The Greek Septuagint

I. What Is the Septuagint?

The Septuagint is the standard ancient Greek version of the Hebrew Bible. Jews in the Hellenistic diaspora needed Scripture in the language they spoke every day. The LXX supplied that need. It includes the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings, often with additional books and passages not found in the later Masoretic Text. For centuries it was the Old Testament of Greek-speaking Judaism and of the early Christian church.

The name comes from the Latin septuaginta, “seventy,” reflecting the legend that seventy (or seventy-two) translators produced the Pentateuch in Alexandria. Modern scholars treat that story as elaboration rather than precise history, but it captures something true: the LXX was a communal, authoritative undertaking, not a private paraphrase. → Jewish Biblical Scholarship

The Septuagint made the words of Moses and the prophets audible in the same Greek that shaped philosophy, law, and commerce across the Mediterranean.

II. Alexandria and the Diaspora

After Alexander’s conquests, large Jewish communities settled in Alexandria, Antioch, and cities across the Near East. Many diaspora Jews knew Greek better than Hebrew. Synagogue instruction, public reading, and family piety therefore required a faithful Greek Bible. The translation of the Torah appears to have begun in the third century BCE; the Prophets and Writings followed over the next two centuries.

Alexandria’s scholarly culture mattered. The city possessed libraries, grammatical schools, and a habit of comparing texts. Jewish translators worked within that environment, rendering Hebrew syntax into readable Koine Greek while retaining the theological vocabulary of Scripture. The result was not a loose Targum-style gloss but a full literary Bible in Greek, the Scripture of Philo, the apostles, and the Greek fathers.

III. How the Hebrew Bible Became Greek

Septuagint translators employed several methods. Some books are translated literally, preserving Hebrew word order and idiom in Greek dress. Others are more idiomatic. The Pentateuch is generally the most literal; books such as Isaiah and Job show greater freedom. Later scholars identified a revision tendency called Kaige, in which certain passages were adjusted toward a more literal Hebrew model.

Because the LXX was copied and revised over centuries, it does not represent a single uniform text. Manuscripts differ in wording, order, and inclusion of passages. Modern editions therefore speak of “Septuagint traditions” rather than one frozen archetype. Nevertheless, the broad shape of the Greek Old Testament remained stable enough for congregations, rabbis, and Christian teachers to treat it as Scripture. → Scribes & Copying

IV. The Septuagint and Its Hebrew Source

One of the most important questions in biblical studies is whether the LXX always translated the same Hebrew text later fixed by the Masoretes. Often it did. Often it did not. The Dead Sea Scrolls show that before the Common Era multiple Hebrew textual traditions circulated. Some scrolls agree with the Masoretic Text; others agree with the Septuagint; still others preserve unique readings.

Emanuel Tov and other scrolls scholars have demonstrated that the LXX frequently preserves an alternate Hebrew Vorlage (source text), not merely a translator’s paraphrase. That does not diminish the authority of the Hebrew Bible as originally given. It shows that the path from revelation to the pointed Masoretic codices involved real textual history. The Masoretes later fixed one received consonantal text with extraordinary precision; the LXX bears witness to how that text was read and transmitted in Greek before their work. → Archaeology & DSS · Hebrew & Aramaic

V. Canon, Apocrypha, and Deuterocanonical Books

Greek manuscripts of the Old Testament frequently include books such as Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Baruch, and 1–4 Maccabees. Catholic and Orthodox congregations received many of these as deuterocanonical Scripture. Protestant traditions, following the Hebrew canon reflected in the Masoretic Text, generally treat them as apocryphal, useful historically but not normative for doctrine.

The debate is ancient. Jewish authorities in Palestine increasingly emphasized the Hebrew canon as Greek Christianity adopted the wider LXX collection. Jerome’s later decision to translate the Old Testament from Hebrew rather than from the LXX reflects that tension. For historians of transmission, the wider LXX canon documents how diaspora Jews and early Christians understood the boundaries of Scripture before those boundaries hardened in later confessional traditions. → Canon Development

VI. The LXX in the New Testament and Early Church

The Greek New Testament quotes the Old Testament hundreds of times. In most cases the wording matches the Septuagint rather than a literal translation of the Masoretic Hebrew. Matthew, Paul, Hebrews, and the other writers assumed an audience that knew the Greek Scriptures. When Paul cites Isaiah or the Psalms, he usually cites them as they appeared in the LXX.

The early church therefore inherited a two-testament Bible in Greek: the LXX as Old Testament and the apostolic writings as New Testament. Justin Martyr, Origen, and the congregation patricians used the LXX in debate, preaching, and commentary until Jerome’s Hebrew-based Vulgate gradually shifted the Latin West. In the Greek East the LXX remained the church’s Old Testament through Byzantine liturgy and manuscript copying. → Inspiration & Authors

VII. Great Codices and Modern Editions

Our fullest witnesses to the Septuagint are the great Greek Bible codices. Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, both fourth-century pandects, preserve most of the Greek Old Testament alongside the New Testament. Codex Alexandrinus, from the fifth century, adds further evidence, including books absent from the others.

Modern students rely on critical editions. Alfred Rahlfs’s Septuaginta (1935, revised 2006) remains the standard handbook edition. The Göttingen Septuagint, edited book by book with extensive apparatus, provides the most rigorous reconstruction of each biblical book’s Greek text. English readers often consult the NETS translation or the Orthodox Study Bible for accessible entry into the LXX world.

VIII. The LXX and the Masoretic Tradition

The Masoretes and the Septuagint translators served different communities in different centuries, yet both guarded the biblical text under pressure. The LXX made Scripture legible to Hellenistic Jews; the Masoretes later fixed the consonants, vowels, and accents of the Hebrew tradition that became normative for Rabbanite Judaism. Christian exegesis drew on the LXX until the Reformation renewed interest in the Hebrew original.

For the student of transmission, the two traditions are partners in witness, not rivals in authority. The Hebrew Bible in its original languages remains the foundation. The LXX shows how that Bible was understood, quoted, and copied when the Mediterranean world spoke Greek. Together they illuminate the long story this site exists to tell: from Hebrew consonants in ancient Judah to pointed Masoretic codices in Tiberias, and from Alexandrian translation to the Greek New Testament and the great uncial manuscripts. → Greek Bible Transmission · Soferim

Selected Bibliography