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Second
Temple Literature
The Septuagint - LXX |
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History
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date of the 3rd century BCE, given in the legend, is supported (for the
Torah translation) by a number of factors, including the Greek being representative
of early Koine, citations beginning as early as the 2nd century BCE, and
early manuscripts datable to the 2nd century.
After the Torah, other books were translated over the next two to three centuries. It is not altogether clear which was translated when, or where; some may even have been translated twice, into different versions, and then revised. The quality and style of the different translators also varied considerably from book to book, from the literal to paraphrasing to interpretative. The translation
process of the Septuagint itself and from the Septuagint into other
versions can be broken down into several distinct stages, during which
the social milieu of the translators shifted from Hellenistic Judaism
to Early Christianity. The translation of the Septuagint itself began
in the 3rd century BCE and was completed by 132 BCE, initially in Alexandria,
but in time elsewhere as well. The Septuagint is the basis for the Old
Latin, Slavonic, Syriac, Old Armenian, Old Georgian and Coptic versions
of the Christian Old Testament. |
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The books of the LXX, MT and Vulgate |
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As will be seen from the above, I have used the LXX as the basic reference to the contents of the canon, giving all three translations as a four-part canon of the Greek rather than the tripartite arrangement of the MT. Seasoned western
readers will recogise one or two differences in the LXX and MT, such
as the assimilation of Samual and Kings in LXX, also note that the 12
minor prophets run into one another in both the LXX and MT, they were
only separated as books later by protestant academics and ended up as
such in the protestant translations of the MT. |
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