Septuagint as Christian Scripture

It would be difficult to present a more scholarly review than the one by Mr Baer, but I would like to offer a few additional points of friendly comment. The author repeatedly treats the Masoretic texts of the 2nd century CE as "the original Jewish Version", but one can hardly doubt the Jewish Old Testament continued to evolve from the time the Torah was translated into Greek from whatever version available in the 3rd century BCE until the time of Aqiba. With respect to the Septuagint, it is highly doubtful that the facts surrounding Ptolemy's commission of the Septuagint are fully and accurately disclosed in the letter of Aristeas. First of all, only two tribes of Israel plus a small contingent of Dan remained in Palestine at the time, so obtaining six scholars from each of the twelve tribes would not have been possible. In addition, one should consider the possible situation where 70 Jewish scholars or translators come together to decide on a proper translation of their book from texts that they possess in their various collections. The diaspora hardly existed at the time, so it would not have been written to make the texts more widely available to Jewish communities throughout the known world, but rather for non-Jews. No doubt the Septuagint was produced in a political atmosphere much like the later Council of Nicea, but unfortunately this is a reasonable guess based on human nature rather than on documentary evidence. Nor can one give much credence to each of the scholars producing the entire Old Testament by their own hand, and then on comparison, finding all versions to be essentially the same. I'm all for miracles, but this one is hardly credible. The Jewish political treatment of Enoch is a good example of what might have happened: in the case of Enoch, scholars probably argued that the Torah came from Moses, and any text that might antedate him was simply not to be allowed (as part of their canon) within their evolved theological framework. And, of course, books written further back in antiquity generally were held in higher regard than more recent books as the author repeatedly points out, but not before Moses. This also ignores the consideration of whether the entire Old Testament was translated in 282-246 BCE or whether the Alexandrian conference only produced the Torah and the other books were added later by unknown scholars and translators for whatever reason at the time. As always in such matters, much cannot be proven and one must be extremely careful not to fill the voids with speculation. Of course, there is always the case for divine inspiration due to faith to solve any problems, and as soon as that case is made, scholarly argument becomes difficult. The author's treatment of what is canon and what not is extremely interesting (at least to me). The never-ending argument concerning Mary as a "virgin" or "young woman" was settled by Roman Catholicism in favor of "virgin" for its own mystical or mir

Good book, covers most of the problems AFTER 150 AD. However it ignores all the time between 285 BC and 150 AD There was more time between 285 and 150 then there was between 1611 (when the KJV was first released) and today. How different are today's English Bibles then the Original KJV? What differences where there in the Hebrew text of 285 BC and that of 150 AD? - Not covered in ANY book on the Septuagint (That I have seen) This book (like most others on the subject) assumes that the Greek version is the one that is wrong (With no PROOF that it was not the Hebrew Text that changed.) This is a good book.

Like Jacob wrestling with the nocturnal angel, the reader will be repaid by a tenacious reading of Martin Hengel's highly compacted rehearsal of the Greek Bible's origins and use by Jews and Christians. Robert Hanhart contributes an extensive introduction to this volume (pp. 1-17), in which he argues against the grain of Hengel's argument that indications of canonical concern are visible in the pre-Christian era. The essay was originally a contribution to Hengel's Tübingen seminar, invited to the colloquy because it represented a `different' point of view and generously included her as a kind of intellectual foreground to Hengel's own argument. With respect to the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, Hanhart believes that `the literary forms of the two communities--regardless of whether "canonized" or "extra-canonical"--are fundamentally the genres of canonized witnesses.' Indeed, he continues to read the famous statement in the prologue of Ben Sirach as a straight-forward indicator that a tripartite canon was already available to `the grandson and translator', a distinction that was `grounded first and foremost in the distinction between "canonical" and "apocryphal" already current at the time.' The author underscores the element of essential agreement between the Jewish Scriptures and the body of literature accepted by Christians as canonical. The end of the Urgeschichte is signaled by Origen in his treatment of divergent views in the Christian community regarding the precise delimitation of that literature, a discussion in whish Hanhart does not hesitate to use the terms `Palestinian' and `Alexandrian' canon(s). However, the author of this complex prefatory statement to Hengel's book does not find clear evidence for an early sustained argument about the formal limitations of the canonical Scriptures, only a pronounced `recensional principle' that habituates Christian writers to compare their Greek Scriptures with exemplars of the Hebrew text used by Jews, to the degree that these become available. Following upon the complexity of Hanhart's extraordinarily dense preface, Hengel is wise to choose brevity in his introductory chapter and to provide it with a warning label (chapter one, `A Difficult Subject', pp. 19-23). This is principally a brush-clearing effort. In viewing the later Church's `large' Greek canon, Hengel points out that we cannot prove the pre-Christian, Jewish, Alexandrian origins of this. We can observe the New Testament authors citing the LXX as the rule, and assuming a kind of `fixed core'. But whether this core was at the time larger in the Alexandrian hinterland than in the Palestinian homeland is simply impossible to declare. We simply do not know. So much for any hope for a simple explanation and so the justification for the chapter's title comes clear. In a lengthy second chapter (`The LXX as a Collection of Writings Claimed by Christians', pp. 25-56), Hengel chronicles the adoption and use of the Greek Bible by the Chris

The Septuagint As Christian Scripture: Its Prehistory And The Problem Of Its Canon by Martin Hengel (Professor Emertius of New Testament and Ancient Judaism, Univerity of Tubingen) is a scholarly analysis of the Greek Old Testament, also known as the Septuagint, and the history of its consolidation and inclusion into both Judaic and Christian canonical texts. Discussing controversies sparked by these writings, and carefully dissecting issues of their incorporation into Judaic-Christian faith among the course of millennia, The Septuagint As Christian Scripture is an evenhanded, balanced work of insight intended to broading the depth of the reader's understanding of what history, archaeology, and literature have to say about the Septuagint itself. Highly recommended especially for biblical studies shelves, The Septuagint As Christian Scripture involves itself in technical and complex matters at times and is meant especially for advanced Biblical students and theologians.