Ask · Scripture & How We Got It

What is the Septuagint?

The short answer

The Septuagint is the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, begun in Egypt in the third century before Christ for Greek speaking Jews. It became the Bible most quoted by the New Testament writers, and its name, often shortened to LXX, comes from a later legend about seventy translators.

The fuller answer

After Alexander's conquests, Greek became the everyday language across the eastern Mediterranean, including for many Jews in Egypt. They needed their Scriptures in the language they spoke, so the Law, and in time the Prophets and Writings, were translated into Greek. This translation, made over generations by different hands of uneven quality, is the Septuagint. It is a translation, with all the choices translations involve, not a separate Greek Bible written from scratch.

The famous origin story needs honest labelling. The Letter of Aristeas, a Jewish work from the second century before Christ, tells how seventy two elders translated the Law on an island for King Ptolemy, and later retellings added miraculous agreement between translators working separately. That detail is legend bearing, not history we can verify, though the letter does witness how early and how proudly Jews valued the Greek translation. Copies of the Septuagint among the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the great fourth century codices let scholars compare its wording directly, rather than guessing about a lost original.

Its strongest proof is use. The New Testament writers, writing in Greek, usually quote the Old Testament in its Greek form. Hebrews chapter 1 strings together Psalm citations in their Greek wording to prove the Son's superiority to angels, and the Ethiopian official in Acts was reading Isaiah in Greek when Philip met him. The Septuagint also explains why some Old Testament quotations differ slightly in wording from the Hebrew text behind most modern translations.

Today the Septuagint still earns its keep in study. When a New Testament quotation puzzles you because its wording differs from your Old Testament, the Greek translation is usually the missing link, and checking it settles the question in minutes. It also reminds the church that translation is not a modern compromise but an apostolic practice: God's word was carried into Greek for ordinary believers in Alexandria long before it was carried into English. The Septuagint's imperfections as a translation make it more useful, not less, since they show real translators at real work.

Sources

• Berean Standard Bible (BSB)
• Letter of Aristeas

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