Transcript of a published teaching by David K. Bernard, transcribed from YouTube. An attributed primary source — not Acts 2:38 Life doctrine text.
Summary · Transcript · Scripture Index · Download transcript (.txt)
Summary
Summary prepared by Acts 2:38 Life from the transcript below — the preacher’s words follow in full.
What It Is: The Greek Old Testament of the Apostles' World
- The question posed: anybody who has spent any time reading Christian books, listening to sermons, or exploring theological websites has probably stumbled across a reference to the Septuagent — it comes up frequently, and people are always citing it. What is the Septuagent, when did it originate, and why does it matter to Christian thought?
- The Septuagent — often abbreviated by the Roman numerals LXX, which means 70 — takes its name from the legend (it may be true, but we have no way of knowing for sure) that 70 translators, or sometimes 72 translators, were the originators of it. It is a translation of the Hebrew Bible — our Old Testament — from Hebrew into Greek, made in the 3rd to 2nd centuries BC. At the time of Christ, the Septuagent would have been the primary translation of the Bible — their Bible, the Old Testament — for Greek-speaking people. In New Testament times the rabbis studied Hebrew, so they would have read the Old Testament in the original Hebrew, and presumably Jesus and the apostles did as well.
- But the average people in Palestine, or Israel, no longer spoke Hebrew in their everyday life: they had been in the Babylonian captivity, and came back with Aramaic, the language of the Babylonian Empire. All the scholars seem to agree that Jesus in his everyday life would have spoken Aramaic — he would have known Hebrew, a scholarly language, a religious language, the language of scripture, so he could study the Bible — but beyond Israel, the larger world of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Roman Empire spoke Greek in its eastern half: going back to Alexander the Great, who had conquered most of the Middle East, Greek became the lingua franca, the language used among nations — most people involved in commerce or business would know their native language, but they would also know Greek. So the New Testament was written completely in Greek, and most of the early Christians, after Christianity expanded beyond Israel, were Greek speakers: if they wanted to quote from the Old Testament — unless they studied Hebrew, which most Gentiles would never have done — they had to use a Greek translation, and the standard translation available to them was the Septuagent. That's why it's important.
How the New Testament Uses It — and the Liberty It Gives
- Look at the New Testament, written all in Greek: when the New Testament writers want to quote from the Old Testament, about half the time or more they quoted directly from the Septuagent — you can compare the Septuagent manuscripts with the New Testament and see they quoted directly; they couldn't have quoted directly from the Hebrew text because they were writing in Greek. That was the standard translation for the Jews at the time of Christ, and it became the standard translation for the Christians. But about half the quotations in the New Testament do not come directly from the Septuagent. In some cases it could have been a paraphrase — the author was not trying to quote directly; he may not have had the scroll next to him; he might have been quoting from memory, a free translation or free quotation, as we often do when we don't have the Bible in front of us. Another explanation: there could have been other translations — private or smaller translations — circulating, that he was quoting from. Or, at least some of the New Testament writers would have known Hebrew — maybe not someone like Luke, who was a Gentile — and made their own translation.
- People debate over which translation we should use, and whether we should have only one translation of the Bible in English. By apostolic precedent the answer would be no: the apostolic church did not feel restricted to one translation of the Bible. Yes, they used the Septuagent as their standard, but they also used, apparently, either other translations available to them or made their own translation — which would indicate we would have liberty to do the same in English, or Spanish, or other languages today.
- He's no scholar of the Septuagent — he reads New Testament Greek with the aid of dictionaries and lexicons, but hasn't specialized in it. What he's told: the first five books, the books of Moses — the books the Jews focus on most of the time when they talk about the Old Testament, the law — its Septuagent translation is considered highly accurate; however, other parts of the Old Testament they feel aren't done nearly as correctly. So it's not a perfect translation; in some places we might disagree with their translation. Which is another interesting point: maybe no translation is perfect. If you say, 'You can't use this translation because I don't like this verse, it doesn't seem to be right' — you could probably say that of any translation. Some are very unreliable, because they have a liberal slant, or some personal slant, or some other doctrinal slant from a sect — obviously there are some translations we wouldn't want to use. But there are many good conservative translations, translated by people who really did believe the Bible is the word of God; they may not have been Pentecostal or apostolic, but they tried their best to translate faithfully. Even if we find places where we feel they were mistaken, or that was not the best possible way, it doesn't mean we invalidate the whole thing — we can still use it judiciously, especially quoting the passages we do feel are accurate. Apparently that's what the New Testament authors did: it doesn't mean they thought the Septuagent was perfect; it just means they, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, felt that quotation was adequate, or accurate, or at least sufficient for the purposes they needed. An interesting study of how God can use less than perfect human efforts for his will and for his purpose.
A Doctrinal Witness: Isaiah 7:14
- There are also doctrinal reasons it matters. It does seem like the Septuagent made some definite choices that the apostles validated. Some people coming along today might say, 'Well, the Hebrew text could mean this, that, and the other.' But you have an ancient translation — we're not saying it's inspired of God or 100% authoritative in that sense — made by ancient biblical Hebrew scholars: this is what they thought it meant, and Jesus, the apostles, and the early New Testament writers thought this was a good translation. That doesn't mean every single verse in the Septuagent is above dispute, but the early church thought this was a reliable translation. So when we come and we're trying to re-translate the Hebrew text, we should at least value what the Septuagent translators thought.
- A great example is Isaiah 7:14: 'a virgin shall conceive and bear a son.' If you look at the Hebrew word in different contexts, it could mean literally a virgin — someone who has never had sexual intercourse — or it could be more generally a young woman; in many cases it would be interchangeable — you're referring to a young woman, assuming she is a virgin, without making a judgment. You could see why it could have a dual reference. If you're just studying the Hebrew and looking at all the ranges, you could say, 'I don't really think it means a virgin.' But the Septuagent — before Christ, so they weren't influenced by Christians; it wasn't a Christian conspiracy — two or three centuries before Christ, they translated that verse with a word meaning absolutely virgin. When you translate from one language to another, there's not always an exact correspondent of one word for one word: one word in one language has this range of meaning, a similar word in another language has a different range, and where you compare the two, there's an overlap. While you could argue from a scholarly perspective that the Hebrew word had a range of meaning, the Greek didn't choose a word that could mean only a young woman — the Septuagent chose a word that could mean only a virgin, which is a legitimate translation of the Hebrew. And it gives insight: these were ancient Hebrew scholars, under the old covenant, living in a time when that was God's chosen people — they were in covenant with God, they were the custodians of the Hebrew scriptures — and this was their translation of their sacred text into Greek; that's what they thought it meant, before Christianity ever came along.
- So Matthew, in Matthew chapter 1, quoted Isaiah 7:14 — as Matthew 1:23 — from the Septuagent, and he quoted it with the word that means definitely, exclusively a virgin, and he said this is a prophecy of Jesus Christ, because he was actually born of a virgin, Mary — and he gives the whole story. His story is not dependent upon Isaiah, but he uses Isaiah as a fulfillment of the prophecy of the truth of his story. That's an incredible example of where the Septuagent was highly reliable, highly significant, and highly influential for us as Christians today — not a later Christian conspiracy to try to make the Hebrew text fit with Christian teaching, but actually the best judgment of the scholars of that day. There is value in studying the Septuagent for that very purpose: what did the Jewish people in Old Testament times, the people of God, think the scriptures meant in Greek? We're not saying they're infallible; we're not saying they never made a mistake; we're not saying they couldn't have improved. We still would use the latest scholarship to translate directly from Hebrew to English. But at least the Septuagent becomes an important witness of what the ancient text was, and what ancient Hebrews considered the best translation of the text. For scholars, it is a significant resource today. It's amazing how God has used these things to preserve his word over time, and translate, or transmit, the message to us.
Scriptures: Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23
Scripture index: Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23.
Transcript
The Septuagent, which by the way is often abbreviated by the Roman numerals LXX, which means 70.
Uh, and its name comes from the word sept also means seven. So its name comes from the legend. It may be true but we don't have no way of knowing for sure. Uh that 70 translators or sometimes 72 translators were the the originators of it but it is the Septuagent is a translation of the Hebrew Bible our Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek and it was made in the 3rd to 2 centuries BC. So why that's important is at the time of Christ then the Septuagent would have been the primary translation of the Bible their Bible the Old Testament for Greekeaking people. Now in New Testament times the rabbis studied Hebrew so they would have read the Old Testament in the original Hebrew and presumably Jesus and the apostles did as well.
But the average people in Palestine or Israel no longer spoke Hebrew in their everyday life. They had been in the Babylonian captivity and so they came back with the language of the Babylonian Empire which is Aramaic. So all the scholars seem to agree that Jesus in his everyday life would have spoken Aramaic. So he would have known Hebrew uh which is a scholarly language, religious language, the language of scripture. So he could study the Bible but he would have spoken Aramaic which is related to Hebrew. But then beyond Israel, the larger world of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Greek the the Roman Empire, of course, the Romans spoke Latin, but the eastern half of the Roman Empire spoke Greek.
Going back to Alexander the Great, he had conquered most of the Middle East. And so Greek became the lingua franca or the language used among nations. So most people um that involve themselves in commerce or business or any kind of involvement they would know their native language but they also know Greek. So the New Testaments would in Greek. So you can see that most of the early Christians after it after Christianity expanded beyond Israel most of the early Christians their native lang or their their their language international language would have been Greek. So the New Testament was written completely in Greek. uh that means that if they wanted to quote from the Old Testament unless they studied Hebrew which most Gentiles would never have done then they had to use a Greek translation and the standard translation available to them was the Septuagent.
So that's why it's important. Now if you look at the New Testament, this is just approximate as I said the New Testament written all in Greek. So when the New Testament writers want to quote from the Old Testament about half the time or more they quoted directly from the Septuagent. So you can compare the Septuagent manuscripts with the New Testament man and see they quoted directly. They couldn't have quoted directly from the Hebrew text because they were writing in Greek. So that was the standard translation for the Jews at the time of Christ and it became the standard translation for the Christians. I will hasten to add that about half the the quotations in the New Testament do not come directly from the Septuagent.
So in some cases it could have been a paraphrase so that the author was not trying to quote directly. He may not have had the manuscript the scroll next to him. So he might have been quoting from memory. So it might have been a free translation or free quotation or paraphrase as we often do when we don't have the Bible in front of us. So that could be one explanation. Another explanation could be that there could have been other translations, maybe private or smaller translations that were circling around that quoting from another version. Or the third explanation, at least some of the New Testament writers would have known Hebrew.
Maybe not someone like Luke who who was a gentile, but some of them could have read the Hebrew text and made their own translation. So what's interesting then is people debate over which translation should we use and should we have only one translation of the Bible English. Well by apostolic precedent the answer would be no because the apostolic church did not feel restricted to one translation of the Bible. Yes they used the stepigent as their standard but they also used apparently either other translations available to them or made their own translation. So that would indicate that we would have liberty to do the same in English or Spanish or other languages today.
Now I'm no scholar of the Septuagent. I do read New Testament Greek with with the aid of dictionaries, lexicons and so forth. Uh but I don't haven't really specialized in the Septuagent. But what I'm told is the the Penetuk, the first five books, the books of Moses, which the Jews when they talk about the Old Testament, most of the time those are the books they focus on the law. I'm told that the Septuagent translation of the five books of Moses is considered highly accurate. However, other parts of the Old Testament they feel aren't done nearly as correctly. So, it's not a perfect translation. some some places we might disagree with their translation, which is another interesting point.
So maybe no translation is perfect. So if you say, well, you can't use translation XYZ because I don't like this verse or this doesn't seem to be right. Well, you could probably say that of any translation. Now, some are very unreliable because they have a liberal slant or some personal slant or some other doctrinal slant from a from a sect. And so obviously there's some translations we wouldn't want to use. Uh but there are many good conservative translations writ translated by people who really did believe the Bible is the word of God. They may not have been Pentecostal or apostolic but they tried their best to to duplicate and and translate faithfully.
And so even if we find places where we feel like they were mistaken or they feel like that was not the best possible way doesn't mean we invalidate the whole thing. We can still use it judiciously. uh and especially quoting the passages we do feel are accurate. So apparently that's what the New Testament authors did. It doesn't mean they thought the Septuagent was perfect. It just means they under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit felt like that quotation was adequate or was accurate or at least adequate or sufficient for the purposes that they needed. So that's an interesting study of how God can use less than perfect human efforts for his will and for his purpose.
and and so we should take that into account. Uh now there are few you ask why is this important? So I've given you the historical reasons but there are some doctrinal reasons. It does seem like the septuagent made some definite choices that the apostles validated. And so some people coming along today might say well the Hebrew text could mean this that and the other. Well, you have an ancient translation which we're not saying is inspired of God or or 100% authoritative in that sense, but we're saying these are ancient biblical Hebrew scholars. This is what they thought it meant. Jesus, the apostles, and the early New Testament writers thought this was a good translation.
As I've I've just stated, that doesn't mean every single verse in the Septuagent is above dispute, but the early church thought this was a reliable translation. So therefore, when we come and we're trying to re-ransate the Hebrew text, we should at least value what the Septuagent translators thought. And a great example is Isaiah 7:14, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son. Well, if you look at the Hebrew word in different context, it could mean literally a virgin and that someone who has never had sexual intercourse or it could be more generally a young woman. And you could see in many cases it would be interchangeable.
You're referring to a young woman. You're not making a judgment, but you're just assuming the old woman is a virgin. So you could see why that could have a dual reference. So if you're just studying the Hebrew and you're looking at all ranges, you could say, "Oh, well, I don't really think it means a virgin." But the Septuagent before Christ, so they weren't influenced by Christians. It wasn't a Christian conspiracy, but two or three centuries before Christ, they translated that verse with a word meaning absolutely virgin. So where the Hebrew and you find this when you translate from one language to another, there's not always an exact correspondent of one word for one word.
One word in one language have this range of meaning. Another word that the same similar word in another range have a different range. So when you compare the two, you there's an overlap. So, while you could argue from a scholarly perspective that the Hebrew word had a range of meaning, the Greek didn't choose a word that could mean only a young woman. They chose the the Septuagent chose a word that could mean only a virgin, which is a legitimate translation of the Hebrew. But it gives insight that these ancient Hebrew scholars who would have been under the old covenant who would have been living in a time when that was God's chosen people.
They were in covenant with God and they were the custodians of the Hebrew scriptures and this was their translation of their sacred text into Greek and that's what they thought it mean meant before Christianity ever came along. So, Matthew in Matthew chapter 1 quoted Isaiah 7:14 and Matthew 1:23. He quote it from the Septuagent and he quoted with the word that means definitely exclusively a virgin and he said this is a prophecy of Jesus Christ because he was actually born of a virgin Mary and he gives the whole story. So his story is not dependent upon Isaiah but he uses Isaiah to as a fulfillment of the prophecy of the truth of his story.
So that's an incredible example of where the Septuagent was highly reliable, highly significant and highly influential for us as Christians today with and it's not a later you know Christian conspiracy to try to make the Hebrew text fit with Christian teaching. It was actually the best judgment of the scholars of that day. So there is some value in studying the Septuagent for that very purpose. What did the Jewish people at in Old Testament times, the people of God, what did they think the scriptures meant in Greek? So we're not saying they're infallible. We're not saying they never made a mistake. We're not saying they couldn't have improved.
We still would use the latest scholarship to translate directly from Hebrew to English. But at least the septuagent becomes an important witness of what the ancient text was and what ancient Hebrews considered the best translation of the text. So for scholars, it is a significant resource today. And it's amazing how God's used these things to preserve his word over time and translate or transmit the message to us.
Scripture references as spoken: Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23.