TRANSLATION AND THE SEPTUAGINT

The word Septuagint comes from the Latin word for seventy and is often abbreviated with the Roman numerals LXX.

The name reflects the ancient story that a group of Jewish elders translated the Law for the royal library in Alexandria.

In careful historical usage, “Septuagint” may refer narrowly to the oldest Greek translation of the Pentateuch or more broadly to the ancient Greek Jewish Scriptures as a collection.

Readers should notice which meaning an author intends, because the translation history of the Pentateuch differs from that of later books.

The Letter of Aristeas gives the classic account of the translation of the Law. It describes King Ptolemy requesting a Greek Torah for the library of Alexandria and Jewish elders completing the work in harmony.

The work contains apologetic, literary, and legendary features. It should not be read as a modern eyewitness report in every detail.

It nevertheless witnesses to Jewish pride in the Torah, the importance of Alexandria, and the conviction that Greek translation could faithfully communicate the Law.

Later Jewish and Christian traditions expanded the story, sometimes emphasizing miraculous agreement among the translators.

Large Jewish communities lived outside Judea, especially in Egypt and other parts of the Mediterranean world. Many used Greek as their ordinary language.

Translation allowed Jews to hear, study, teach, and defend Scripture in the language of their communities.

The Septuagint also introduced biblical monotheism, law, wisdom, creation, and sacred history to non-Jewish readers capable of reading Greek.

Translation was therefore an act of Jewish religious life, education, and cultural survival—not a Christian alteration of Jewish Scripture.

The Greek Pentateuch is generally associated with the third century BC. Other books were translated later, and their dates remain debated.

Translation styles differ considerably. Some render Hebrew closely, while others use freer Greek, explanatory wording, harmonization, or literary adaptation.

Books such as Wisdom and Second Machabees were composed in Greek. Ecclesiasticus was translated into Greek by the author’s grandson, whose prologue openly discusses the difficulty of translation.

There was no single moment when every Jewish community received one identical bound Greek Bible.

Languages do not match word for word. Translators must decide how grammar, idiom, ambiguity, poetry, names, and cultural concepts should be carried into another language.

A close translation may preserve structure while sounding unusual. A freer translation may communicate meaning clearly while adding interpretation.

The Septuagint translators sometimes selected Greek terms that later became central to Christian vocabulary. Their choices were Jewish interpretations made before the Church.

Every translation deserves respect and critical study rather than the assumption that literal wording is always more faithful.

The medieval Masoretic Text is the principal complete Hebrew tradition behind most modern Old Testament translations. It preserves extraordinarily careful Jewish textual transmission.

The Septuagint sometimes differs from the Masoretic Text in wording, order, length, or arrangement. Some differences arise from translation technique or interpretation.

Other differences may reflect a Hebrew source unlike the later Masoretic form. The Dead Sea Scrolls confirm that several Hebrew textual forms circulated during the Second Temple period.

This evidence prevents simplistic claims that every difference is either Christian corruption or proof that the Greek is always earlier and superior.

The Greek form of Jeremias is shorter and arranged differently from the Masoretic form. Dead Sea evidence supports the existence of more than one ancient edition.

The Greek and Hebrew traditions of Esther and Daniel differ in significant ways. Catholic Bibles receive Greek additions to these books as inspired Scripture.

Some books survive in more than one Greek form. Textual criticism must identify which Greek edition or revision a manuscript represents.

These complexities belong to the providential human history of Scripture’s transmission and do not negate inspiration.

New Testament authors often quote Old Testament passages in wording close to the Septuagint. At other times they follow a Hebrew form, combine texts, paraphrase, or adapt a passage according to inspired argument.

The quotation “A virgin shall conceive” in Isaias, used in Matthew’s infancy narrative, reflects the Greek term parthenos.

Hebrews makes extensive use of Greek scriptural wording. Acts, St. Paul’s letters, and other books also show deep familiarity with the Septuagint.

The apostles did not follow a mechanical rule requiring one textual form in every quotation. Their inspired use reveals the unity and fulfillment of Scripture in Christ.

The Septuagint commonly translated the divine title with Kyrios, “Lord.” New Testament confession of Jesus as Lord therefore carries profound scriptural force.

Christos, “anointed,” translates the Hebrew word from which “Messiah” comes. Ekklesia, used for the Church, appears in the Greek Old Testament for the assembly of God’s people.

Terms concerning covenant, glory, wisdom, righteousness, spirit, sacrifice, and salvation entered Christian proclamation through this scriptural language.

The Church’s Greek vocabulary was not borrowed from paganism alone. It had already been formed within Greek-speaking Judaism.

The Catholic Old Testament includes Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, First and Second Machabees, and Greek portions of Esther and Daniel.

These books are called deuterocanonical because their canonical reception was discussed in parts of Christian history, not because the Church regards them as second-class Scripture.

The ancient history of Jewish scriptural collections was complex. It should not be reduced to the claim that all Jews everywhere possessed one closed Hebrew canon before Christ.

The Church received the Old Testament through apostolic Tradition and discerned its canon within ecclesial worship and teaching.

The Septuagint was extremely important, especially among Greek-speaking Christians. It should not be claimed that every Christian community used one identical Greek collection and no other textual source.

Early writers knew textual differences. Origen constructed the Hexapla to compare Hebrew and several Greek versions.

St. Jerome emphasized Hebrew study while also working within the Church’s Greek and Latin inheritance.

The history shows interaction among Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Syriac, and other textual traditions rather than one simple line of transmission.

As Jewish and Christian interpretation developed along distinct paths, new Greek translations and revisions appeared.

Aquila produced a very close Greek rendering of Hebrew. Symmachus and Theodotion represent other important Greek forms or revision traditions.

Theodotion’s version of Daniel became widely used among Christians in place of the older Greek form.

These translations demonstrate continued Jewish engagement with Greek Scripture after Christianity began.

Greek-speaking Fathers preached, prayed, and reasoned from Septuagintal Scripture. Its vocabulary shaped Christology, Trinitarian theology, ecclesiology, and liturgy.

Eastern Christian traditions continue to give the Septuagint an especially prominent place.

The Latin West also received much Septuagintal influence through Old Latin translations, the New Testament, liturgy, and patristic commentary.

Catholic respect for the Septuagint does not require contempt for the Hebrew Masoretic tradition. Both are indispensable witnesses to the Old Testament’s textual history.

Textual differences should be examined calmly through manuscripts, ancient translations, quotations, literary context, and the history of each book.

No isolated variant should be used to manufacture a crisis of faith. Inspiration pertains to the sacred books God entrusted to the Church through real human transmission.

Modern Catholic translations may use Hebrew as a primary base while consulting the Septuagint, Dead Sea Scrolls, Vulgate, and other ancient witnesses.

The Church does not fear textual scholarship because truth cannot contradict the God who inspired Scripture.

• Do not say the entire Septuagint was translated at one time by seventy identical translators.
• Do not describe it as a Christian translation of the Old Testament.
• Do not assume every Greek difference is a translator’s mistake.
• Do not assume the Masoretic Text was the only Hebrew form circulating before Christ.
• Do not claim every New Testament quotation follows the Septuagint exactly.
• Do not call deuterocanonical books second-class Scripture.
• Do not oppose Hebrew and Greek witnesses as enemies.

• Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims: Isaias 7; Daniel; Esther; Ecclesiasticus, including the Greek prologue; Wisdom; First and Second Machabees; Matthew 1; Acts 2 and 7–15; Romans 3–11; Hebrews 1–10.
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 101–141, especially 120.
• Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum, 11–16 and 21–26.
• Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible.
• The Letter of Aristeas, Dead Sea Scrolls, Septuagint manuscripts, Masoretic manuscripts, and Origen’s Hexaplaric evidence.
• Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible.
• Natalio Fernández Marcos, The Septuagint in Context.
• Karen H. Jobes and Moisés Silva, Invitation to the Septuagint.
• Timothy Michael Law, When God Spoke Greek.