Christian use
See also:
Development of the Old Testament canon
The Early Christian Church used the Greek texts[43] since Greek was a lingua franca of the Roman Empire at the time, and the language of the Greco-Roman Church (Aramaic was the language of Syriac Christianity, which used the Targumim).
The relationship between the apostolic use of the
Old Testament, for example, the Septuagint and the now lost Hebrew texts (though to some degree and in some form carried on in Masoretic tradition) is complicated. The Septuagint seems to have been a major source for the
Apostles, but it is not the only one. St. Jerome offered, for example, Matt 2:15 and 2:23, John 19:37, John 7:38, 1 Cor. 2:9.
[44] as examples not found in the Septuagint, but in Hebrew texts. (Matt 2:23 is not present in current Masoretic tradition either, though according to St. Jerome it was in Hosea 11:1.)
The New Testament writers, when citing the Jewish scriptures, or when quoting Jesus doing so, freely used the Greek translation, implying that Jesus, his Apostles and their followers considered it reliable.
[3][24][45]
In the
Early Christian Church, the presumption that the Septuagint was translated by Jews before the era of Christ, and that the Septuagint at certain places gives itself more to a
christological interpretation than 2nd-century Hebrew texts was taken as evidence that "Jews" had changed the Hebrew text in a way that made them less christological. For example,
Irenaeus concerning
Isaiah 7:14: The Septuagint clearly writes of a
virgin (Greek
παρθένος,
bethulah in Hebrew) that shall conceive.,
[46] while the word
almah in the Hebrew text was, according to Irenaeus, at that time interpreted by
Theodotion and
Aquila (both
proselytes of the Jewish faith) as a
young woman that shall conceive. According to Irenaeus, the
Ebionites used this to claim that Joseph was the (biological) father of Jesus.
From Irenaeus' point of view that was pure heresy, facilitated by (late) anti-Christian alterations of the scripture in Hebrew, as evident by the older, pre-Christian, Septuagint.[47]
When
Jerome undertook the revision of the
Old Latin translations of the Septuagint, he checked the Septuagint against the Hebrew texts that were then available. He broke with church tradition and translated most of the
Old Testament of his
Vulgate from Hebrew rather than Greek. His choice was severely criticized by
Augustine, his contemporary;
[48] a flood of still less moderate criticism came from those who regarded Jerome as a forger. While on the one hand he argued for the superiority of the Hebrew texts in correcting the Septuagint on both philological and theological grounds, on the other, in the context of accusations of heresy against him, Jerome would acknowledge the Septuagint texts as well.
[49] With the passage of time, acceptance of Jerome's version gradually increased until it displaced the
Old Latin translations of the Septuagint.
[23]
The
Eastern Orthodox Church still prefers to use the LXX as the basis for translating the Old Testament into other languages. The Eastern Orthodox also use LXX untranslated where Greek is the liturgical language, e.g. in the
Orthodox Church of Constantinople, the
Church of Greece and the
Cypriot Orthodox Church. Critical translations of the
Old Testament, while using the
Masoretic Text as their basis, consult the Septuagint as well as other versions in an attempt to reconstruct the meaning of the Hebrew text whenever the latter is unclear, undeniably corrupt, or ambiguous.
[23] For example, the
New Jerusalem Bible Foreword says, "Only when this (the Masoretic Text) presents insuperable difficulties have emendations or other versions, such as the ... LXX, been used."
[50] The Translator's Preface to the
New International Version says: "The translators also consulted the more important early versions (including) the Septuagint ... Readings from these versions were occasionally followed where the
MT seemed doubtful ..."
[51]
Originally Posted by Swordsmyth
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