Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- PART I THE HISTORY OF THE GREEK OLD TESTAMENT AND OF ITS TRANSMISSION
- CHAPTER I The Alexandrian Greek Version
- CHAPTER II Later Greek Versions
- CHAPTER III The Hexapla, and the Hexaplaric and other Recensions of the Septuagint
- CHAPTER IV Ancient Versions based upon the Septuagint
- CHAPTER V Manuscripts of the Septuagint
- CHAPTER VI Printed Texts of the Septuagint
- PART II THE CONTENTS OF THE ALEXANDRIAN OLD TESTAMENT
- PART III LITERARY USE, VALUE, AND TEXTUAL CONDITION OF THE GREEK OLD TESTAMENT
- APPENDIX: THE LETTER OF PSEUDO-ARISTEAS
- INDICES
CHAPTER I - The Alexandrian Greek Version
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2011
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- PART I THE HISTORY OF THE GREEK OLD TESTAMENT AND OF ITS TRANSMISSION
- CHAPTER I The Alexandrian Greek Version
- CHAPTER II Later Greek Versions
- CHAPTER III The Hexapla, and the Hexaplaric and other Recensions of the Septuagint
- CHAPTER IV Ancient Versions based upon the Septuagint
- CHAPTER V Manuscripts of the Septuagint
- CHAPTER VI Printed Texts of the Septuagint
- PART II THE CONTENTS OF THE ALEXANDRIAN OLD TESTAMENT
- PART III LITERARY USE, VALUE, AND TEXTUAL CONDITION OF THE GREEK OLD TESTAMENT
- APPENDIX: THE LETTER OF PSEUDO-ARISTEAS
- INDICES
Summary
1. A Greek version of any portion of the Old Testament presupposes intercourse between Israel and a Greek-speaking people. So long as the Hebrew race maintained its isolation, no occasion arose for the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into a foreign tongue. As far as regards the countries west of Palestine, this isolation continued until the age of Alexander; it is therefore improbable that any Greek version of the Scriptures existed there before that era. Among the Alexandrian Jews of the second century before Christ there was a vague belief that Plato and other Greek philosophical writers were indebted for some of their teaching to a source of this kind. Thus Aristobulus (ap. Clem. Al. strom. i. 22; cf. Eus. praep. ev. xiii. 12) writes: κατηκολούθηκε δὲ καὶ ὁ Πλάτων τῇʾ καθ ἡμᾶς νομοθεσίᾳ, καὶ φανερός ἐστι περιεργασάμενος ἔκαστα τῶν ἐν αὐτῆ λεγομένων. διηρμήνευται δὲ πρὸ Δημητρίου ὑφʾ ἑτέρου, πρὸ τῆς ʾΑλεξάνδρον καὶ Περσῶν ἐπικρατήσεως, τά τε κατὰ τὴν ἐξ Αἰγύπτου ἐξαγωγὴν τῶν ʾΕβραίων τῶν ἡμετέρων πολιτῶν καὶ ἡ τῶν γεγονότων ἁπάντων αὐτοῖς ἐπιφάνεια καὶ κράτησις τῆς χώρας καὶ τῆς ὅλης νομοθεσίας ἐπεξήγησις—words which seem to imply the existence before b.c. 400 of a translation which included at least the Books of Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Joshua.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- An Introduction to the Old Testament in GreekWith an Appendix Containing the Letter of Aristeas, pp. 1 - 28Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1900