Most Christians who have heard of the Septuagint know little more than that it refers to the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament (hereafter OT). This limited knowledge in part results from the fact that the Septuagint (LXX) is a complex field of study. There are multiple versions of the Greek Old Testament, and uncertainties abound regarding authorship, dating, and even the Hebrew text used as the basis for translation.
Thankfully, Gregory Lanier and William Ross guide readers through these complexities in their book The Septuagint: What It Is and Why It Matters (Crossway, 2021). (Lanier and Ross also edited a reader’s edition of the Septuagint in 2018.) Seeing that they accomplished such a task in fewer than 200 pages, I expect this book to become the standard introduction to the Septuagint, both for scholars and regular church members alike.
Prior to reading this book, I would have recommended An Invitation to the Septuagint by Jobes and Silva as an introductory work. However, that really is a longer, intermediate-level book that requires a working knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. It is still an excellent resource to take up in studying the Septuagint, but Lanier and Ross write for those who do not know the biblical languages. They also do a great job summarizing the latest research in Septuagint studies. All in all, Lanier and Ross have produced a book that exceeded my already high expectations.
In the first half of the book, Lanier and Ross provide an excellent survey of the background to the translation of the Septuagint. They explain that Septuagint scholars generally agree the Pentateuch was the first part of the OT translated into Greek, and it was done in Egypt around the mid-second century BC. However, there is less agreement regarding the timing and location of the translation of the other Old Testament books.
Lanier and Ross demonstrate why in one sense we should not speak of “the” Septuagint, as if there is just one version of the Greek OT. On the contrary, there were initial translations of the OT into Greek followed by several revisions, including those by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotian. Moreover, a variety of translation methods were utilized in the Greek OT. The Pentateuch and Psalms closely followed Hebrew word order, yet books like Proverbs and Isaiah followed a looser, paraphrastic construction. There were then attempts to revise the earlier paraphrastic translations to make them more closely follow the Hebrew, as in Judges, Samuel, and Kings.
What this means is that there were multiple Greek translations of OT books. And what makes this particularly complicated is that it is not always clear which Hebrew text a translator was working from. Textual variants always took place when ancient books were copied, and thus there were variations of the original Hebrew text. So between Hebrew variants, different Greek translation styles, and Greek revisions of earlier translations, we often cannot be certain why a Greek OT text differs from our modern Hebrew text (known as the Masoretic Text, or MT).
Lanier and Ross do not shy away from these challenges. But in doing so, they consistently acknowledge disagreement among Septuagint scholars and the abounding uncertainties within the field. One of my takeaways from this book is that there is much we do not know about the origin of the Greek OT, including much that we likely cannot know. Of course, this does not mean we should avoid studying the Greek OT. In fact, the authors spend the second half of the book explaining why the Septuagint matters.
While textual differences present challenges, the Greek OT translations inform our knowledge of both the Hebrew OT and the Greek New Testament (hereafter NT). The Greek OT helps us translate rare Hebrew words, supplements corruptions within the Hebrew MT, and provides a commentary on the OT by Jews of that period. While there are differences between the Greek OT and the Hebrew MT (including substantially shorter Greek versions of Exodus 35–40, 1 Samuel 16–18, and Jeremiah), the Greek OT confirms the reliability of the Masoretic Text (similar to the Dead Sea Scroll findings). The preservation of the Hebrew text is all the more amazing when one considers the dispersion of the Jewish scribes in both 586 BC and 70 AD. The explanations for the differences between the Greek OT and the Hebrew MT vary, and occasionally the Greek OT may preserve an original reading not transmitted in the Hebrew MT. Thus, the Septuagint is essential for the practice of OT textual criticism.
As for the NT, the apostles were clearly familiar with Greek translations of the Hebrew OT. They regularly quote from various Greek versions, and even when they appear to translate their own OT citations, they were undeniably influenced by prior Greek translations (similar to how a modern English Bible translation is influenced by the King James Version). NT Greek vocabulary certainly draws on that of the Greek OT. The implications for those studying and teaching from the NT should be obvious.
Now this is not to say that the Septuagint is inspired by God in the same way the Hebrew OT was (as some today argue) or that the Septuagint should replace the Hebrew OT (as in the Greek Orthodox Church). In the final chapter, Lanier and Ross emphasize that the Septuagint is a translation, which means the source text (the Hebrew) is the foundational text. (Accordingly, they argue against the non-Hebrew Apocrypha having canonical status.) The Septuagint is the Word of God in the same sense an English translation of the Bible is God’s Word. It is inspired in so far as it is accurate to the original meaning of the text. Thus, the Hebrew OT has normative authority, and the Septuagint has derivative authority.
In addressing the challenge of NT quotations of the Greek OT, Lanier and Ross argue for a view similar to what I have argued before—which is that quotations of the Greek OT that differ from the original Hebrew are part of NT Scripture, but it does not follow that the original Greek OT passage (let alone the entire Septuagint) was inspired by God. In such a case, the NT authors appropriate the Greek OT for their own theological purposes (as they also do when citing non-biblical texts).
One of the challenges I have found in studying the Septuagint and other areas of Old Testament textual criticism is that that the majority of scholars working within the field hold liberal views of the Bible. Tied with this, some Septuagint scholars (such as Timothy Law in When God Spoke Greek) overstate the differences between the versions of the Greek OT and the Hebrew MT in an attempt to undermine our trust in the Hebrew Bible. This is not the case with Lanier and Ross, who hold academic credentials but follow in the evangelical and conservative footsteps of Moises Silva. While the issues of the Septuagint remain complex, one will not find a surer guide than Lanier and Ross.
