The Legend of the Septuagint  🔗 **Source:** [The Legend of the Septuagint](https://share.snipd.com/episode/fbf964f0-0ab1-434a-985f-c7779dfe6a0e) ## Highlights - **Read Ancient Claims As Rhetoric First** - Consider the rhetorical goals when reading ancient texts; the Letter of Aristeas defends Greek-speaking Jewish identity and argues the translation is divinely approved. - Use translations and commentaries (e.g., Benjamin Wright) to spot apologetic framing versus history. Transcript: Dan Beecher So I'm sure there are a variety of different things going on, but you do seem to, the letter does seem to be speaking to Jewish people, but also to non-Jewish people. And so it is an apologetic letter to some degree, both internally and maybe externally as well. Although maybe the defenses of the philosophical rationality of Judaism are really internally oriented as well. Maybe it's intended to convince folks who are like, no, we're different, we've got to be isolationist, or we've got to be something like that. Maybe it's an attempt to say to them, no, we should be integrated into the broader world because we fit with the way they think and talk about things. ([Time 0:25:25](https://share.snipd.com/snip/25c0a171-0e97-4dd5-b57c-6f8a1ef7572b)) - **Septuagint Shows Multiple Translators Over Time** - Linguistic and stylistic differences across Pentateuch books show the Septuagint translations were produced at different times by different hands, not by a single 72-person event. - Genesis is freer, Deuteronomy more literal and Semitic, indicating a long, multi-stage translation process. Transcript: Dan Beecher Yeah. And this is something that was desirable to the outside world. This is something that... And for a long time, this was considered historical. A lot of people just assumed that this was the way things went down, or that this preserved some kind of social memory of the broad outlines of how this went down. And it was really like in the 1600s and 1700s that there were scholars who were like, yeah, no, this is all myth. None of this happened. And I think that's more or less the consensus view today. There are certainly scholars who will say, this was written a century later, and this is mostly made up, but it's not outside the realm of plausibility that the king might have requested This. And I would be on the side of scholars who would say it seems more likely that the Septuagint was translated based on internal impulses and motivations that it was needed among Jewish Folks and when you look at the translation of the first five books of Moses it's very clear they were not all translated at the same time and not by the same people. There are very different translation techniques across the different books of the Pentateuch. For instance, Genesis, which is clearly the first one translated, has a pretty free yet faithful style. In other words, the translation is pretty good, but the result is closer to like idiomatic Greek, literary stylings in Greek than it is to like a wooden, very Semitic-sounding translation. And as you go through Exodus and Leviticus and the other texts, the translation style gets less and less free and more and more literal. So that by the time you get to Deuteronomy, the translation is much less good literary Greek and much more, you have more occurrences of Semiticisms in the translation, and you even Have more like transliterations of Hebrew words. So it's definitely a project that occurred over a long period of time, and there's definitely different translators who are working on it. But probably not 72 of them. Probably not 72 of them, correct. ([Time 0:27:51](https://share.snipd.com/snip/235c4cb4-cf6b-4b6f-840d-e82f798c87dd)) - **Septuagint Shaped Early Christian Scripture Choices** - Christianity relied on the Septuagint as its Bible until Jerome promoted the Hebraica Veritas, shifting later Western translations back to Hebrew. - Dead Sea Scrolls later showed Septuagint often reflects alternate ancient Hebrew texts, keeping it text-critically important. Transcript: Dan Beecher Not quite. Okay. So the Septuagint was definitely the authoritative version of the Hebrew Bible for Christianity up until Jerome toward the end of the 4th century CE. Dan McClellan Oh, right, right, right. Dan Beecher And there were Latin translations that existed prior to Jerome, and they stuck to the Septuagint. In fact, when I talk about Exodus 21 verses 22 through 25, which is where we have this idea that I keep bringing up that a fetus was treated more as a property than a person, they call it the Vedas Latina. The Old Latin version, which is the pre-Jerome translation, which was directly dependent on the Septuagint, translates the Septuagint's variant reading of that verse. And then Jerome introduced this idea that became known as the Hebraica Veritas, so the truth of the Hebrew. Is right, and it's the Septuagint that is the later altered text, which most of the time that's correct. And so there are publications of the Vedas Latina and the Vulgates, which is how his translation became known, side by side, and you can compare, and the Vulgates overwhelmingly is Giving preference to the Hebrew. So it's the Vulgate that becomes the edition of the Hebrew Bible within the Orthodox tradition, all the way down to Martin Luther and William Tyndale and the Reformation. And the Vulgate included the books, and most of those only existed in Greek because they were composed in Greek. Right. And so the Vulgate is going from the Greek there, and there are places where the Vulgate is dependent on the Greek. But once we start getting into English translations, most of the translations, starting with Luther and Tyndall, went back to the Hebrew. So they're giving preference to the Hebrew. However, there are a number of places and a number of ways where the Septuagint preserves an earlier reading. And so we've never said we're ignoring the Septuagint entirely. We've always been willing to say, well, the Septuagint preserves this reading, and we think that might be better here. Dan McClellan And so we'll incorporate— Because we don't have any Hebrew—before Qumran, we don't have Hebrew versions that predate the Septuagint. Is that right? Something like that, right? Dan Beecher Yeah, yeah. The oldest versions of the text that we have come from Qumran, and they're very, very fragmentary. I think somewhere between 20 to 25 percent of the entire Hebrew Bible is represented, which is not a large portion of it. And you see different kinds of traditions in there. You see some of the Septuagint readings in some of the Hebrew. You see some more Masoretic text readings in the Hebrew. The Septuagint would have been translated right around the time the Qumran manuscripts are beginning to be transcribed. So the translation of the Septuagint is about contemporaneous with those manuscripts. But because we have the entire Hebrew Bible in later manuscripts of the Septuagint, For the longest time, that was the oldest version of most of, the overwhelming majority of the Hebrew Bible to which we had access. So it was like, we have the Masoretic text from 900 to 1000 CE. That's our oldest manuscript. Or we've got the Septuagint, which is almost a thousand years older in the earliest manuscripts, but it's a translation. So Septuagint has always been text-critically important. And even today, there are lots of places where translations are going to give preference to the Septuagint. ([Time 0:32:06](https://share.snipd.com/snip/20058269-e7f6-40fc-a724-696fefbfb6d0)) - **Exodus Uses Divine Adjudication For Property Disputes** - Exodus 22:7–9 (Hebrew 6–8) instructs that when safekept goods are disputed, the parties must 'come before Elohim' and the condemned pay double. - The clause's legal mechanism is framed as divine adjudication rather than clear evidentiary court procedure. Transcript: Dan Beecher It's verses 7, 8, and 9. Although in the Hebrew, it's verses 6, 7, and 8. This is one of the chapters where there is a distinction in the versification. Just getting all wacky-do. Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. And this is a fun little prescription of what to do. I'm going to read from the updated edition of the NRSV UE. I'm just going to go through verses 7, 8, and 9, and then I think I'll read another translation, and we'll see if you can see what's different. See if you can spot a difference. Yes. Okay, so from the NRSVUE. When someone delivers to a neighbor money or goods for safekeeping, and they are stolen from the neighbor's house, then the thief if caught shall pay double. If the thief is not caught, the owner of the house shall be brought before God to determine whether or not the owner had laid hands on the neighbor's good. In any case of disputed ownership involving ox, donkey, sheep, or any other loss of which one party says, this is mine, the case of both parties shall come before God. The one whom God condemns shall pay double to the other. ([Time 0:37:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ac4602ff-8baa-47c4-8aad-46f87c6218c1)) - **Elohim Ambiguity Changes Legal Interpretation** - The Hebrew term Elohim in these laws can grammatically appear plural, creating interpretive options: 'God', 'gods', or 'judges'. - Translation choices (e.g., NET rendering 'judges') hinge on verb agreement and interpretive traditions, affecting legal meaning. Transcript: Dan Beecher This is the New English Translation. Okay. If a man gives his neighbor money or articles for safekeeping and it is stolen from the man's house, if the thief is caught, he must repay double. If the thief is not caught, then the owner of the house will be brought before the judges to see whether he has laid his hand on his neighbor's goods. In all cases of illegal possessions, whether for an ox, a donkey, a sheep, a garment, or any kind of lost item about which someone says, this belongs to me, the matter of the two of them Will come before the judges. The one whom the judges declare guilty must repay double to his neighbor well so there are a lot of little differences here and then there are a couple of big differences that's a very Dan McClellan Different idea yeah yes this introducing this judge's idea is uh i mean a makes way more sense in terms of like practically what we're talking about. That I can understand. That makes total sense to me. That's what we do now. When there is a dispute, we bring them before a judge. Dan Beecher I think the issue, well, I'll explain an issue with why i think judges is problematic and then we'll get into why there's a difference in the translation yeah the the thing is the judge Isn't going to have any evidence that's going to allow him to make a a logical determination about who's guilty and who's not the idea is basically we're specifically talking about One person's word against another. Exactly. And so elsewhere in the Bible, you need God to be able to decide between two parties when it's just one person's word against another. You have no witnesses, you have no material evidence. But the reason that we have judges here is because the word that is rendered God in the NRSVUE and is rendered judges in NET is Elohim. Now Elohim can be plural or it can be singular. It's rendered judges in the NET. And I think even the, yeah, the King James Version renders judges as well. Okay. It's because the verb about whom the Elohim condemn is conjugated in the plural. Oh. So if you want to say God, then you are ignoring that the verb is plural. Okay. So bring them before God, whomever God condemns. ([Time 0:40:56](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f1ccebc1-84cc-402c-a806-6d3346fbdb27)) - **Scholars Argue Elohim Means Gods Not Judges** - Scholarship (Cyrus Gordon, Anne Drafkorn) argues Elohim in these legal contexts best reads as 'gods' tied to local divine images, not human judges. - NET's footnote misrepresents those studies by citing them to support 'judges' despite their opposite conclusion. Transcript: Dan Beecher C. Cyrus Gordon, Elohim in its reputed meaning of rulers, judges, and Anne Drafkorn, Ilani Elohim. Both of those are Journal of Biblical Literature articles, one from 1935, the other from 1957. So the editors are basically like, we think it means judges, here's why. Here's the problem. Both of the articles that they cited pretty definitively conclude it does not mean judges. Dan McClellan Oh, OK. Yeah, that is sloppy. It's incredibly sloppy. Yeah. Dan Beecher So I'm going to start with Cyrus Gordon from 1935. The article is entitled Elohim and its reputed meaning of rulers judges. And it starts the very first definition under Elohim in Brown Driver Briggs. That's an old lexicon is rulers, judges. And then it goes on from there. The next page, you've got a paragraph that says, it is my contention that here Elohim does not mean God, as the Septuagint translates, nor judges, which is the interpretation of the Peshito and Targumoncalos, followed by Rashi and Ibn Ezra, by several of the English versions and by the lexicon. The literal translation, gods, plural, found in the Vulgates and Luther version is better suited to what appears to be the real meaning of the passage in the light of newly discovered Material and then he goes on to talk about the newsy tablets and how there is this ritual where when you don't have evidence of something you swear to the gods which are supposed to be divine Images, like teraphim. You basically go in front of the court's little shrine and you go, wasn't me, I swear it. And then you pay your fine or whatever and you go. So Cyrus Gordon is black and white. It does not mean rulers or judges. And then Anne Drafkorn from 22 years later publishes her paper, Ilani Elohim, and starts off talking about, oh, it means God or gods could be idols. There's a small group of such marginal occurrences in which the noun had been traditionally interpreted as judges. And then goes on to cite Cyrus Gordon. And basically her paper is saying Cyrus Gordon was right. And here's more information on this. So in the concluding paragraph, the penultimate paragraph, she says, the choice to become, and she says it definitely means gods, and it's because of all these reasons. And explains that, and she's actually talking about the choice to be, in Exodus 21. I'm actually, I just realized I'm looking at Exodus 21. The footnote from the NET is actually about a parallel verse that uses Elohim that's translated Judges in Exodus 21. I apologize. I've overlooked that. But it's the exact same argument. And the footnote in Exodus 22 says, see footnote here. Okay, right. Okay, so sorry. And so Anne Drafkorn says, all in all, the explicit statement that the master shall bring him to the gods may now be seen against a valid social and legal background. In other words, Anne Drafkorn is just doubling down on Cyrus Gordon being right. So whoever wrote that footnote said, check it out. These scholars make a stronger case that it refers to judges. They very clearly didn't read either of these papers. ([Time 0:55:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5c175303-fdf5-42b7-bd6b-ae65a1de34aa)) - **Household Gods Played Legal Roles In Ancient Israel** - The covenant code likely presumes multiple local sanctuaries and household gods; disputants swore before household or city 'gods' (teraphim) to settle claims. - Material images functioned as conduits of divine authority and oath rituals, explaining 'bring them before the gods.' Transcript: Dan McClellan Before ha Elohim. Yeah. So, okay. Basically all of the translations either say God or judges. You're saying it should say gods. So, so, well, so what are we doing here then? If we're taking them before the gods, before gods, is it just the same? Is it just the same? Are we just doing the same thing, but there's more gods that live there now? Dan Beecher So this is probably it. The covenant code is the earliest legislative layer in the entire Hebrew Bible. And it's coming from, Josiah, so it's prior to the Adonai Alone movement. So we've got sanctuaries everywhere. This is prior to Sennacherib's destruction of all the cult sites everywhere except for Jerusalem. So the Jerusalem temple is not the only place where you can go to worship God or the gods. And this is probably a time when, in fact, I think if you go down to 22, 27, 22, yeah, 22, 28 in the English, it's 27 in the Hebrew. The King James Version says, Thou shalt not revile the gods, nor curse the ruler of thy people. And more other translations will say, You shall not revile God. Right. But you've already got laws about that. Right. So why would you be saying don't revile God? And don't revile one of your rulers either? So this is a time period when Asherah was probably being worshipped alongside Adonai. And you had teraphim, penates, divine images. You basically had little statuettes in your house that were channels for divine agency and stuff like this. You see this in the story of, I don't know who all, we should cover this story. When David needs to escape, what does Michal use as a decoy for David sleeping in his bed? One of the teraphim. Dan McClellan Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dan Beecher Didn't we talk about this? Oh, you know what? I think we did. We did. We did. Where it puts like goat hair on the one of the teraphim. Dan McClellan You just grab one of your gods and throw a wig on it, and then you're good to go. Dan Beecher And so these would have just been, and this is what Rachel steals when she and Jacob are leaving Laban, and he comes chasing after him like, you got my gods, what are you doing? And Rachel sits on him and goes, sorry, my time of the month to abscond with the household gods. These are basically, you know, representatives of deities. And so there would have been your city ones as well. And these were the ones who had authority over multiple different households. And so the idea would have been for the slave who wants to, you know, I love being enslaved to this family. You go to the household gods and you perform the ritual in front of the gods and that gets their thumbs up. If it's a matter between two different households, you got to go to the city gods and you've got to swear, and you've got to, I don't know, take the chalk and do one of your LeBron James, Throw it up in the air, and you say, I didn't steal the thing, or the thing belonged to me, or something like that. That's my weed whacker, always has been. So yeah, I think that's the idea that these are material media that represented these divine agents. And so you had to swear before them. And the hope was that you believed in this stuff enough that you would be too scared not to. So I think that's probably what's going on here. And so, yeah, I think a literal translation here would be bring them before the gods. ([Time 1:01:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/dd98dc52-a96c-41cd-9fbf-31b5769a2851)) - **Dolls Around The Bed Echo Ancient Household Gods** - Dan Beecher recounts his daughter arranging dolls around her bed to protect her from bad dreams as a modern echo of household gods. - He uses this childhood moment to illustrate continuity between ancient teraphim rituals and present protective practices. Transcript: Dan Beecher Divine agency, material media, stuff like that. Right, right, right, right. I was sitting in a recliner in my living room in the house I'm currently sitting in right now, contemplating this idea of people using these images to kind of transmit agency to ward off Evil and all this stuff. And my daughter, and this literally happened, I'm not making this up. My daughter at the time was like six or seven, comes downstairs and says, I just arranged all my dolls around my bed to protect me tonight from bad dreams. And I was like, ah, it's the, you know, uh, the, the, there's nothing new under the sun. No, this is them going on for, for millennia. ([Time 1:07:21](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4371094e-4f3d-4309-b38f-e98f18aee539))