Table of Contents

Septuagint studies is the academic discipline focused on the Septuagint (abbreviated LXX) — the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible produced in Alexandria, Egypt, beginning around the 3rd century BCE. It’s a field that sits at the intersection of biblical studies, linguistics, ancient history, and textual criticism, and it matters far more than most people realize.

Why should you care about a 2,300-year-old translation? Because the Septuagint was the Bible that early Christians used, the text that New Proof authors quoted, and the version that shaped Christian theology in ways that still reverberate today. When the Gospel of Matthew says a “virgin” will conceive a child (Matthew 1:23), it’s quoting the Septuagint’s Greek word parthenos — the original Hebrew word, almah, simply means “young woman.” That single translation choice influenced 2,000 years of Christian doctrine.

The Origin Story — Part Legend, Part History

The most famous account of the Septuagint’s creation comes from the Letter of Aristeas, written around 130-100 BCE (though it claims to describe events from around 250 BCE). According to this text, King Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Egypt wanted a Greek translation of the Jewish law for his famous Library of Alexandria. He sent a request to the high priest in Jerusalem, who dispatched 72 scholars — six from each of the twelve tribes of Israel — to Alexandria.

The scholars supposedly completed their translation in exactly 72 days. Later versions of the story got more dramatic: the translators worked independently in separate rooms and produced identical translations, proving divine inspiration.

This is almost certainly legendary. But like many legends, it contains a kernel of truth. There really was a Jewish community in Alexandria that needed Greek scriptures. The Torah (the first five books — Genesis through Deuteronomy) really was translated into Greek around 250 BCE. And the translation really did originate in Egypt.

What’s less clear is exactly how it happened. The translation was probably a community effort, developed over time by Jewish scholars in Alexandria who needed Greek versions of their scriptures for synagogue worship and education. No royal commission, no 72 divinely inspired scholars, no miraculous matching translations — just a practical solution to a real problem.

The translation of the Torah was just the beginning. Over the next century or two, the rest of the Hebrew Bible was translated — the historical books, the prophets, the wisdom literature, and the psalms. Different books were translated by different people at different times, which is why the translation quality and approach vary significantly across the Septuagint. Some books are translated almost word-for-word. Others are much freer, paraphrasing or even restructuring the Hebrew original.

What’s Actually in the Septuagint

The Septuagint contains everything in the Hebrew Bible — but also more. Several additional books appear in the Septuagint that aren’t in the standard Hebrew (Masoretic) text:

• Tobit — A story of faith and divine providence involving a righteous Jewish family in exile
• Judith — A tale of a brave Jewish woman who kills an enemy general to save her people
• Wisdom of Solomon — A philosophical meditation on wisdom, justice, and immortality
• Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) — Practical wisdom literature, similar to Proverbs
• Baruch — A text attributed to the scribe of the prophet Jeremiah
• 1 and 2 Maccabees — Historical accounts of the Jewish revolt against Seleucid rule (167-134 BCE)
• Additions to Daniel and Esther — Extra chapters not found in the Hebrew versions

The status of these books has been debated for centuries. Catholic and Orthodox Christians generally accept them as scripture (Catholics call them “deuterocanonical”). Protestants, following the Reformers’ preference for the Hebrew canon, classify them as Apocrypha — useful for reading but not authoritative for doctrine. Jewish tradition doesn’t include them in the biblical canon.

The arrangement of books also differs. The Hebrew Bible groups books into Torah (Law), Nevi’im (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings) — forming the acronym TaNaKh. The Septuagint reorganizes these into a different structure — Pentateuch, Historical Books, Poetic Books, and Prophets — and this is the arrangement that Christian Bibles follow to this day. When Christians put the prophets last, ending with Malachi’s promise of a coming messenger, it creates a narrative arc pointing toward the New Proof that the Hebrew arrangement doesn’t emphasize.

Why Scholars Study the Septuagint

Septuagint studies isn’t just an obscure academic exercise. The field addresses several genuinely important questions:

Recovering Lost Hebrew Texts

This is perhaps the most exciting area. The Septuagint was translated from Hebrew manuscripts that existed centuries before the oldest surviving Hebrew texts. When the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered between 1947 and 1956, scholars found Hebrew manuscripts that sometimes agreed with the Septuagint against the standard Masoretic Text.

Take the book of Jeremiah. The Septuagint version is about 15% shorter than the Hebrew Masoretic version and arranges material in a different order. For a long time, scholars assumed the Greek translators had simply shortened the text. Then a Hebrew fragment of Jeremiah from the Dead Sea Scrolls turned up — matching the shorter Septuagint version. The Greek translators hadn’t shortened anything. They’d been working from a different (and possibly older) Hebrew text that was later expanded.

This discovery changed everything. It meant the Septuagint could serve as a window into Hebrew text traditions that no longer exist in Hebrew. Scholars now study Septuagint readings alongside the Masoretic Text and the Dead Sea Scrolls to reconstruct the textual history of the Hebrew Bible.

Understanding the New Proof

The New Proof was written in Greek, and its authors overwhelmingly quoted the Old Proof from the Septuagint, not from the Hebrew. When Paul writes about scripture, he’s usually quoting the Septuagint. When the Gospel writers cite prophecies, they’re drawing on Greek translations that sometimes differ from the Hebrew.

Some of these differences matter theologically. The famous Isaiah 7:14 passage reads “a young woman (almah) shall conceive” in Hebrew. The Septuagint translates almah as parthenos — which specifically means “virgin.” Matthew 1:23 quotes the Septuagint version, building the doctrine of the virgin birth on a Greek translation choice rather than the original Hebrew wording.

Understanding which biblical text the New Proof authors were using, and how their Greek Old Proof shaped their theology, is a major focus of Septuagint studies.

Translation Theory and Practice

The Septuagint is one of the earliest large-scale translation projects in human history. Studying how ancient translators handled the transition from Hebrew to Greek — their techniques, their struggles, their creative solutions — provides insights into translation theory that remain relevant today.

Some translators aimed for word-for-word fidelity (what scholars call “formal equivalence”). Others prioritized making the text readable and natural in Greek (“active equivalence”). Some invented new Greek words to handle Hebrew concepts that had no Greek equivalent. Others used existing Greek philosophical terms to translate Hebrew ideas — a choice that loaded the text with philosophical associations the original Hebrew didn’t carry.

The Greek word logos (word/reason), for example, appears in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew dabar (word/thing). When the Gospel of John opens with “In the beginning was the Logos,” it’s drawing on both the Septuagint’s usage and Greek philosophical tradition — creating a theological concept that fuses Hebrew and Greek thought. That fusion happened partly because of translation choices made in Alexandria centuries earlier.

Key Manuscripts and Textual Witnesses

The oldest surviving Septuagint manuscripts are papyrus fragments from the 2nd century BCE — remarkably close to the original translation date. But complete or near-complete copies come from the great 4th-5th century CE codices:

• Codex Vaticanus (4th century) — Held in the Vatican Library, considered one of the most important biblical manuscripts in existence
• Codex Sinaiticus (4th century) — Discovered at St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai Peninsula in the 19th century, now split between the British Library and other collections
• Codex Alexandrinus (5th century) — In the British Library, particularly important for its text of the prophetic and wisdom books

No two manuscripts are identical. Over centuries of hand-copying, errors, corrections, and deliberate revisions accumulated. Sorting through these variations — called textual criticism — is painstaking work. Scholars compare manuscripts, identify patterns of error, and try to reconstruct the earliest recoverable form of the text.

Several ancient scholars also revised the Septuagint. Origen (3rd century CE) created the Hexapla — a massive six-column work placing the Hebrew text, a Greek transliteration, and four different Greek translations side by side for comparison. Lucian of Antioch and Hesychius produced their own revised editions. These revisions complicate modern scholarship because they introduced changes that mixed with the original Septuagint text in later manuscripts.

Modern Septuagint Scholarship

The field has grown significantly since the mid-20th century. Major current projects include:

The Goettingen Septuagint — An ongoing critical edition that aims to reconstruct the oldest recoverable text of each book, with a full apparatus showing all manuscript variations. This project has been running since 1931 and still isn’t complete — testimony to the scale and difficulty of the work.

NETS (New English Translation of the Septuagint) — Published in 2007, this provides the first complete English translation of the Septuagint as a Greek text (rather than treating it simply as a witness to the Hebrew). It allows English-speaking scholars and students to study the Septuagint on its own terms.

Computer-assisted analysis — Digital tools now allow scholars to analyze vocabulary patterns, translation techniques, and textual relationships across the entire Septuagint in ways that were impossible when working with printed editions alone.

The International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS) coordinates research and hosts annual conferences. Membership has grown steadily as more scholars recognize the Septuagint’s importance for understanding both Judaism and Christianity in the ancient world.

Why This Matters Beyond Academia

You might think this is all just academic trivia. But Septuagint studies touches questions that matter to real people.

If you’re a Christian wondering why your Bible includes certain books (or doesn’t), the answer traces back to the Septuagint. If you’re comparing Bible translations and wondering why they sometimes disagree, textual criticism of the Septuagint and Masoretic Text is the reason. If you’re interested in how ideas cross cultural and linguistic boundaries, the Septuagint is one of history’s most consequential case studies.

The Septuagint reminds us that scripture — any scripture — has a human history. People translated it, copied it, revised it, debated it, and transmitted it across centuries. That history doesn’t diminish its significance. If anything, it makes the survival and influence of these texts more remarkable. A translation project in a bustling Egyptian port city 2,300 years ago shaped how billions of people understand God, morality, and the meaning of human existence. That’s worth studying.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 'Septuagint' mean?

Septuagint comes from the Latin word for 'seventy' (septuaginta), often abbreviated as LXX (70 in Roman numerals). According to the Letter of Aristeas, 72 Jewish scholars (rounded to 70) independently translated the Torah from Hebrew to Greek in Alexandria, Egypt, around 250 BCE, producing identical translations — a story most scholars consider legendary rather than historical.

Why was the Hebrew Bible translated into Greek?

The translation arose because large Jewish communities living in Egypt and other parts of the Greek-speaking world (the Diaspora) could no longer read Hebrew fluently. By the 3rd century BCE, Greek had become their everyday language, and they needed scriptures in a language they could understand. The translation served both liturgical and educational purposes.

Why does the Septuagint differ from the Hebrew Bible?

Differences arise for several reasons: the Septuagint translators may have worked from Hebrew texts that differed from the later standardized Masoretic Text, some passages were interpreted rather than literally translated, and the Septuagint includes additional books (like Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach) not found in the Hebrew canon. Dead Sea Scroll discoveries have confirmed that some Septuagint readings reflect genuinely ancient Hebrew variants.

Do any churches still use the Septuagint today?

Yes. The Greek Orthodox Church and other Eastern Orthodox churches use the Septuagint as their authoritative Old Testament text, not the Hebrew Masoretic Text. This is why Orthodox Bibles include books like Tobit, Judith, and Wisdom of Solomon that Protestant Bibles exclude. The Catholic Church also recognizes several of these additional books as deuterocanonical.

Further Reading

• International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
• Britannica — Septuagint
• World History Encyclopedia — Septuagint