From the earliest days of the Church until this very day, the Old Testament text of the Orthodox Church has been and remains the Septuagint - the Greek translation tradition tells us was made in the third century B.C., in Alexandria. Yet this book, so central to the Faith, has never been translated into English in its totality. The traditional account of the origin of the Septuagint tells us it was translated from the original Hebrew by seventy (or perhaps seventy-two) pious Jews at the order of King Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-246 B.C.).  How did it happen?  How is it that this Greek language edition made in far off Alexandria became the Bible used by our Lord's Apostles and their successors?

HISTORY OF THE SEPTUAGINT

In about 94 A.D. the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus put together his great work, Antiquities of the Jews, relying heavily on the Scriptures, which he drew from the Septuagint version. By this time the Apostles of Christ were writing - Gospels and Epistles.  And we see that they were using the Septuagint almost exclusively - of the two hundred thirty-eight passages from the Old Testament quoted in the New Testament, only four are from the Hebrew and all the rest from the Septuagint. Even the Revelation of St. John, which does not quote the Old Testament directly, is filled with Septuagint words and phrases.  Examining the Gospels and the Epistles carefully, we are met over and over by words and phrases which cannot be fully understood without referring to their earlier use in the Septuagint.

BEYOND THE APOSTOLIC AGE

Moving beyond the Apostolic age, we find the Church "fathers" also using the Septuagint almost exclusively. Turning first to the Apostolic fathers, we find the Letter of Clement of Rome to Corinth so directly dependent upon the Septuagint as to establish his exclusive use of that version. Though St. Ignatius of Antioch quotes from the Old Testament only seldom in his letters, all his quotations and allusions to those Scriptures are from the Septuagint. The same is true of St. Polycarp of Smyrna.

In the middle and late second century A.D., we find both St. Justin Martyr and St. Irenaeus of Lyons heavily dependent upon the Septuagint, quoting from it extensively.  Each gives an account of the history of this great translation, just as they had heard and read from those who preceded them. And we have only touched on the beginning, for the Septuagint continued to be the Old Testament of the Church.  Produced not in the Holy Land, but in Alexandria, it was first a truly "popular" version among the Jews, having arisen in the first place from the needs of the people.  Its use in the synagogues helped keep the faith alive amongst the people, preventing them from being completely dependent upon a priesthood which alone knew the sacred tongue.  Now, among the Christians, it served the same end.

As the Church moved on, through the third and fourth centuries, the Septuagint continued to be the Old Testament of all the people.  When Latin versions were first made in North Africa and the West, they were derived from the Septuagint until Jerome made a translation, the Vulgate, partially from Hebrew.  In the East, and continuing in the Orthodox Church even till today, the Septuagint has remained the canonical Old Testament.  As St. John Chrysostom wrote: "The Holy Spirit arranged for the Holy Books to be translated by the seventy interpreters....Christ came and received them.  And the Apostles spread them everywhere"  (Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, Chapter VIII).  Through the centuries since, the Church has continued to pass them on to people everywhere. 

THE BIBLE OF THE CHURCH TODAY

Serving thus first the Jews of the Dispersion throughout the East, and then the Christians as they spread across the Roman Empire, the Septuagint was not only the proper Old Testament of the Church, but served as a model for the translation of the Scriptures into the vernacular of the peoples to whom the Gospel would be taken.

Concerning the accuracy of the Septuagint, we may profitably note that behind it lies a text more than a thousand years older than our earliest dated Hebrew manuscript - which dates from about 916 A.D.  The very language of the New Testament is drawn from the Septuagint - affording a vocabulary of great benefit to the early Christian writers, and continues as our own to this very day.  As we noted, all the writers of the New Testament use the Septuagint, and some use it exclusively.  The Apostle Paul may have known the Hebrew text, but his Old Testament references come from the Greek version - the Septuagint.  Clearly, the early Christian preachers and evangelists had in the Septuagint a Bible accepted as authoritative by the Jews and Christians alike.  Their writings show that from it a collection of Messianic references was made and widely used to prove that Christ was the fulfillment of the Old Testament revelation. 

A MODEL

From the very beginning the Church used the Greek version as a model upon which to build its prayers and hymnody, singing the Septuagint version of the Psalms in the services.  Never should we forget the value of this Old Testament version as an aid to evangelization.  It had been constructed in the first place by Jews who found themselves in a foreign environment, a new intellectual world. Greek language and ideas were thrust at them from every side, and the Septuagint is a testament to their survival and prosperity in this environment.  The success of this translation bears witness to the fact that their religion, belief in the one true God, could prosper in a world filled with Greek thought and language.  Now the Septuagint was coming into its own in the hands of the Church established by the Son of God.

It is from the Septuagint that we get our names for the five books of Moses - the "Pentateuch" first of all, and then "Genesis," "Exodus," "Leviticus," "Numbers," "Deuteronomy."  Also, innumerable terms so common we never think of their origin: ecclesia, priest, deacon, parable, apostle, prophet, angel, alms, and on and on.

From the Septuagint we also gained those books sometimes called "Deuterocanonical" or "Apocrypha" which are not in the Hebrew canon, but are so valuable to the Orthodox Church in her worship - including the beautiful and inspiring "Song of the Three Children," sung so often in our services.  These useful and instructive books are interspersed throughout the Septuagint, and make it quite different from the Hebrew Old Testament. To those who object, saying, "But these books are not in the Hebrew canon," we must say in return, "We are not dealing with the Hebrew canon, but with the Bible of the Church, and these have been in our Bible from the very beginning. Our Old Testament is the Septuagint."

Adapted from "The Septuagint: Old Testament of the Orthodox Church,"
The Orthodox Study Bible Old Testament Project
LXX Website

To:  Previous Orthodox Articles