and the later translations. Lucian, however, very frequently worked with the greatest freedom upon the LXX, and from all sorts of grammatical and stylistic views. For instance, acting under the influence of the atticising movement of the time, he replaced the hellenistic forms of the LXX such as ἐλάβοσαν, εἶπαν, τὸ ἔλεος by the attic ἔλαβον, εἶπον, ὁ ἔλεος.
In contrast to Origen, whose LXX recension sought merely to server a scholarly and scientific purpose, Lucian apparently designed his recension for practical ends from the outset; and, indeed, from all appearances, his rendering soon received wide circulation. In effecting this, an important part was played by the leading theologians and clergy of the Antiochene exegetical school. Through them Lucian’s recension reached Constantinople, the capital of the Roman Empire in the East, and from there it could readily secure a wider circulation. According to the wellkown statement of Jerome, this version was predominant in the whole area from Antioch to Constantinople by 400 A. D. As regards Psalter and New Testament alike, the Lucian text managed in time to supersede all other text-forms.
8. The success of the Antiochene School, however, if my view be correct, had its influence upon Palestine, and evoked similar endeavours which are most probably time to be deemed reactions against Antioch at the same. In Palestine, at the beginning of the 4th century A. D., Pamphilus, who died a martyr’s death in 309, founder of a theological school and of a famous library in Caesarea and also an enthusiastic admirer of Origen, dug out the latter’s LXX text and in collaboration with his pupil, Eusebius, the celebrated Church Historian, published it in separate form. All this was presumably done consciously opposing Antioch, intending to create general acceptance for this text. By this means Origen’s LXX text was for the first time given a wider circulation, having hitherto lain buried in the disproportionately bulky volumes of the Hexapla and the Tetrapla. It was predominant, according to Jerome, in Palestine at about 400 A. D.
9. Jerome mentions yet a third recension. This is to be traced back to a certain Hesychius, about whom we know little, and it prevailed in Egypt at about 400 A. D. It had been presumably in existence by that time for about a century. No conclusive information is yet to be had with regard to this third recension.
10. Origen’s text is indicated by O, that of Lucian by L, another somewhat later recension, which is to be found in the big Catena in XVI prophetas, by C.
*Henry Barclay Swete Introduction is in preparation
Here is the book An introduction to the Old Testament in Greek
Here is the source ccel