 What is the Septuagint and why do we have it? Is it important? It's a question that some people have never really thought about. Some have, they've heard about it, but aren't really sure what it is, why we use it, how it came about, and if indeed is important. When we look at the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, we get our understanding from two really two different texts. The Hebrew text, which has been commonly called the Masoretic text, which is really basically a copying by the Jews later to go back and add the Vow Markings, because originally Hebrew does not have Vow Markings, and so the Masorites would go and add the little Vow Markings to give us an indication, give us an understanding as to what these words are, how they're pronounced. So now the next question is, or the next thing is, what is the Septuagint? The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Hebrew text. Well, why is that important? Well, for a couple of reasons. Recall, the Jews, because of their disobedience, were taking into captivity, and after a while, you know how it is, even here in America or anywhere else in the world, whenever someone is taken into captivity, the people who were taken into captivity begin to speak the language of their captors. Now, as time goes on, the language of the region, or what we call the lingua franca, becomes Greek. Most of the people in the region spoke Greek, various different dialects, and that doesn't mean that other people didn't speak other languages, such as Hebrew, such as Aramaic, such as Arabic. They did. There are other languages spoken as well, but in that region, the dominant language was Greek. It does not mean that they had a Greek culture or a Greek way of thinking, a philosophy, if you will, no, it's just the language. Just like here in America, we speak English. We're not English men. In Mexico, they speak Spanish. They're not Spaniards. Same thing with those in that region. They were still Jewish and had a Jewish culture, but spoke Greek for the most part. Now, the Septuagint is a product of the library in Alexandria needing or wanting the Hebrew passages in Greek, because again, the majority of people are speaking Greek, and so it was commissioned by King Ptolemy II, and it's told that there are 72 Jewish scholars who would go and translate it from the Hebrew text into Greek. Now, that's also where we get the term LXX, which means 17, so the 72 was just simply rounded down to 70. And the first five books were the ones that were translated first. Other Jewish scholars would give their approval to say that, yes, this was a good translation. Now, obviously, it's hard to translate word for word, going from Hebrew to English or Greek to English or from Hebrew to Greek, and so they would do the best that they could. However, one of the things that they would also try to capture in the Septuagint is the thought to try to get the entire idea. And so you would see that often cases born out in when these idioms are put out, these Hebrew idioms. Well, you could not translate the Hebrew idioms into Greek because it would make no sense. And so that's where a thought of what the point of the passage is. That's what that would be brought out. The beginning to the end of this translation took from approximately the middle of the second century towards the end of second century BC. And what we have is all of what we have in our normal Old Testament, but they also translated some of the Apocrypha books as well into Greek. So why is this important? Well, obviously, the Hebrew text is the superior text. It's the one where we get our leading from. It's the one where we get our greatest understanding. The problem is though sometimes though, because they may be speaking in an idiom or something like that, sometimes the Greek Septuagint gives us a little bit of a light shade. It is not to take place or supplant the importance of the Hebrew Old Testament. No, but what it does is it shows us how these Greek speaking Jews may have read or understood or interpreted the text as well. Now, if you think about it, when the Bible says when Paul makes his quote in Galatians four, he says that at the right time God sent his son, is that because of Greek being the lingua franca? Because now we've got the New Testament being written in Greek. We've got these people who are by and large Greek speakers in that particular region. Even Rome. Rome was predominantly Greek speaking, even though Latin was the lingua franca in Rome, but the majority of the Roman Empire spoke Greek because that's what the Greek Empire had established before then. And so is it possible, I'm not saying definitively, but is it possible that that's what Paul meant or part of what Paul was getting at, that at the right time God sent his son, why? Because now we've got the Old Testament in Greek and we've got the New Testament in Greek. And so we've got people who are able to read the Old and the New without having to be taught anything. They know Greek, understand Greek, or they can hear it and respond to it. Well, then it's a little bit easier for the language or the scriptures to go from the Old Testament to the New Testament while being unbroken. And so thereby allowing people who are hearing it to kind of understand the words and the thought from the Old to the New. That's a possibility that we ought to consider as well. What's interesting though is that there are many people who believe that Jesus spoke Aramaic as well as the apostles during that day, either Aramaic or Hebrew. The problem with that is, and I'm not saying they did not, but the problem with that is we don't have New Testament passages that date earlier than the Greek passages. We don't have any New Testament passages in either an Aramaic or Hebrew. Now, it's not to say that no one spoke Aramaic or Hebrew in that region or at all. They did, but in that region again the lingua franca was Greek. And so that's why we cannot find any copies of the New Testament in Hebrew or Aramaic except a few centuries later, the Pechetta being one of the earlier examples of an Aramaic text of the New Testament being found. But again, we're talking about a couple hundred years after the Greek New Testament had been written. And so it'd be hard to say that the language that they spoke and wrote was anything other than Greek when we don't find a lot of historical or archaeological discoveries that would state that. What we do find though is we find them speaking and reading and quoting, and that's very important, quoting Greek. And it makes sense because to think that these people who weren't necessarily language scholars would read or write in Hebrew or Aramaic and then turn around and translate it in Greek because all of the writers were not as learned as we would like to think. Now, the reason why I even mentioned this issue of a quote because many of the Old Testament passages, as a matter of fact, the majority of them, I think somewhere between 70-80% of these passages that were quoted from the Old Testament were not quoted in the Hebrew, but they were quoted in the Greek. As a matter of fact, Jesus did so often times as well. I want to give you one example of where Jesus quotes the Old Testament, but he does not quote it in the Hebrew, but he quotes it in the Greek. In Mark 7 verse 6 he says, and he said to them, rightly did Isaiah prophesy to you, hypocrites as it's written. Here it is, he's quoting Isaiah from the Old Testament, but he's quoting it in the Septuagint. He says, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me, but in vain do they worship me teaching as doctrine, the precepts of men. But now look at the Old Testament, the Hebrew translation. I won't put the Hebrew up because you may not be able to read it, but I'll also have to the right of it. I have the Septuagint translation says, because this people draw near with their words and honor me with their lips service, but they remove their hearts far from me and their reverence of me consists of traditions learned by rote. And this comes directly from the Greek Septuagint, the quotation of the Greek of the Old Testament. Now, it's not that big of a difference, but the point is though they're trying to give you not just the words, but also the thought that's what's happening in the Greek Septuagint. And interestingly enough, Jesus quotes it. So it's not that we can even say that the Greek Septuagint is bad. If it were bad, then we would not have the apostles, disciples, and so forth. We would not even have Jesus quoting from it. What we're going to find out is it's not so much the words verbatim that are important. It's actually the message. God is not necessarily after us quoting his word verbatim, but getting an understanding of this message and then also having that be what governs us. Now, another interesting passage. As a matter of fact, an important passage to look at is Hebrews 10.5, where they quote not the Hebrew Old Testament, but the Greek Old Testament. Because if you see what it says in the Hebrew Old Testament, it doesn't quite make sense to us. Why? Because this is an idiot. Let's go to that passage and take a look in Hebrews 10.5. He says, therefore, when he comes into the world, he says, sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me. Now, what we want to do is go and look at what the Hebrew text says and let's see if that sounds like what he's quoting in Hebrews 10.5. Sacrifice and meal offering you have not desired, my ears you have opened, burnt offering and sin offerings you have not required. Well, that's not in Hebrews 10.5. Nothing about ears being opened. Well, what does that mean? Well, it's an idiom. It's an old, it's a Hebrew idiom. And so to quote that verbatim would not make sense to these, this Greek speaking group of Jews. Remember, Hebrew, the book of Hebrews is written to Jews, but they read and understand by and large in Greek. And so to quote it in Hebrew, that idiom probably, matter of fact, more than likely would not make sense. And so to quote it in the Greek, that does make sense. And that conveys the point that even the Hebrew writer is trying to convey. So this is one of the reasons why the Septuagint is important. It does not supplant in terms of rank or desire. It does not, it does not replace the Old Testament Hebrew, but it does give a little bit more clarification in some cases. It does give us an idea of how they read, how they thought, and it gives us in some cases an understanding. Sometimes we can go back and look at a word in the Hebrew that might kind of cause a little confusion. Maybe some scholars may think it means this. Another scholar may think it means that. But then we see what the Jews who spoke Greek, how they translated, if it's sized with one or the other, that could help to clarify an understanding or misunderstanding. Guys, I hope this has been edifying and interesting. I hope this has helped to get an understanding of what the Septuagint is, the beauty of it, the importance of it. Again, the point of God's message is not to say it verbatim, but to get what the message is trying to get across. Amen.