The Septuagint Canon of Scripture

The Septuagint is what I would like to call the Bible of the Apostles because the Septuagint was a major translation of Hebrew scripture into Greek that happened sometime within the century prior to 300BC, and as a result of its availability the Greek people had the Septuagint as the Old Testament of the day when Saint Paul almost four hundred years later brought Christianity to the Greek lands. As a result of the Septuagint having a little different reading of the scripture along with extra works, the Protestant community has often condemned the Septuagint as being uninspired as a result of its deviation from ancient Hebrew scripture. The Roman Catholic Church along with the Orthodox churches have for the most part found the canon of the Septuagint to be equally inspired for the most part when considered in relation to the Hebrew scripture. Overall, the differences between the Septuagint and the Tanakh (otherwise known as the Hebrew canon of scripture) is often a subject of heated debate between Protestants and non-Protestant Christians even if such people have little to no education or research regarding the subject, so I will attempt to explain some basic relevant differences between the two canons in terms of history, contents, and reception.

History

The way that the Septuagint comes to us today is that it survived historically through the Hexapla that was put together by the church Father named Origen of Alexandria that lived sometime in the second century or third century after Christ. The Hexapla contained six translations of the Old Testament including the Hebrew, Septuagint, and other relevant translations of the day, and the purpose of the Hexapla was to do apologetics work with the Jews as they would often try to make the case for Judaism through trying to 'trick' Christians so to speak through the discrepancies found in translations of the Old Testament. Overall, Origen thus made the Hexapla as he was perhaps the greatest or one of the greatest apologists in his time, and through the Hexapla having so much value over so many centuries it was able to survive long enough that the Septuagint would latter be rendered through the Hexapla in order that the Septuagint would come to us today.

Saint Jerome that lived among the fourth century after Christ translated the Vulgate as the first great Bible translation to occur in Latin, and the Vulgate was thus read and revised as the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church for a little over a thousand years until Latin would become a dead language. During the translation of Satin Jerome, he had much favor for Hebrew as he moved to Bethlehem in order to acquire better working knowledge of Hebrew as he believed that this would allow him to translate the Old Testament better, but he nevertheless sided with the Septuagint cannon of scripture for the most part. Overall, the way that Saint Jerome dealt with the Septuagint having more Bible than the Hebrew Cannon was that he used the word Apocryphal to identify the extra works that he would include in the Vulgate that did not occur in the Hebrew canon of scripture.

Reception

Saint Augustine of Hippo that was a contemporary with Saint Jerome wrote in his work The City of God that he saw the Hebrew and Greek versions of the Old Testament as being co-equally inspired by God despite their differences. Saint Augustine was able to make the case that the differences between translation actually pointed to hidden meaning that could be allegorically understood to generate a bigger picture. One of the reasons why Saint Augustine held the view that he had is that the Greek Christians, that would centuries latter become Orthodox, held to the Septuagint as the only Old Testament scripture that they knew, and for the Latin world to denounce the canon of the Septuagint they would be denouncing the other half of the Christian church that continued with the language and the scripture that Saint Paul would have used in his evangelism.

Saint Augustine thus held to the view that the Septuagint (literally meaning seventy or seventy-two) was translated under the authority of Alexander the Great with six translators from each of the twelve tribes of Israel, and thus Augustine made the case that the Septuagint was to be called what it was because it had seventy-two translators. The point thus to be made is that Augustine held to the view that the Septuagint was like the official Bible for the ancient Greek world sort of like the 1611 King James bible was the official Bible for the English world, and I say this became the official Bible of the English speaking world for centuries became the King James bible as a result of its distribution and authority being backed by the English king. Overall, if Augustine is correct about the Septuagint being translated under the authority of Alexander the Great, then it would have perhaps far more publicity and reception in its time than the King James bible had in its time with the exception that the printing press was not available for mass distribution of the Septuagint.

Contents

Today the Septuagint comes to us with all the books of the Tanakh (Hebrew) canon of scripture with the exception that they are very different and often contain extra text that is not in the Tanakh. The part of the Septuagint that the Tanakh does not have and thus the King James Bible does not have either is often called the Apocrypha and includes the works of I Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, Epistle of Jeremiah, Song of the Three Children, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, Maccabees I, Maccabees II, Maccabees III, Maccabees IV, and Prayer of Manasseh. Overall, I can see how the New Testament often makes elusions to Apocrypha literature contained in the Septuagint as well as in other places, but to me personally the accounts of the Apocrypha literature of the Septuagint is often either really bazaar, has meaning that appears hidden, or just simply appears as good advice absent from direct divine influence.

The Septuagint Apocrypha contents can make the difference for a person trying to decide between Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, or Protestantism. Having said that I find that much of the Septuagint Apocrypha can add to and even reinforce the New Testament, but what is often very clear is that the Septuagint Apocrypha is often radically different from much of the latter part of the Hebrew scripture. Overall, if the Septuagint Apocrypha was contained in Protestant bibles for example many people would question their faith as conservatives, and must likely people would be either far more mystical or far more liberal.

Conclusion

I find that the story of Bel and the Dragon is rather difficult to believe because in this extra chapter that would go on the end of the book of Daniel what happens is that the King of Babylon brings in a real dragon that Daniel feeds some pitch, fat, and hair to as it explodes as a result, but from the story of Bel and the Dragon I can see how the book of Revelation in the New Testament takes on the image of the dragon without having to refer to Leviathan. The problem thus of the Septuagint Apocrypha is that although it may have some many good things to say that really could draw together much of the New Testament and the Old Testament to have more harmony between the two the way that this harmony is accomplished could make Christianity appear more as myth than reality at one extreme but more mystical or even practical at the other extreme. The Septuagint Apocrypha even tells many stories regarding angels including the story of Raphael the archangel that according to the book of Tobit made himself look like a human in order to appear as a human being, and although this example would demonstrate Saint Paul's reference to entertaining angels unaware it nevertheless appears in the text as such a strange account of a very personal interaction with a archangel that now that it is excluded from the Protestant canon hardly anyone would grieve the loss of such stories.

The point to be made is that much history and church sponsorship exists for using the cannon of the Septuagint for the Old Testament for the most part, but than again if it is fully embraced then it could prove to provide a very bazaar sort of worship experience. From my understanding most all churches regardless of denomination would not base their public ministry on literature that would be from the Septuagint Apocrypha even if they acknowledge such literature as part of the canon of holy scripture. Lastly, some Septuagint scholars have even made the case for the existence of more Septuagint Apocrypha works that never make their way into the Vulgate and thus would have never made their way into the Roman Catholic canon, but then again what is important to note is that the ancient Greek way of coping books and scrolls often included revisions and editing since books had been copied by hand and thus the Septuagint may not have had a standardized form in much of antiquity.