The Septuagint: What It Is and Why It Matters

By Greg Lanier and William A. Ross

A Thorough, Accessible Introduction to the Greek Translation of the Old Testament
Scholars and laypeople alike have stumbled over Bible footnotes about the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Many wonder, What is it? Why do some verses differ from the Hebrew text? Is it important to Scripture?
In this introduction to the Septuagint, Gregory R. Lanier and William A. Ross clarify its origin, transmission, and language. By studying its significance for both the Old and New Testaments, believers can understand the Septuagint's place in Judeo-Christian history as well as in the church today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Crossway Books
• Release date: Nov 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781433570551

Greg Lanier

Greg Lanier (PhD, University of Cambridge) is associate professor of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. He also serves as associate pastor of River Oaks Church (PCA). He has published multiple books and scholarly articles on early Christology, the Gospels, the Septuagint, and other topics. Greg and his wife, Kate, live in Florida with their three daughters.

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It is good to have Lanier and Ross as reliable guides to the tricky but fascinating domain of the Greek Old Testament. Their short introduction is a rare achievement: introducing the complexities behind the term ‘Septuagint’ in a simple way without compromising accuracy. An excellent book.

Peter J. Williams, Principal, Tyndale House, Cambridge

"Pastors and seminary students regularly ask me about the Septuagint and its significance for a modern, English-speaking Christian. The Septuagint: What It Is and Why It Matters is my new number-one recommended resource for these inquiries. The book is informed by a scholarly knowledge of the subject, yet it remains accessible and a pleasure to read."

Robert L. Plummer, Collin and Evelyn Aikman Professor of Biblical Studies, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Founder and Host, Daily Dose of Greek

"Interested in the Septuagint? Start here. This accessible introduction carefully navigates the what and the so what of the Septuagint, charting a steady course through a quagmire of complex issues. Tricky matters are treated with scholarly precision and theological sensitivity, and readers will find a corrective both to an overemphasis and to an underemphasis on the Septuagint. This book will be useful to the beginning student, the graduate student, the pastor, and anyone interested in learning more about how we got the Bible."

Brandon D. Crowe, Professor of New Testament, Westminster Theological Seminary

In class I’m regularly asked how much value and authority we should attribute to the Septuagint. The answer is complex, but students are looking for clear answers. As a teacher, I had yet to come across a clear yet precise resource explaining the origins and role of the Septuagint—until now. Lanier and Ross have produced a book I will be recommending each time this question is posed. I highly recommend it.

Patrick Schreiner, Associate Professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

The Septuagint is unfamiliar and intimidating to most Bible students. I don’t know of a more accessible introduction than this book.

Andrew David Naselli, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and New Testament, Bethlehem College & Seminary; Pastor, Bethlehem Baptist Church

The Septuagint is a minefield of quandaries for both Bible scholar and devoted layperson: Why is the Septuagint in my Bible’s footnotes, offering a different reading from the main text or the source for the reading in the main text? Why do the New Testament authors quote from the Septuagint and not the Hebrew? In this book, Lanier and Ross know the minefield and ably guide readers through the potential dangers related to terminology, the task of ancient translation, textual and translational histories, canonical formation, and biblical authority and lead them safely to the other side. I happily recommend this book!

John D. Meade, Associate Professor of Old Testament; Codirector, Text & Canon Institute, Phoenix Seminary; coauthor, The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity

The Septuagint

The Septuagint

What It Is and Why It Matters

Gregory R. Lanier and William A. Ross

The Septuagint: What It Is and Why It Matters

Copyright © 2021 by Gregory R. Lanier and William A. Ross

Published by Crossway

1300 Crescent Street

Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Jeff Miller, Faceout Studios

Cover image: Shutterstock

First printing 2021

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked ASV are from the American Standard Version of the Bible. Public domain.

Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible. Public domain.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are from The New American Standard Bible®. Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org.

Quotations marked NETS are taken from A New English Translation of the Septuagint, © 2007 by the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, Inc. Used by permission of Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIrV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Reader’s Version®, NIrV® Copyright © 1995, 1996, 1998, 2014 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIrV and New International Reader’s Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked RSV are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked TCEB are taken from the Casual English Bible® (Beta Edition), Copyright © 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Stephen M. Miller Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The Casual English Bible® (TCEB) is a trademark registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Stephen M. Miller Inc. StephenMillerBooks.com, CasualEnglishBible.com.

Scripture quotations marked TNIV are taken from the Holy Bible, Today’s New International Version®. TNIV®. Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the authors.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-7052-0

ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-7055-1

PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-7053-7

Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-7054-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lanier, Gregory R., author. | Ross, William A., 1987– author.

Title: The Septuagint : what it is and why it matters / Gregory R. Lanier and William A. Ross.

Description: Wheaton : Crossway, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020049309 (print) | LCCN 2020049310 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433570520 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781433570537 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433570544 (mobi) | ISBN 9781433570551 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Bible. Old Testament Greek—Versions—Septuagint—Introductions.

Classification: LCC BS744 .L36 2021 (print) | LCC BS744 (ebook) | DDC 221.4/8—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020049309

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020049310

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2021-09-22 01:36:55 PM

To the students who bravely take our Septuagint electives

and humor their professors’ excessive zeal about obscure topics.

You’re secretly our favorites.

Contents

List of Tables

Abbreviations

Introduction

Part 1

What Is the Septuagint?

1 What (If Anything) Is the So-Called Septuagint?

2 Who and Where Did the Greek Old Testament Come From?

3 How Was the Greek Old Testament Translated?

4 How Did the Greek Old Testament Develop?

Part 2

Why Does It Matter?

5 Why Does the Septuagint Matter for Studying the Old Testament?

6 Why Does the Septuagint Matter for Studying the New Testament?

7 What Kind of Authority Does the Septuagint Have?

Appendix: Ten Key Questions about the Septuagint

General Index

Scripture Index

Tables

3.1  Translation Possibilities for John 1:12

4.1  The Double Texts

4.2  The Columns of the Hexapla

5.1  Greek Apocrypha

5.2  Apocryphal Books Found in Major Greek Codices

5.3  Examples of the ESV Adopting Septuagint Wording

6.1  Greek Old Testament Influence on New Testament Vocabulary

7.1  Framework for Authority

7.2  New Testament Use of Nonbiblical Sources

7.3  Quotation Patterns in the New Testament

7.4  Diverse Ways of Quoting the Same Old Testament Passage

7.5  Expanded Framework for Authority

Abbreviations

Abbreviations of ancient works (e.g., Ag. Ap. for Against Apion, by Josephus) follow §8 of The SBL Handbook of Style, 2nd ed. (Atlanta: SBL, 2014).

Introduction

Not many people know much about the Septuagint. This is just as true of the majority of churchgoing Christians as it is of many religion students and even pastors. Nor is it all that surprising.

Many pastors find it challenging enough to get their people to read the Old Testament in English, let alone become familiar with its ancient Greek translation. Devout Bible readers rarely stop to consult the cryptic marginal notes that mention the Septuagint, even though it appears as early as Genesis 2:2 in the CSB and Genesis 4:8 in the ESV and NIV.

With pressures hitting higher education from all sides, the typical religion curriculum barely has enough room already for courses on church history, theology, and Bible introduction. Should ministers-in-training really spend time learning the intricate textual history of the Bible rather than, say, counseling or preaching? After all, how often can the Septuagint possibly be relevant in sermon preparation? These pragmatic reasons and others like them have led many to conclude that this area of study is excusably ignored.

Yet this book exists, and you are reading it—two facts that attest to growing interest in the Septuagint. This growth is mostly concentrated among scholars and zealous students. But like some scholarly trends, it is beginning to get attention outside those circles as well. There are several reasons for this wider interest: questions about the text of the Old Testament and its reliability, lack of clarity about the formation of the Old Testament canon, and affirmations—or denials—of the importance of the Septuagint for New Testament authors. Each issue merits serious reflection by thoughtful Bible readers.

To this end, a few introductions to the Septuagint have appeared in recent years.¹ Why write another? This book aims to accomplish what even we as the authors occasionally thought was an impossible task: to distill the enormous complexity surrounding the origins, transmission, and role of the Septuagint into a brief introduction that is accessible to laypeople but still informative for scholars. Achieving this goal requires delving into some details that may be novel and complex for newcomers (press on!), while avoiding other details that may be expected by specialists (forgive us!). A true introduction that is around 200 pages and does not require knowledge of the biblical languages cannot say everything that could be said.² So we focus on answering two big questions, broken down into smaller subtopics.

In part 1, we answer the question What is the Septuagint? by covering the following topics:

Chap. 1: The basics of the Septuagint and why that label is somewhat problematic

Chap. 2: The origins of the translation (who and where from)

Chap. 3: The approach(es) used in translating the Hebrew Bible into Greek

Chap. 4: The transmission of the Greek texts throughout history

Part 1 gives readers a broad working knowledge about the Septuagint.

In part 2, we address the question Why does it matter? by covering the following topics:

Chap. 5: The value of the Septuagint for studying the Old Testament (canon, text, and interpretation)

Chap. 6: The value of the Septuagint for studying the New Testament (adoption by the early church, influence on New Testament style/vocabulary, and use in Old