Bibliotheca Sacra 112 (Oct. 1955) 344-55.
Copyright © 1955 by
Department
of
New Testament
Greek and Literature
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SEPTUAGINT
FOR BIBLICAL STUDIES (Part I)
BY
EDITOR'S NOTE :
Dr. Harrison is Professor of New Testament at
Fuller Theological Seminary,
outstanding
evangelical New Testament scholar.
In these days when the study of
Greek as an element in
ministerial training is being viewed with waning
enthusiasm
in many quarters, being reduced from a required to
an elec-
tive status in institution
after institution, some courage is
required to maintain that the scope of Greek
studies not only
should be retained but broadened. Yet this is our
conviction.
How
many seminary graduates of our era have made the
acquaintance with the Greek Fathers
through the original
texts? Fortunately this deficiency is compensated for
to some
degree where there are courses in early church history
which
go into the source materials. But in the case of
the Septuagint
nothing in the curriculum helps to overcome the
lack of
familiarity with the Old Testament in Greek.
FIRST TRANSLATION OF OLD TESTAMENT
What Deissmann
wrote years ago is worthy of repetition
today. "The daughter belongs of right to the
mother; the
Greek
Old and New Testaments form by their contents and
by their fortunes an inseparable unity. The oldest
manuscript
Bibles
that we possess are complete Bibles in Greek. But
what history has joined together, doctrine has put
asunder;
the Greek Bible has been torn in halves. On the
table of our
theological students you will generally see the
Hebrew Old
Testament lying side by side with the Greek New
Testament.
It
is one of the most painful deficiencies of Biblical study at
( 344 )
The
Importance of the Septuagint for Biblical Studies 345
the present day that the reading of the Septuagint
has been
pushed into the background, while its exegesis has
been
scarcely begun."1
The same writer holds out this
inducement
to the uninitiated: "A single hour lovingly
devoted to the text
of the Septuagint will further our exegetical
knowledge of
the Pauline Epistles more than a whole day spent
over a com-
mentary."2 This was not
theoretical with Deissmann, for he
testified in another place, "In preparation
on my first piece
of work on the formula ‘in Christ Jesus’ I read
rapidly through
the whole Septuagint in order to establish the use
in construc-
tion of the preposition ‘e]n.’ (The English
Concordance [Hatch
and Redpath] fortunately
had not then reached e). I am
indebted to this reading for great and continuous
stimulus.
For
some years now there have been lectures and classes on
the exegesis of the Septuagint held in the
Theological Faculty
at
To the Septuagint belongs the honor
of being the oldest
version of the Old Testament. Tradition tells us
that the
work was begun in
adelphus (285-246 B.C.). At
first the translation was confined
to the Pentateuch, but within a century or
thereabouts the
remainder of the Old Testament had been rendered
into
Greek. Though the Letter
of Aristeas ascribes the translation
of the Law to the royal interest in literature, it
is clear from
the Letter itself, as Swete
perceived,4 that the real inspiration
for the version sprang from the need of the Jews in
Alex-
Egyptians
words, in fact, are imbedded in the text, testifying
to its Alexandrian provenance. Examples are ko<ndu, a vessel or
cup (Gen. 44:2); qi<bij,
ark (Ex. 2:3); and pa<puroj, which is
well known in English in its transliterated form papyrus
(Job
8:11). In addition, certain Greek words are chosen by
the translators as specially fitted to convey
information pecu-
liar to Egyptian conditions. Such is the expression a]fe<seij;
1 The Philology of the Greek Bible, pp. 11, 12.
2 Ibid.,
p. 12.
3 Paul, p. 101, fn 1.
4 Introduction to the O.T. in Greek, p. 20.
346 Bibliotheca
Sacra
u[da<twn in Joel 1:20,
reflecting the network of channels or
canals familiar to residents of
in Genesis 50:2 the Septuagint does not use the
ordinary
term for physician in rendering the Hebrew, but
rather
e]ntafiasth<j, "the technical
term for members of the guild that
looked after embalming."5 The facts
seem to warrant Kahle's
contention that, "It is clear that the version
was not made by
Palestinian
Jews, but by people acquainted with the language
spoken in
the Septuagint took a pioneering place, becoming
the first of
many hundreds of attempts to place the Scriptures,
whether
in whole or in part, in the hands of the people in
a form they
are able to comprehend for themselves.
During the course of the early
Christian centuries several
linguistic groups derived their Old Testament from
the Sep-
tuagint rather than from the
Hebrew. The most important
of these versions were the Coptic, Syriac, and the Old Latin
(in distinction from the Latin Vulgate of Jerome, who used
both Hebrew and Greek in his work).
But the influence of the Septuagint
was even greater and
more continuous throughout the Greek-speaking
church. Few
of the Greek Fathers were conversant with Hebrew,
so they
read their Old Testaments in Greek and built their
homilies
on this text. Of the influence on the New
Testament it will be
necessary to comment later and in more detail.
RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT CANON
The Septuagint necessarily enters
into the discussion about
the canon of the Old Testament. Our great uncial manuscripts
of the Greek Bible, namely, Aleph, B, A, and C all
contain the
Old Testament Apocrypha whether in whole or in
part.
From
this the conclusion has often been drawn that
originally there
was no clear-cut line between such books and the
canonical
Old
Testament Scriptures, or at least that a more liberal
attitude prevailed in
1 The Philology of the Greek Bible, p. 97.
2 Paul E. Kahle, The
The
Importance of the Septuagint for Biblical Studies 347
tinian view of the canon is
set forth in Josephus' work
Contra Apionem I, 8. Here it is indicated that the Jewish
Scriptures
consist of twenty-two books. Certain groups of
books were treated as one in such an enumeration. It
is clear
that the canon did not admit of the inclusion of the
Apocry-
phal books. New Testament
use of the Old supports this re-
stricted canon.
As to the attitude of Alexandrian
Jews, we are fortunate
in possessing a considerable body of writings from
the pen of
Philo,
who flourished near the middle of the first Christian
century. Philo's great preoccupation was with
the Pentateuch,
which he quotes about 2,000 times as over against
some 50
times for the balance of the canonical Old Testament.
But
what of the Apocrypha? H. E. Pyle comments as
follows on
this matter: "Philo makes no quotations from
the Apocrypha;
and he gives not the slightest ground for the
supposition that
the Jews of Alexandria, in his time, were disposed
to accept
any of the books of the Apocrypha in their Canon of
Holy
Scripture. That there are occasional instances of
correspond-
ence in subject-matter and
in phraseology between Philo and
the books of the Apocrypha, in particular the Sapiential books,
no one will dispute. But it is very doubtful
whether the in-
stances contain actual allusions to the
Apocryphal writings.
It
is more probable that the use of similar terms arises merely
from the discussion of similar topics. The
phraseology of
Philo
helps to illustrate and explain that of the Apocrypha,
and vice versa. More than this can hardly be
affirmed with
any confidence."7 It should be
noted also in this connection
that in no case where there is a supposed allusion
to the Apoc-
rypha does Philo make use of
a formula of citation such as he
employs when quoting passages from the
acknowledged canon.
Some of the above-mentioned
manuscripts of the Greek
Bible
include works of the early post-apostolic age also, such
as the Epistle of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, and
First
Clement, which occupied a deutero-canonical position
at
best in the eyes of those who regarded them highly.
Their
7 Philo and
Holy Scripture,
p. xxxiii.
348 Bibliotheca
Sacra
presence, however, appended to the sacred text,
helps us
to understand the inclusion of the Old Testament
Apocrypha.
F.
F. Bruce makes a suggestion as to the manner in which
these latter books became joined to the canonical Old
Testa-
ment Scriptures. "There
is no evidence that these books were
ever regarded as canonical by any Jews, whether
inside or
outside
in Greek. The books of the Apocrypha were first
given canon-
ical status by
Greek-speaking Christians, quite possibly
through a mistaken belief that they already
formed part of
an Alexandrian canon. The Alexandrian Jews may
have added
these books to their versions of the Scriptures, but
that was
a different matter from canonizing them. As a
matter of fact,
the inclusion of the apocryphal books in the
Septuagint may
partly be due to ancient bibliographical conditions.
When each
book was a papyrus or parchment roll, and a number
of such
rolls were kept together in a box, it was quite
likely that un-
canonical documents might be kept in a box along
with canon-
ical documents, without
acquiring canonical status. Obviously
the connection between various rolls in a box is
much looser
than that between various documents which are bound
to-
gether in a volume."8
RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT TEXT
Another area in which the Septuagint
proves its value
is in the opportunity it affords us to compare the
extent of
the text in each book with the text as we have
received it
from the Hebrew tradition. Antedating as it does our
Hebrew
manuscripts of the Old Testament, it gives us a
check on the
actual amount of the text. The agreement is not
complete,
but substantially so, especially when the addition
to Daniel
and Esther are excepted, since they really form
part of the
Apocrypha. Ordinarily one may read chapter after
chapter
and find that the text underlying the Greek is the
same in its
length as the text of our Hebrew Old Testament. The
differ-
ences in order, especially in
Jeremiah, constitute a vexed
8 The Books and the Parchments, p. 157.
The
Importance of the Septuagint for Biblical Studies 349
problem, but it a rather peripheral problem as
compared to
the possession of the text itself.
One who has a strictly linguistic
interest finds the Septua-
gint worthy of his
attention. There was a day when men
thought of the language of the Greek Old
Testament as a
literary vehicle which was forged out by the
translators them-
selves in large part as an attempt to render a Semitic
original
in a Greek dress. It was doubted that the
Septuagint at all
accurately reflected any Greek being spoken at the
time. But
all this has been changed through the papyri
discoveries made
in the very region where the Septuagint was
created. These
fragments, covering a wide range of human
activities and rela-
tionships, are obviously in the
language of every-day life.
Misspellings
are not infrequent. Enough parallels have been
established between these non-literary papyri and
the Septua-
gint to make it apparent
that the latter represents a living
form of Greek, so that the Septuagint must be
included in any
list of sources for the koine.
The student of the history of
religion also will find the
study of the Septuagint rewarding. For example, the
New
Testament
acquaints us with the fact that Judaism had been
active for some time making proselytes among the
Gentiles
(Acts
2:10; 6:5; 13:43). The zeal of the Pharisees on behalf
of their own sect is also noted (Matt. 23:15). Now
the word
proselyte is Greek, and makes its first appearance
in Exodus
12:48-49—e]a>n de< tij prose<lq^ pro>j u[ma?j prosh<lutoj poih?sai to>
pa<sxa kuri<&,
peritemei?j au]tou? pa?n a]rseniko<n,
kai> to<te proseleu<setai
poih?sai
au]to> kai> e@stai w!sper kai> o[ au]to<xqwn th?n gh?j
pa?j a]peri<tmhtoj
ou]k e@detai
a]p ] au]tou?. no<moj ei#j e@stai
t&? e]gxwri<& kai> t&? proselqo<nti
proshlu<t& e]n u[mi?n.
Here one catches the flavor of the word.
It
denotes literally one who draws near. He has a desire to
identify himself with the Hebrew nation,
especially in the
observance of this great national festival of the
Passover. The
noun and the verb forms of the same root jostle one
another
in the passage. It is interesting to observe that
in the Epistle
to the Hebrews the verb has an almost technical
sense as a
designation for a worshipper, being translated come or draw
near (e.g. Heb. 4:12; 11:6).
Incidentally, the statement in
350 Bibliotheca
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Hebrews
11:28 concerning Moses, pepoi<hken to> pa<sxa, may be
said to gain illumination from Exodus 12:48, just
cited, where
poie<w is used in the sense of observance of
the Passover.
A chapter in the history of polemics
belongs to the Septu-
agint. Although the Jews of
the Dispersion highly regarded
this translation at first (even Philo acknowledged
its inspira-
tion), the increasing use of
it by Christians, especially in
their appeal to it for the verification of the
Messianic dignity
of Jesus of Nazareth, gradually estranged the
Jews. We find
Justin
Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew register-
ing the accusation that Trypho's people had tampered with
the sacred text in order to remove proof texts
favorable to the
Christians.
One of the most famous of these passages is
Psalm
96:10, which according to Justin Martyr properly read,
Tell
ye among the nations that the Lord hath reigned from
the wood (cross).9 Of this alleged original there is no
trace.
The
last three words must be put down as a Christian in-
vention. Even more famous as a
ground of contention was
Isaiah
7:14. Christians pressed the fact that it was the Jews
themselves who had translated the Hebrew hmlf by parqe<noj,
virgin. The pressure of debate forced the Jews to
construct a
new Septuagint, which was undertaken by
second century. It used nea?nij, ‘young woman,’ in Isaiah 7:14.
In
general the translation was marked by an almost painful
literalness in rendering the Hebrew. But at least it
gave the
Greek-speaking
Jews a version which they could use after the
Septuagint
was proscribed by the synagogue.
In the discussions on Christian theology
the Septuagint has
ever and again played an important role. A good
example of
this is the battle which raged over Proverbs 8:22 f.
in the
Arian controversy. This famous passage on
Wisdom runs as
follows according to the Septuagint: "The
Lord created me
as (the) beginning of his ways for his works;
before time
(the age) he established (founded) me, in the beginning
before he made the earth. . ." Here the crucial
word is e@ktise,
which we have translated "created." The
Arians found a basis
9 Dialogue with Trypho, chapt.
73.
The
Importance of the Septuagint for Biblical Studies 351
here for their doctrine of the creaturehood
of Christ, that
there was a time when he was not. Athanasius
sought to meet
the exegesis by asserting that it was our Lord's
humanity
which was created and manifested to us for our
salvation.10
The
stamp of this controversy remained on the text of Scrip-
ture for many centuries. To
avoid any possible Arian connota-
tion, the Vulgate rendered
the crucial word possedit.
Both the
A.V.
and the R.V. have possessed, showing
their dependence
on the Vulgate. However, the Hebrew hnq has the thought of
acquisition rather than possession, and the
Septuagint has
rendered it faithfully. The student will find it
interesting to
note that in a passage like Genesis 14:19, removed
from theo-
logical controversy, the Vulgate rendered the
same root by
creavit.
Scholars have long recognized the
value of the Septuagint
as an instrument for textual criticism of the Old
Testament.
While
the consensus of opinion has been to the effect that in
places where the Massoretic
Text and the Septuagint diverge,
the former must be given the preference in the vast
majority
of cases, especially since it is often possible to
trace the very
processes by which the Greek translators have
strayed from
the path, yet it has been conceded that here and
there the
Greek
rendering has undoubtedly preserved the original. One
of the clearest cases is Genesis 4:8, where the
words "let us
go into the field" have dropped out of the
Hebrew text in some
way. That something is needed at this point is
evident because
the verb rmx does not mean to speak with but to say. In this
case the Septuagint does not stand alone, but is
supported by
the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Targums,
the Latin and the
Syriac
versions.
A common objection raised against the Revised Standard
Version
is that too large a use has been made of the Septu-
agint (and other ancient
versions) instead of clinging to the
Massoretic Text
as the basis of translation. It is possible that
the translators have erred in judgment in certain
passages
by relying on the Septuagint as opposed to the Massoretic
10 Expositio Fidei, 4; De Decretis III, 14.
352 Bibliotheca
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Text,
but it is certain that their procedure is not faulty as to
principle. Modern research has demonstrated that
the Hebrew
text was revised and fixed in its present form early
in the
Christian
era and that it does not represent throughout a
pure text which can with confidence be said to
represent the
original. Students of the Septuagint have long
been suspicious
that the Greek Old Testament is more trustworthy
here and
there than the Massoretic
Text. Archaeology has begun to
confirm this conjecture. Hebrew manuscripts of
the Old
Testament
are coming to light in the
in some cases (others agree closely with the MT)
correspond
to the Septuagint rather than to the Hebrew. This
is particu-
larly true of Samuel. Frank
M. Cross Jr. writes, "In these
Samuel
fragments there is now direct proof that there were
Palestianian Hebrew texts of Samuel
of precisely the type
used by the Greek translators, and that the Greek
version is
a literal and faithful translation of its Hebrew
predecessor.
Hence
reconstruction of the text of Samuel in the future must
put serious weight on the witness of the
Septuagint."11
RELATION TO NEW TESTAMENT QUOTATIONS
We come now to quotations. Everyone
knows that the
New
Testament is written in Greek, although its writers, with
the probable single exception of Luke, were
Hebrews. It is
natural, then, that when they desire to draw
excerpts out of
the Old Testament, that they should resort to the
Septuagint.
Certainly
the vast preponderance of quotations lies on the
side of the Greek rather than the Hebrew original,
although
some New Testament writers knew Hebrew and resorted
to
the Hebrew text on occasion. An example of this is
found in
Matthew
8:17, where a slavish adherence to the Septuagint
would have resulted in support for the idea that our
Lord
bore men's sins during His ministry and not simply
at His
death. Therefore Matthew made use of the Hebrew text
which has "sicknesses" rather than the
Septuagint text
which has "sins." The context of Matthew
8:17 is Jesus'
11 The Biblical Archaeologist, February 1954, p. 18.
The
Importance of the Septuagint for Biblical Studies 353
healing activity. But the general fact is
undisputed, that the
large use of the Septuagint in the quotations shows
its domi-
nant position in the early
church and the high regard in
which it was held. However, the presence of a
considerable
number of quotations agreeing neither with the Hebrew
nor
with the Septuagint constitutes a difficult problem.
Matthew's Gospel offers an
especially interesting area in
which to study the quotations. H. St. J. Thackeray
noted that
in addition to quotations from the Septuagint
which Matthew
has in common with other Synoptists
there is a group of
eleven "proof-texts" introduced by the formula,
"that it
might be fulfilled," which derive from another
source. This
he thought may have been a "Testimony
Book" which possibly
contained this material already in Greek dress,
which Mat-
thew utilized.12
The subject of Testimonia has engrossed scholars
both in
the ancient and the modern church. Cyprian was one
of the
first to draw up such a list of passages, but it was
based on
earlier attempts of the same kind. One of the
most outstand-
ing is in the New Testament
itself.13 Among modern writers
Rendel Harris in his two volumes entitled Testimonies sought
to demonstrate that the New Testament quotations
were
drawn up according to subjects and with indications
of the
source of their quotations. Such groupings of
Scripture, if
they were thus utilized as a source for New
Testament quota-
tions, would help to explain
the composite character of some
of the quotations and also the attribution to one
Old Testa-
ment writer of what is found
in another, as in Matthew 27:9.
But
further research has put Harris' position in doubt, espe-
cially with regard to the
materials in Matthew. According to
J.
A. Findlay, "Subsequent collections of testimonies do not
follow his (Matthew's) model either in order or
language.”14
Krister Stendahl has opened a new line of investigation.
He
builds upon the discovery of J. C. Hawkins that whereas
the quotations in Matthew which occur in the common
Synoptic
12 Journal of Transactions of the Victoria Institute, Vol. 58, pp. 162, 163.
13 Romans 3:10-18.
14 Amicitiae Corolla, p. 69.
354 Bibliotheca
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narrative tradition (Mark or Luke or both) follow
the Septua-
gint very closely in the
main, those which are introduced by
the writer of the First Gospel show much less
agreement
with the Septuagint, only slightly more than half
the words
being derived from that source.15
This latter group is the same as
that which Thackeray
commented on, as noted above. It may be said to
consist of
formula quotations. Stendahl
believes that the situation re-
ceives illumination from the
Habakkuk Commentary of the
chapters of this prophecy is quoted with
considerable alter-
ation and adaptation in order
to fit the belief of the sect re-
sponsible for the scroll that the
Teacher of Righteousness, as
he is called, had fulfilled the terms of
Habakkuk's prophecy.
Stendahl finds in Matthew's formula quotations
"scholarly in-
terpretations" akin to those of
the
Matthew's
interest centers in Jesus of Nazareth rather than
the Teacher of Righteousness.16
The whole of Stendahl's
thesis regarding the nature and
origin of Matthew need not detain us here, but he
favors the
view that the Gospel reflects the interest in
theology and
teaching of the particular group from within
which it sprang.
His
conclusion on the quotations is that, "The formula quota-
tions would thus have taken
shape within the Matthean
church's study of the Scriptures, while the form
of the re-
mainder is on the whole that of
the Palestinian LXX text."17
This
is a highly interesting observation and one which prom-
ises to be fruitful for
further study. It is clear that in the
New
Testament generally the actual form of the quotations is
determined by the use to which they are put, their
New
Testament
setting demanding some alteration for purposes of
smooth and suitable application as well as to bring
out the
element of fulfillment. Certainly the New
Testament con-
ception of fulfillment is not
exhausted by a "this is that"
correspondence between the Old and the New. It inc