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Separate from the article on the “Seventy” (from Luke 10:1-17) included in the bulleted list earlier, another section lists all 70 “sent ones” according to Orthodox tradition, the date on the church calendar in which each is commemorated, and references in the New Testament which refer to these early missionary-apostles. The Septuagint has been translated a few times into English, the first one (though excluding the Apocrypha) being The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Covenant of Charles Thomson in 1808; his translation was later revised and enlarged by C. A. Muses in 1954 under the title The Septuagint Bible. The Thomson's Translation of the Old Covenant is a direct translation of the Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament into English, rare for its time. The work took 19 years to complete and was originally published in 1808.
Throughout the text are notes at the bottom which explain key points in the verses based upon the consensus of leading Orthodox Bible scholars. These are easy to understand, and, in reading them one can better understand the doctrines and practices of the Orthodox Church --- which I do recommend for anyone interested in learning more about the Orthodox faith.The Septuagint was produced in the Helleno-Roman cultural world, that is the period roughly from Alexander the Great’s conquests (c325 B.C.) to the establishment of the Roman Empire. The lingua franca of that world was the κοινη διαλεκτος, (common) Greek. Then as now many more Jews lived outside the Holy Land than lived within it, and the great majority of them did not speak Hebrew. There arose, therefore, a need for a version of the Hebrew Bible in Greek. The Septuagint was that version. It was written by Greek-speaking Jews of the Judaeo-Greek Diaspora, employing, not, as has sometimes been said, a separate Semiticform ofGreek, but the common κοινη with a specialised vocabulary, including idioms, and a style that reflected its own distinctive interests. For an apt comparison one might perhaps think of the legal or journalistic English of our own day. What is the Septuagint? Hershal Shanks, 4QSama - The Difficult Life of a Dead Sea Scroll, Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol 33 No 3, May/June 2007, pp66-70. However, Emanuel Tov [3] summarizes the contents of the Dead Sea Scrolls biblical manuscripts with the following percentage breakdown: The Ancient Faith Edition (released 2019) contains the identical content you know and love from the previous, most current release of the Orthodox Study Bible, including the same commentaries, notes, supplemental articles, and full-color icons and maps. H. Orlinsky. "The Septuagint and its Hebrew Text." In: The Cambridge History of Judaism: Vol. II, The Hellenistic Age. Eds. W. Davies and L. Finkelstein. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the mid twentieth century many examples have been recovered of the Old Testament in Hebrew from the time of Christ and the Holy Apostles and earlier. Scholarship during the past half century based upon these Dead Sea discoveries has revealed a close agreement between the LXX and pre-Masoretic Hebrew texts. In a review of some of this scholarship, Hershal Shanks [2] notes that ”…many Hebrew texts [are available] that were the base text for Septuagintal translations…”. Further he notes that what ”…texts like 4QSama show is that the Septuagintal translations are really quite reliable” and ”…gives new authority to the Greek translations against the Masoretic text”. Quoting Frank Moore Cross (a co-author of the book under review), Hershal continues ”We could scarcely hope to find closer agreement between the Old Greek [Septuagintal] tradition and 4QSama than actually is found in our fragments”. The first ever full-length Orthodox Study Bible in English presents the Bible of the early church and the church of the early Bible. It is the fruit of over twenty years of labor by many of the best Orthodox Christian theologians of our time. This long-awaited single volume brings together an original translation of the Old Testament from the Septuagint with the classic Orthodox Study Bible: New Testament and Psalms. Here, by the grace of God, you will find the living water of His Word with comprehensive study guides and teachings that bring to our modern world the mind of the ancient Christian Church. The Septuagint also clearly attests to the developing concept of the expected Messiah in the Hellenistic period. We should remember that our Saviour quoted from the Psalms and applied them to Himself, e.g. Psalm 90 : ‘He will give His angels charge over you to keep You in all Your ways’: and Psalm 109 : ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool.’ Here is another example where the Greek gospels present Jesus as quoting the Septuagint. In Mark 7:6–7, Jesus quotes the Septuagint of Isaiah 29:13 when he says, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men’. ” Israel Adam Shamir. Translating the Bible into Hebrew. A Talk at Rhodes Conference, 8-12 October 2009. The notes to the New Testament are on the whole straightforward and some readers will find them a help in understanding many of the words and ideas in the text. Most of them though are dull and many of them jejune in the extreme. As a friend put it to me, they remind one of the notes to some school editions of Shakespeare. ‘King Lear plans to divide his kingdom between his daughters’, or ‘Hamlet wonders if it would be a good idea to commit suicide.’ In this book we find similar notes all too often, such as that on Luke 16:11: ‘True riches signify spiritual treasures’, or that on Luke 16:25 ‘This conversation is not between God and the rich man, but between Abraham and the rich man.’ The level is that of a not very bright Sunday School class. Critical questions are avoided by simply not being discussed at all. This is unsatisfactory, since many readers will be seeking help on just these questions. What should have been provided is an article setting out clearly how an Orthodox reader of the Bible should approach these problems. The solution adopted here is a further instance of what I call the attitude of the double-headed Byzantine ostrich." [2]
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Bruce M Metzger, “ The RSV-Ecumenical Edition,” Theology Today, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Oct. 1977), p. 316, Sept. 1, 2006 < http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/oct1977/v34-3-criticscorner4.htm> It is true that a Greek Orthodox representative was added to the translation committee, but the Jewish scholar was part of the translation when it was actually being done, and the Greek Orthodox representative was added after the real work of the translation was already completed. Septuaginta-Unternehmens Institute in Gottingen, Germany. The Septuaginta-Unternehmen is a special research institute that was founded in 1908 in Göttingen under the auspices of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences. Its purpose was to conduct sound scientific investigation into the Septuagint and to trace the history of evolution of the Septuagint text, on the basis of the mass of manuscript data, and ultimately to establish a text which could be claimed to be for all intents and purposes identical with the Septuagint in its pristine form, a proto-Septuagint.( 1) The institute made Göttingen the nerve centre of Septuagint studies. The first director of the Institute, Alfred Rahlfs, published Septuaginta, 2 volume edition in 1935 (Septuagint in Greek). Rahlf's critical edition of the Septuagint for the book of Genesis rests on a foundation of some 140 manuscripts (nine pre-dating the fourth century CE), 10 daughter-versions, plus biblical citations in Greek and Latin literature. However, his two-volume, semi-critical edition Septuaginta has been supplanted by the fully critical Göttingen Septuaginta Vetus Testamentum Graecum, in 23 volumes covering approximately two-thirds of the LXX text, along with a supplementary series. There were some things I didn't like about it. For instance, the fact that it used the New King James Version for the New Testament, rather than a more accurate translation.
First let me say that I'm writing this review to encourage Protestants to read the (deuterocanonical) books of the Bible which are typically only found in Catholic or Orthodox Bibles. I review the books for my reactions to them, which is irreverent in a sense, but I do hope my recommendations have a cumulative effect of drawing people to these wonderful narratives. As I mentioned above, the Orthodox Study Bible is suitable not only for Orthodox Christians, but also for anyone interested in the history of the Early Church. I often consider study Bibles a good “first step” in research. A more succinct understanding can be gained from the notes in a study Bible before going on to more detailed resources. If you regularly consult the very popular Ancient Christian Commentary Series, the OSB could function as a first step for research before diving into the ACCS. The KJV Septuagint - translated from the Septuagint edition published by the Orthodox Church of Greece's Apostoliki Diakonia, using the King James Version as a template. Scheduled to be published by St. Innocent Press in 2013, this will be the only English translation to date using an approved ecclesiastical text of the Septuagint. Septuaginta. Id est Vetus Testamentum Graece iuxta LXX Interpretes. Stuttgart: Wurttembergische Bibelanstalt, 1935 The Holy Fathers teach that the Father made heaven and earth through the Son and in the Holy Spirit. Thus, the Holy Trinity made heaven and earth, and the Church sings, “We glorify the Father, we exalt the Son, and we worship the Holy Spirit—the indivisible Trinity who exists as One—the Light and Lights, the Life and Lives, who grants light and life to the ends of the world” (CanonAnd).God the Father spoke to His Word and Only-begotten Son, through whom He made the light (AthanG). Since the Son, too, is Lord, He is coequal with the Father, and is His Coworker in making heaven and earth. The earliest writer who gives an account of the Septuagint version is Aristobulus, a Jewish author who lived at the commencement of the second century B.C. In his Letter of Aristeas, he explains that the version of "the Law into Greek" was completed under the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and that Demetrius Phalerus had been employed about it. Since it is documented that Demetrius Phalerus died at the beginning of the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, it has been reasonably inferred that Aristobulus was a witness that the work of translation had been commenced under Ptolemy Soter. Prof. Dr. Carsten Peter Thiede. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish Origins of Christianity. Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. 256 pp. ISBN 9781403961433 ( See discussion of Septuagint)
The medieval Hebrew text became the basis of virtually all vernacular Old Testament translation, especially in English, even though it distorted the relationship between the Old Testament and the New. Before his death in 1536, William Tyndale had translated about half of the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew Masoretic text rather than the Septuagint Greek or the Vulgate Latin of Christendom. In 1535 Miles Coverdale produced the first complete English Bible, also from the Hebrew. The books that did not form part of the Hebrew Bible were not at first excluded by the English Reformers from the canon, but they were placed together at the end of the Old Testament as the so-called Apocrypha. Finally they were dropped altogether, as one can see by inspecting many modern English Bibles that emanate from various Protestant sources. This development was unfortunate: it gravely weakened the early Church’s attitude of Vetus Testamentum in Novo Receptum, and led to the present anomaly of modern biblical criticism conducted outside of the Church. Holy Scripture cannot be independent of the Church that canonizes it and says what it is, and Orthodox Christians should read and study Scripture according to the mind and understanding of the Church. But if there is not very clear correspondence between the text of the Old Testament and those New Testament quotations from it made by our Saviour Himself, St Paul, the Evangelists and Apostles, the vital salvific link between the Old Testament and the New is fundamentally obscured.The earliest extant version of the Old Testament is the translation executed in Alexandria in the third century before the Christian era; this version became known as the Septuagint and more recently, the Alexandrian version. If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. But this Bible is not just for Orthodox Christians. Countless others will find the Orthodox Study Bible an invaluable roadmap for their spiritual journey. Those exploring Christianity for the first time and those Christians waiting to discover their own spiritual roots will see this Bible as a source of inspiration and challenge. I have mixed feelings about this Bible, which deeply saddens me. I really wanted to like this Bible. But like others I have spoken to, they too are a bit disappointed with this Bible. The Orthodox Study Bible started out as the New Testament and Psalms, and with massive funding they started a project to publish the Old Testament with the New Testament. So it is nice to have the full Bible in one volume, especially when so many people publish just the New Testament for the price of a full Bible. The Orthodox (and Catholic) Bible also has an extra section of Daniel including the story of Susanna and the Elders. This didn't hit me as hard, but it was fine.
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