I am reading the Septuagint in a year and am thoroughly enjoying it as it is opening up my eyes. In trying to explain it to my wife this morning I realized that I do not know the history and significance of it well enough to, as Richard Feynman is quoted as having said, "prepare a freshman lecture on it."
That being said it does open up a line of questioning worth pursuing. I'm sure the answers, or opinions anyhow, are out there.
If NT writer(s) wrote in Greek and the quotes as we have them match the LXX, did they quote from the same? Did Jesus speak in Greek? Did Jesus use the LXX or did the writers of the NT put those words into His mouth from the LXX?
In other words, did He speak Hebrew? If He did and use a Bible written in Hebrew, how is it that the quotes in the NT attributed to Him match the LXX? Was the LXX redacted or edited at some point by Christians to match what the Gospels say He said?
Or did He speak Aramaic as many believe? Did He understand Latin a la going before Pilate? Or did Pilate know Hebrew? Or Aramaic? Or even Greek? Or is there an implied translator in the story?
If the original Gospels, or at least the oral stories underlying them, were written in Hebrew, at what point did they 'become' Greek? Did the original authors actually write in Hebrew and do the translating into Greek? Or did someone translate or write them in the Greek language and draw from the LXX when so doing?
These are all questions for which there are no easy answers and there may never be a definitive answer and it ultimately comes down to a reasoned, or unreasoned, belief.
The bigger question is how it impact one's faith. Protestants, especially of the more fundamentalist, especially from the King James Only camp, often accuse Catholic and Orthodox churches of 'needing' them for their doctrines. Catholic and Orthodox will (most likely, I am imaginging; I am deficient in this depth of knowledge) claim these go back to the origins of the Church.
Also a significant factor is the paradox that those who created the Creeds, the foundational elements of the faith that sustained it for thousands of years, were the Church Fathers and their "Old Testament" text was the Septuagint. The classic texts from Athanasius, Basil and the Gregories quote from it. Wisdom, absent from Protestant Bibles, also played a significant role in their understanding.
Which of course heads into the Sola Scriptura debate and the role of the Creeds in contrast to it. Do we chuck the creeds? Are they subservient to sola scriptura and, if so, does our understanding of the Bible today somehow render them different or otherwise contrary? Do we believe the creeds to be too 'Catholic' and the freedom of the 'Spirit' means we only pay lip service to them?
After all, the Church Fathers developed these creeds not on their own volition but with Scripture backing them. We may debate the interpretation (and the influence of the Septuagint may play a part in this) but we cannot just discard the creeds. It is a bit presumptuous to do this as it leads to the further questions of whether or not the Church would have survived, or become Arian or some other doctrine, without them.
In this day and age when anything deemed absolute is considered dogmatic and intolerant have we resorted to a Church in which it is up to the individual to determine what is and is not the faith? This goes a long way toward explaining why so many churches claim little to no allegiance to a denomination and far too often rise and fall on the founder of the church.
Also a significant factor is the paradox that those who created the Creeds, the foundational elements of the faith that sustained it for thousands of years, were the Church Fathers and their "Old Testament" text was the Septuagint. The classic texts from Athanasius, Basil and the Gregories quote from it. Wisdom, absent from Protestant Bibles, also played a significant role in their understanding.
Which of course heads into the Sola Scriptura debate and the role of the Creeds in contrast to it. Do we chuck the creeds? Are they subservient to sola scriptura and, if so, does our understanding of the Bible today somehow render them different or otherwise contrary? Do we believe the creeds to be too 'Catholic' and the freedom of the 'Spirit' means we only pay lip service to them?
After all, the Church Fathers developed these creeds not on their own volition but with Scripture backing them. We may debate the interpretation (and the influence of the Septuagint may play a part in this) but we cannot just discard the creeds. It is a bit presumptuous to do this as it leads to the further questions of whether or not the Church would have survived, or become Arian or some other doctrine, without them.
In this day and age when anything deemed absolute is considered dogmatic and intolerant have we resorted to a Church in which it is up to the individual to determine what is and is not the faith? This goes a long way toward explaining why so many churches claim little to no allegiance to a denomination and far too often rise and fall on the founder of the church.
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