Professor James Aitken (1968-2023) ז"ל Jim suffered a heart attack on Friday 31 March, 2023. He died a week later, in the early hours of the morning of 7 April.
@@KEDEMChannel Thank _you_ for consistently high quality content! Btw there's a small typo in video description "Book by professor Lames Aitkin (affiliated link)"
@@jeremiah6540 At 12:04 "Professor eichen what happened after the pentateuch was translated so far I've only spoken about the pentateuch and its origins in the 3rd Century BC what becomes interesting is that gradually other translations are produced and this seems to have taken a long time anything up to the first century CE"
@Jeremiah side note thought: today I drove my 77yr old parents 6hr so that my mother could have brunch (omelet n pancakes) with her 95yr old dad. My own dad, always focused on time and return home, sadly inserts the unwarranted aspect of time. Try not to miss out on the journey as the having isn't always as sweet. Anywho, just a thought. 😇
I don’t believe that the Septuagint added entire sections to the book of Esther. I believe that these sections were intentionally removed from the Hebrew. The strongest witness to this are the writings of Josephus, which were derived from an original Hebrew source. Josephus’ account of Esther includes all of the “additional” sections found in the Septuagint of Esther.
Thank you for that information. The Septuagint / LXX / has been a mainstay in my personal studies. Initially, I doubted any validity until I studied the writings of Iranaeus - Against Heresies - Book 3 Ch 21. For those glancing through and unfamiliar: Iranaeus was a student of of Polycarp, who was a student of the Apostle John. He argued against the heresies that clearly exist today. As our Lord Jesus said, "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. " Fear not. The enemy is angry because he knows his time is short.
Thank you for that information about Esther in Josephus. I don't think the sections were intentionally removed later, but that there were different text traditions among Jews and some of the traditions, maybe the one in Babylonia, by mistake or accident, didn't contain the sections.
@@Achill101 Were 95 references to God (51 direct names and 44 personal pronouns) removed by mistake? The reason these sections were removed is because they went against the agenda of Rabbi Akiba. The Rabbis wanted to teach that Mordecai was a great Rabbi, and Esther was his disciple who obeyed whatever he said. Hence the MT reading of Esther 2:20, “Esther obeyed the commandment of Mordecai” in place of the original (LXX) reading, “Esther hearkened to Mordecai’s wishes, which were to always obey God and keep His commandments.” In the story, Mordecai is more than a ‘teacher’, as the Rabbis wanted to place him; he is a prophet. God gave him a prophetic dream of future events. How could the Rabbis liken Mordecai to themselves when God was not speaking to them through prophetic dreams? The solution: to remove the dream and any references to it.
@ClothedByGrace - I had heard that it was debated among Jews if Esther should be included in the Hebrew Bible because it didn't mention God. According to you, only the parts of Esther that are in the Hebrew Bible don't mention God, but the additional parts that are in the Septuagint do - interesting! It could be, of course, that the lack of God in Esther disturbed some Jews, and they looked for and found passages with God that they included to include God. I plan to look more into that. . . . Is it similar with the other book of the Hebrew Bible that doesn't mention God, the Song of Songs: does its Septuagint version include God?
Amazing - about 12 hrs ago I mentioned the Septuigint to a friend who pursue study of Abrahamaic religions - then going online I come across this scholarly video ! TQ Alex & Prof Aitken - Cheers from Borneo 🙌🌏
For the record I'm a Christian and I believe the word of God. However the idea that the first Bible was a loose translation and not the majority text is absurd. If 99.9% of all manuscripts match the reformation Bibles and not the septuagint which matches nothing. Its impossible to believe the early Christians were using it when all the quotes in books match the majority texts. I shouldn't say impossible because there are the scholars who agree with the catholic ones sadly like James White SJ.
I doubt that there's a market for it (translators want to get paid, too), except for the Book of Enoch whose only complete version is in the Ethiopian Bible. In Greek, we've got only fragments of it. IIRC there are multiple translations of the Book of Enoch from the Ethiopian language into English.
I believe there is some English translation of the books, just not the entire Bible together. I think they were done some time ago and I don’t know the quality of the translation
Fantastic talk on a topic of immense importance. I now know so much more of the multifaceted issues surrounding what I thought was much more straightforward textual translation. I'm now hungry to learn more. Thanks!
Don’t forget to mention that the 72 Jewish scribes (150 BC) only translated the five Books of Moses (Torah) and that it was this work that was done so well. This is the original Septuagint. Unfortunately this translation was destroyed of a fire in the Alexandrian library. The whole of Tanach was translated all over by the Christian Church much later (100-150 AD). It was probably done by unknown Hellenistic Jews and Greek Church writers. This was later also called “Septuagint”, but must be separated from the first original one done perfect by Jewish scribes and of only Torah.
The full Tanakh was translated into Greek by 150 BC. Lucky it was, as the war which is commemorated by the Hanukkah celebration did great damage to the availability of Hebrew writings of all types. The Seleucids destroyed much more than the Temple oil, they destroyed everything Hebrew they could find. The Septuagint was the dominant Scriptures used in synagogues until Rome made Christianity legal in the 4th century AD. Interesting note: The Jews celebrate Hanukkah but the only description of it is in Greek as part of the Septuagint. When the Jews attempted to put together a better Hebrew Tanakh in 190 AD - after the Roman wars which destroyed the Temple and exiled the Jews from Jerusalem, they didn't want a Greek based text - even if translated into Hebrew - included.
Outside Judea, close to 100% of the diaspora synagogue inscriptions are in Greek. In Judea, where the default language is Aramaic, 80% of these inscriptions are Greek. Some have said the Deuterocanon was never written in Hebrew but the DSS have proven that to be false as at least 3 so far (Baruch, Sirach, and Tobit of the Deuterocanon), have been found within the DSS written in Hebrew; using the word "recension" against them is a continual knee-jerk reaction to the Deuterocanon being written in Hebrew, and a moving of the goal posts. Septuagint Chronicles is quoted by Eupolemos in the middle of the 2nd century BC, and Septuagint Job by Pseudo-Aristeas in the beginning of the 1st century BC. The translation of Isaiah contains allusions to historical situations and events that point to the years 170-150 BCE" (Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Emanuel Tov, p 131, 2012). Thus more than the Torah was translated into Greek by 150 BC. The ToRaH was translated into Greek from 283-246 BC under Ptolemy II Philadelphus and the prophets and writings for the Septuagint within the next 100 years. Thus the Septuagint was not created by Christianity but preceded it by centuries. R. K. Harrison confirms its early use: "While there are certain differences in New Testament usage, there is no doubt that of all Greek versions the LXX was employed predominantly and that it enjoyed independent existence in the period just prior to the time of Christ." The Septuagint was also most likely the standard Old Testament text used by the early Christian church. Early LXX material is included in the Rylands Papyrus 458, which dates back to 150 BC. OTOH, the MT base text for the TaNakH was still being altered even as late as 1,000 AD.: From Haaretz: *Israeli Scholars Discover Corrections, Erasures, Revisions in Oldest Biblical [Masoretic] Manuscript* "Analysis of Leningrad Codex shows that about a millennium ago, there were *several different versions* of the Bible that evolved over time..." Other highly concerning things: "The corrections in the Leningrad Codex reveal another stage in the development of the Masoretic text, a process that continued for hundreds of years. Early on, during the first centuries of the Common Era, there are still changes in entire sentences. Later, the changes are limited to individual words, and finally merely to vocalization marks and cantillation notes." Concerning changes in entire sentences of the MT in the first few centuries CE, Justin Martyr said the scriptures in his time period were being altered. See Jer. 8:8. Eupolemus had no agenda though.
@@evelynmcewen8874 That is all consistent with what I have read, Evelyn. I've read that the rabbis twice tried to circulate "redacted" - my term - Septuagint - Aquilla's? - but the Jewish people would not accept them. Only with Rome legalizing Christianity - and the rabbis had to see where this would lead - was there success in getting Hebrew reintroduced as the main teaching texts in the synagogues. They knew the Hebrew texts were deficient, so they continued to work on getting the best text available, which resulted many centuries later as the Masoretic Text, used today. If is wasn't for Christianity, the Jews would have relied on the Septuagint to reconstruct its Hebraic Scriptures. Emanuel Tov, whom you mentioned, is quoted in the following link, toward the bottom, as thus: “My intuition tells me that more often than not the LXX [Septuagint] reflects an earlier stage than MT [Masoretic Text] both in the literary shape of the biblical books and in small details.” Professor Tov chose his words very carefully. denverseminary.edu/the-denver-journal-article/the-text-critical-use-of-the-septuagint-in-biblical-research/ This link provides many, but not all of the differences between the Septuagint and the MT. It emphases the differences that diminish Christianity and the New Testament quotes from the Septuagint. Note that "Hebrew" here means the Masoretic Text. web.archive.org/web/20040602211822/www.scripturecatholic.com/septuagint.html There are sources that show many other differences having the same effect - to cast doubt that Jesus came as the Hebrew Scriptures foretold. It is appropriate that Christian apologists can trace the existence of a Triune God from the Torah and certain prophetic writings, including Isaiah. This is getting lengthy, but I will close that Jerome was warned that the Hebrew texts he - mostly - used in preparing his Latin translation of the Old Testament, were corrupted. Thus through the Catholics, the Protestants are mostly attuned to the MT as the basis for the Hebrew Scriptures, rather than the Greek Septuagint which vastly predates it, and was developed from better Hebrew source writings. This is beginning to change.
This is a great interview. I deeply appreciated waching this. At the same time I was very sad to be reminded of the fact that Prof Aiten had died earlier this year, which I think is a terrible loss to this field of study as well as his kindness, civility and humility. Such a sad loss. RIP.
This was an excellent survey of the use of the Septuagint, especially when it mentions the evolution of the text from earlier, Hebrew forms to the current Masoretic text. A polemic often used against Christians is that they changed the meaning of the Hebrew, when they in fact, did not. They may have been working often from an earlier, Hebrew.
@@avibenavrahamit is disputable that the meaning was changed. There is nothing miraculous about a young woman having a child. Happens all the time today as did then. Parthenos meaning “virgin” was used in the Septuagint for Isaiah 7 as well as in Genesis regarding Rebekah.
Very grateful for another fascinating vid. Prof. James Aitken's eloquence makes us understand the story of the Septuagint in a fluid yet substantial manner. Many many thanks!
Thank you for this very interesting video on Septuagint. There are some excellent questions. For instance Septuagint is from 3rd century BCE and the Masoretic text is from 10th century AD. That means 1300 years between them. What text is more closed to the ORIGINAL text of the Torah???
Thanking you. The earliest Masoretic text that we found so far is actually from the 9th and 10th centuries AD, but it dose not mean that the text is not much older. Texts that are very similar to the Masoretic text were found in Qumran and they are dated as early as to the 2nd century BC
@@Nudnik1 Probably this was the situation at the translation time. There is no equivalent of the Old Testament in 3rd century BC to compare. We simply do not know. Comparison with the Masoretic text which is 1300 years older, has no meaning.
@@KEDEMChannel Yes, the issue is that Dead Sea scrolls are from a Judaic sect which was somehow outside the mainstream 2nd Temple Judaism. Essenes were a sect that retired from society and used to follow own rules.
Why did Jerome create a translation of the Old Testament based on a Hebrew version, rather than the Septuagint, as Latin Bible translations had done before him?
He didn't. Scholars have gone over the Vulgate and it's most definitely based on the Septuagint. However, Jerome also "completed" the Vulgate by translating the original Hebrew Bible in places where he knew the Septuagint was missing stuff or where the Greek is known to be problematic but not theologically significant (Isaiah still says "ecce virgo concipiet" in the Vulgate).
Yet vulgate says that Amos said in 9:12 that they would possess the remnant of Edom and all the nation called after His name despite the fact that the first council the apostles said that Amos said that the Gentiles and all the nations called after His name would seek Him. Clearly Jerome favored the corrupted Hebrew and disregarded the apostles from the first council in Jerusalem who agreed with the Septuagint reading. Clearly Jerome favored Psalm 39(40) reading for “ears” rather than “a body prepared” as testified by the apostles in Hebrews 10. It is apparent that Jerome did not favor apostolic tradition even with the scriptures right in front of him despite the warnings of St. Augustine and Justin Martyr in the places that obviously mattered most. And if Jerome did not follow apostolic tradition, then the Roman Catholic Church looses claims to apostolic succession and rather has succession from those described 1 John 2:19 seeing they clearly choose to use scriptures that have failed to follow after apostolic tradition.
@@StripedCheeseBreadI think you’re taking all that out of context on him preferring the “corrupt Hebrew” text. At the time he started his translations the Pope requested him to use the Greek as was historically normal to use. However, he didn’t have access to a complete copy of the Septuagint, only individual books and other sources translated to Latin. He did however have access to complete Hebrew OT and the scholars of the time that would help him with the Hebrew. He used it to fill in or correct places where he felt his Greek copies where not correct. That’s why the vulgate till this day is heavily Septuagint and and then supported by Hebrew and now also DS scrolls.. Jerome’s translation wasn’t perfect and other church scholars made corrections down the road but he did a pretty good job with what he was working with.
Very good channel, beautiful and quite reasonable explanation of the origin of the virgin birth narrative, which I have no problem accepting as a Christian.
So fascinating! I'm a translator myself, albeit (rather prosaically) translating technical manuals between English and German. Even that throws up certain difficulties inherent in the nature of languages! And these are two living languages, and I have spent years living in the German-speaking and the English-speaking world. It boggles my mind how linguists of ancient languages can figure out the intricacies of translation between two long-dead languages!
Thank you very much for these wonderful history videos. I've watched a fair number of them and they are engaging and informative. Keep up the good work. How much evidence do we have for conversions to Judaism from the time of creation of the Septuagint? Was this a factor?
Thank you for your kind words 🙏 Your question is a good one that can’t be answered in short. One interesting story is the conversation of the Edomites (by force) at the time of John Hyrcanus at the end of the second century BCE
This was an excellent dialogue - ask the right questions and the answers look after themselves. The topic is complex but the the analysis opens it up so that one can begin to grasp the multiple issues raised. A great scholar can enlighten our understanding without dumbing down - here is enlightenment and clarity. The discussion of the literary character of translations - should you mimic the original language or aim to produce a translation which makes sense in the new language was fascinating. It was a process akin to the production of the English Bible over a hundred years in the 16/17th centuries. Some words from the Hebrew and Greek could not be translated and so new words entered the English language. In 1611 the King James Bible tried to take the best of previous traditions but to present a text which sounded well when read aloud. A sabbath eve well spend! Many thanks!
It's hard enough for the average person to speak complete sentences without injecting "um" and "ah" into what is being said. Writing perfect grammatically correct sentences are also difficult for the smartest people that have ever lived. All the grammar problems are doubled when two languages have different grammar rules. Throw in different idioms that may also differ from one community to another, grammar mistakes will be made.
I watched Kedem's video with Jonathan Adler on the archaeological evidence for the beginning of Jewish practices just prior to this one. His idea that widespread Torah observance starrted primarily with the Hasmoneans seems to contradict the timeline here. If there was a torah literate community of diaspora Jews in Egypt in the second century BCE that had the means and desire to fund a translation into Greek and fund a prayer house, that would predate the hasmoneans by around 100 years ,correct? We know there were Judeans in Egypt already (Elephantine, etc.) but they seemed to have little knowledge of the Torah according to Adler. Would be interesting to see how to reconcile these two timelines in a future video!
Prof. Adler advocates against the widespread of the Torah among common people of the time, but he does not exclude the possibility of such among certain elite groups (i.e Priests).
The Seventy was based on Egyptian texts that were quite similar to the Palestinian texts that Jesus and His disciples used; in AD 90 the Jews adopted the Babylonian text as their official scripture because it was the most different from the Seventy which Christians were using--in the middle ages it became the Masoretic text which Protestants use, and which is similar to the text Jerome translated as the Vulgate.
If the Jews adopted the babylonian text in 90CE, then I doubt that they did it because of anything the Christians did who were by then still a very small group.
@28:40: The Hebrew translators were using the original Hebrew living text, not the Masoretic. This was proven by the finding of the dead sea scrolls. The Hebrew scholars that created the Masoretic text changed a number of verses and words, which initially were thought as being errors or later revisions, but after the finding of the dead sea scrolls it proved that the original translation of the Septuagint were actually correct in translating from the original living word. For example, prior to the dead sea scrolls it was thought that 1 Enoch was quoting the Bible in a number of passages, however it ended up being the opposite where Jesus and the authors were quoting 1 Enoch. The Hebrew scholars that made the Masoretic text changed a number of words and verses to deter people away from 1 Enoch because he prophesied Jesus as the Messiah, they saw the connection and wanted to remove it. And for other reasons. Son's of God being angels is another example, which they changed to Son's of Israel which is now being corrected to angels of God or Sons of God in a lot of modern translations.
guys you left out the important question: who coined/invented the modern term 'Septuagint' -- because it is a term of the missionizing christian church! So the church wants to gain credit/reputation by using the term septuagint everywhere - even if it doesn't make any sense
The term Septuagint is based on the legend that there were seventy (or 72) translators of the Pentateuch into Greek, and their translations all agreed. The legend is older than Christianity.
@@Achill101septuagint is exactly about the Tora-translation _NOT_ the Bible-translation! do you get it? the Greek Old Testament - so called septuagint - wasn't related at all to the legend of 70/72 Jewish translators in hennelistic Egypt! The church is in controll off the corrupt Greek Old Testament and tries to render credebility for its anti-semitic original bible by 'lending' the term and the legend and applying it in a propagandist way!
The ten tribes had not been lost, only their leaders were exiled by the Assyrians and not heard from anymore in history (as opposed to the leaders of the Judahite kingdom whose descendents partly migrated from the Babylonian Exile back to Israel). Many Jews probably saw themselves as member of one tribe, like the apostle Paul who saw himself as from Benjamin. But tribe membership was religious by that time and didn't correspond to tribe areas etc.
72 scribes in 72 separate rooms translated 72 scrolls in 72 days. Their translations matched perfectly. Sounds like legend to me Did the 72 scribes open their 72 doors at the same exact moment? Seems suspicious. Why fabricate the origins of a religious text?
How does he know that the LXX changed some proverbs if we don't have the Hebrew text from before the LXX? If he's using the Masoretic Text to make that argument, it's chronologically illogical.
We have older Hebrew, Syriac, and Aramaic scrolls and pieces they can reference too before the masoretic. What I can’t figure out is how some scholars will argue till the death for the defense of the Masoretic being the true accurate translation when we know there are things not correct in it.
Does the professor know of an original #AncientGreekText which is purported to be the "Old Testament", and which is extremely different than its translations, including the Septuagint, and which contained the old mysteries of their pagan world?
It's not fully correct that we have no parts of the Hebrew Bible that are older than the Septuagint: the Ketef Hinnom scrolls are from around 600BC and contain a biblical blessing in Hebrew. . . . Scholarly consensus sees Hebrew as the original language of the bible, but there are deviating opinions.
When the Septuagint Pentateuch was composed the word παρθένος also meant a young woman who was not a virgin. This is evident in the criminal sexual assault of Dinah and Jacob's sons' revenge in Genesis 34 LXX.
To get off on a tangent, there was no criminal sexual assault. Speaking of word choice, the word for forcing intimacy is never used. Dinah made a clear choice to go out unprotected into the heathen world, and commit fornication which IS the heinous crime described. Why would the bible say that a rapist was more righteous? You are confused by the story because you are interpreting through a modern judaized lens where fornication isnt bad, instead of what it actually says happens. I hope this helps.
Yes. Legend. It is worth doing your own independent research on the Septuagint. The legend is based on the translations of the first 5 books of the OT. The Septuagint is not the entire OT you find in the Christian bible. The term, from what I understand, stuck even as early Christian leaders continued to add to the "OT." So, for Christians, your OT IS NOT the current Jewish scriptures. There are differences. I often wonder why people are unaware that the Jewish scriptures do not match, w/o clear differences, that of the Christian OT. Later church leaders were so dismayed with the many different versions of the Septuagint, that they needed to codify or define the canonical collections so there wasn't as much confusion. Of course, as this was done, early Christians made more changes to the 'Septuagint.' All in the all, the "septuagint" of legend IS NOT the septuagint people refer to today.
Even your post needs to be nuanced. There are more than one Christian OT canon so you make it sound as if there is only one - quite misleading. Undoubtedly not on purpose, maybe, maybe not???
@10:03 he said Jews in Egypt started learning Greek for business purposes but that they didn't lose their knowledge of Hebrew - IIRC Hebrew was by 300BC a purely religious language, Jews spoke Aramaic in Isael or Mesopotamia or maybe Egyptian in Egypt. There don't seem to have been more incentive to translate Hebrew texts into Greek than into Aramaic, or was there? Greek was the language of the new ruling class (in Egypt, Israel, Mesopotamia).
@16:56 he said when Christianity came along, not necessarily knowing it (the Septuagint) was a translation - that sounds wrong to me: the first generations of Christians were mostly Jews, the second generation (like the communities Paul founded) were taught by Jews, and the further development was driven by the church fathers and their contemporaries. I would agree that in the later generations not all members of Christian parishes had heard of Hebrew, but the leaders certainly had.
@20:07 he said that it (the Septuagint) led to a belief in the afterlife - but many Jews in Israel believed in the afterlife already in the 1st century CE: the Pharisees did, the Saducees didn't, and Jesus did (which is one reason to count Jesus among the Pharisees). . . . But his prior explanation about the translation of Nefesh are interesting: the adaption of Plato by Christians was, ofc, made easier by it.
2nd temple Judaism means the Judaism in the whole period from the resurrection of the temple under the Persians until the destruction of the temple by the Romans in 70CE. The Hebrew Bible was completed in the beginning of this period, the Hasmoneans became Kings, Herod rebuilt the temple, and Jesus lived during the end of this period.
DSS & ORIGEN The Dead Sea Scrolls Nahal Hever 5/6 Hev - Col. XI, fragment 9 There has long been a controversial dispute between Christians and Jews over 366 "evidence texts" about Jesus in the O T. Psalm 22 is the O T text (second only to Isaiah 53) which Christian apologists use to affirm the Christian faith. The Church calls Psalm 22 The Crucifixion Psalm. Read with thought the words that the church father Origen (d. 232 AD) wrote about the Greek translations (O T) produced by the Church who was not like the Original Hebrew Scriptures. A letter from Origen to Africanus, Ante-Nicene Pathers, Volume 4 "We urgently need to reject the copies used in our churches and oblige the fraternity to put down the sacred books that are relevant among them and to gather the Jews and convince them to give us copies that will be unambiguous and free from forgeries."
The title is misleading. The Septuagint was a translation of the Torah ALONE. Other books were later translations done by christians. God spoke in Hebrew
Thank you. We have nothing against any religion or belief system, whatsoever. We respect them all. Our goal is to bring an objective approach, from an academic point of view.
I watch scholars in Archaeology that support Christianity as well. As a Christian, I like to get all perspectives! There are some wonderful Christian scholars that offer a balanced view. Since the advent of RUclips and other platforms, a wealth of knowledge is available to all. I can certainly share a number of channels/podcasts, if you are interested. Many Blessings🇨🇦☺🇨🇦
@@KEDEMChannel in my opinion: Jewish is an older brother to Christian and also with the Muslim is the younger brother of both. So I respects Jewish religion because Jew is the source/root of the believer through patriarch Abraham and Jesus Christ is an Jewish. Thanks. Shalom
Some Jews did indeed feel VERY Greek - but not all of them: that is exactly what the Maccabean revolt leading to the Hasmonean dynasty was about and the rebels were not AT ALL kind to their "greekified" fellow Jews!
@@arulsammymankondar30 Sure but with a specific Jewish twist, here is how Regev Eyal puts it in "The Hellenization of the Hasmoneans" : "The archaeological excavations of the Hasmonean palaces in Jericho and the numismatic evidence on the Hasmoneans are examined in order to understand the Hasmonean rulers’ approach to Hellenistic culture. They enable us to see not only the extent of Hellenistic influence, but also how and why Hellenistic markers were used. Hellenistic art, swimming pools, bathhouses, and symbols on the coins that represent victory, success, government and power, shaped Hasmonean cultural and political identity. At the same time, however, their scope, meaning, and use were limited by the observance of ritual purity and the maintenance of local ethnic identity. Certain Greek symbols were altered to reflect Jewish religious messages. Thus, the Hasmoneans’ adoption of Hellenistic culture, while balanced, mainly served political ends."
@@notanemoprog Thanks for the information; but if I am not wrong, there appears to have been an active enthusiasm, at least for some, to ingratiate to the cultural dictates as evidenced by attempt to obliterate the marks of circumcision- the very symbol of the covenant relationship with Jehovah.
The original Septuagint was only Genesis to Deuteronomy not the rest of Tanakh. The rest was put together later by Hellenists apostates heretics translated the Hebrew bible into Greek. No one has the original Septuagint . 10th of Tevet is a fast day for the forced translation by 72 rabbis. תודה רבה שלום
It's not written in "good Greek" for a very simple reason. It's called "translation Greek". It's a translation of the original Hebrew and they sought to preserve the grammar and words as much as possible from the original. This is the same kind of Greek in the New Testament Greek manuscripts. Shock!!!! Yes, the New Testament is written in "translation Greek" as well. It was originally written in Aramaic.
@@jparks6544 How many sources do you want? I can copy paste so many non-Church historians from Wikipedia alone. Here's one (the Gospel of Matthew is the only book of the NT that might not have been originally written in Greek, but even that's false): The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia p281 ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley - 1959 "Almost all scholars agree that our Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Greek and is not a translated document. Matthew's Greek reveals none of the telltale marks of a translation."
@@jparks6544 Also, all the earliest manuscripts and codices of the NT are Greek, we have no early Hebrew/Aramaic manuscripts (the earliest Aramaic NT MS is from the 5th century). It was the lingua franca and official language of eastern Rome, of which Roman Judea was a part of. Just as a heads-up, if you believe John 3 of your Bible is historically accurate, the conversation of Jesus and Nicodemus could have only taken place in Greek according to Bart Ehrman (non-Christian atheist/non-church history source).
@@NeuKroftaNice try, Prot. Saint Jerome accepted the decision of the Church (read his introduction to Daniel where he explains why he kept the additions to Daniel), that's why he inculded the Deuterokanonika in his Vulgate.
@@NeuKrofta Oh, now I get it. I also disagree with him (he just accepted the canon of the Jews while every Christian before and after him didn't). Yet he did submit to the decision of the Church.
The OT has yet to be translated. The little- but significant- parts Kamal Salibi has translated tells a different “story.” Without Salibi this floundering will continue. “The Bible Came from Arabia “, plus his 3 other bible study books, or start with his blog.
In a synagogue in the 1st century, one could only read the Hebrew scrolls or the Targum (a translation of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic). Greek was forbidden. Recall that Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the Solomon’s temple circa 170 BC. Thus, the need for Herod to build the 2nd temple. The Jews of the 1st century despised the Greeks, for that and other reasons. The only evidence for a BC Septuagint is the letter of Aristeas, which no one believers but everyone quotes. It is a fantastic tale (read fantasy). There is no reference to a Septuagint prior to 50 AD (+/-). If you trace all the reference to a BC Septuagint, you will find that each and every on them references the Letter of Aristeas in one form or another. So, the only witness to a BC Septuagint is the Letter of Aristeas (LOA) If one believes the LOA, one has to believe also that the 10 northern tribes of Israel were not dispersed to four winds after 721 BC. From this diaspora they never returned. Rather you have to believe that they were still in Israel in 283 BC, since the LOA claims that 12 scribes from each of the 12 tribes of Israel were assembled in Egypt. Incidentally, a land to which the Jews were forbidden ever to return to. Deuteronomy 28:68. Only the Levites were to handle the scriptures (with the exception of the King who had to make a copy for himself). So, one has to add to that belief that 72 scribes (not Levites) defiled themselves among the Greeks and defied the scriptures and God’s wishes in order to handle the scriptures as well as going to a land to which they were forbidden ever to return. Moreso, add to that belief, that 72 scribes, each without a copy of the Hebrew scriptures, translated them from memory into Greek in 72 days and every single word was identical all the while being locked up in 72 chambers on the isle of Pharos without any collaboration between them. And by the way, why is it called LXX "The 70"? And may I say ”Incidentally” again? Incidentally, the pharos light house was not built until 280 BC, 3 years after the blessed event. A minor point. To sum up, we are to believe that God inspired the work of 72 (not 70) disobedient, non-Levitical scribes who rendered 72 identical copies of the Hebrew scriptures from memory into Greek. Really? Incidentally, the LOA section 176 also says that the whole scroll was written in gold. Really? Where is it? You’d think that someone would have a vested interest in preserving such a priceless document. Where is it? It doesn’t exist! Finally, If you were to get a copy of the Septuagint, you would find that it is nothing more than the Old Testament portions of the codex Alexandrinus, the codex Sinaiticus and the codex Vaticanus, along with the Apocrypha. If you believe that Jesus quoted from the Septuagint, you have to also believe that Jesus endorsed the Apocrypha. Mother Church here come. Really?
It wasn’t a translation. The Greek is the original. The Hebrew text didn’t come about until 1000 AD when it was translated from the Greek. What people know as the Torah/Pentateuch/Old Testament was written in the 4th century BCE. Judaism didn’t even exist as a way of life until 2nd/1st century BCE.
The first complete bible in Hebrew that we still have is indeed from about 1000CE, but we have many prior fragments that show the Hebrew text is much older than that, especially the Dead Sea Scrolls. . . . Judaism as we know it today is based on the Hebrew Bible AND on the Talmud, and the latter was written after 100CE. But the Talmud has little bearing on the age of the Hebrew Bible (except that the latter must be older).
Forget the erroneous septuagint. They changed some of the scriptures to suit their erroneous beliefs. We have to go by what true Hebrew. Not the changed and erroneous septuagint.
We don't have the true Hebrew text. The Septuagint is closer to the Samaritan Pentateuch than to the Masoretic text, implying a Hebrew first text closer to the Septuagint than the Masoretic text is. There's also a passage in the Masoretic text that seem to have been changed to avoid a hint of polytheism - the Septuagint kept the passage's original meaning.
@@Achill101 Forget the erroneous Septuagint, because it was the erronious Aiexandrians of Egypt who were ant-christians who translated the Masoretic Hebrew into Greek, and they changes the meanings of some words, and ADDED many more books, Books that weren't in the Old Tesament cannon. The Old Testament Hebrew cannon was closed way before the naughty Alexandrians translated it into Greek.
@alanhales1123 - scholarly consensus today holds that the canon of the Hebrew Bible was NOT closed before the destruction of the temple in 70CE and that all parts of the Septuagint, including the parts that were not included in the Hebrew Bible, were translated before 70CE. Sometimes, a scholarly consensus is wrong, of course, but to show it was wrong here you would have to address the arguments for it first. A RUclips comment section is too small for that.
When the Greeks invaded Egypt in 325 BCE which name was Kemet at the time the Greeks Illiterate barbarians the Egyptians put a phonetic alphabet to the Greek language. So every Greek scribe before that date was created unless you can name the institutions where they got their Education. There were none. The first university was built in turkey which was Lebanon at the time called the Hagia of Sofia which was also the first Christian church where the ancient Egyptians were the teachers according to Dr. Walter Williams The Origans of Christianity. There were Hebrews but there were no jews until the 6 century.
Many Christians today think that Jesus and his disciples strolled over to their local Bible store and purchased a copy of the Septuagint, the same and complete Greek version that we have today. Some Christians even rant that the Septuagint is the only true word of God because it is older than the Jews' Bible and those accursed Jews corrupted and distorted Christ's truth in their so-called Masoretic text. It is refreshing to hear an unbiased understanding free of polemics and supported by neutral research.
Many Christian translations of the Tanakh are based on the Masoretic text. The NASB is known to stick to it even where other translations consult the Septuagint. The NET, RSV, NRSV, and NRSVue also stick with the Masoretic text reasonably consistently even where the rendering disagrees with the traditional Christian translations such as the KJV, NKJV, ASV, NIV, etc.
@@jeremiahcastro9700 and your contribution added nothing of value. You haven't pointed out anything that either of us have said that is incorrect. Like saying the sky isn't red and waltzing off into the sunset. Honestly, what was the point of your comment?
@@starchild2121 Not far from what some people think. A co-worker believes that only the original King James is the inspired word of God. I tried to explain that language changes. For example, suffer little children does not mean they should suffer. She argued with me that God does not like sinners and if you spare the rod, you spoil the child. So yes, Jesus does want little children to suffer just as written in King James.
According to Walter Williams an African historians when the Greeks invaded Egypt in 325 BCE the Greeks were Illiterate There was no greek alphabet before then there were no learning institutions in Greece before 325BCE the ancient Egyptians are the ones who put a phonetic alphabet to the Greek language. But when you conquer you can write history the way you want to you can even make up people that never existed.
Get the book by professor James Aitken (affiliated link) === No Stone Unturned: Greek Inscriptions and Septuagint Vocabulary (Critical Studies in the Hebrew Bible) amzn.to/3WYINrn ===
No? Considering that the translation of Isaiah came long before the time of Christ, you can’t blame the Christians for changing the meaning of that passage in the Greek vs. the Hebrew.
@@cyberjunk2002 And why was that? Dr. Aitken says that parthenos could also have the same general meaning as alma. In that case, later generations read the virgin meaning into the passage. One might also wonder why even so. I don’t know that anyone believes there was a virgin birth at the time of King Ahaz.
What you have read is not the original Septuigent, it was destroyed. and the original was a translation of only Torah. What you are calling Septuigent is a Catholic work
The mythological Septuagint and all of it’s contradictions is nothing short of blasphemy. It came from an unsaved Greek communist/fascist philosopher (Plato) that denied Jesus and His deity, along with the rest of the cult leaders (Pantnaeus, Philo, Clement, and Origen) at his school in Alexandria, Egypt. These “educators” think they know better God. That’s why they say, “a better translation,” “an unfortunate rendering,” or “yea, hath God said?” All of the blasphemous denominations that began in a America such as Mormons, Jehova Witnesses, SDA, etc were created from these corrupt gnostic manuscripts that these liars/educators are promoting in the seminaries today. God has a special place in hell for those who mess with his words...
The Septuagint is quoted in the New Testament. Almost all of the OT quotations in the NT match the Septuagint. Therefore the Septuagint predates the New Testament.
The Septuagint was printed in Egypt because the ancient Egyptians taught the Greeks how to write orher wise it would have been printed in Greece. But they will never admit they were Educated by black north Africans that was before they created the middle east. Please, get a map Egypt is still in Africa. The Hebrews were black and their religion was derived from Kemitic spiritualality.
Actually the Masoretic text paved the way for Christianity. The Septuagent was written in Latin and paved the way for Catholicism. Catholicism is not.... and I repeat...NOT Christianity.
Please make yourself knowledgeable before writing obvious falsehoods: the Septuagint was written in Greek. A quick view on Wikipedia and other sites would have saved you from embarrassing yourself. . . . Jerome translated the Septuagint into his Latin Vulgata that became the dominant Bible for Catholics until 1500. But Jerome knew some Hebrew and used the Hebrew text, too, when translating the Septuagint.
The LXX is a translation approved of by God for not only Greek speaking Jews but a translation that would be used authoritatively by the Holy Spirit for Greek speaking Jews and the Greek speaking Gentiles who together became the Ecclesia of God according to the promises of a new covenant fulfilled in Jesus the Messiah. However, the LXX is a translation of the infallible and God-breathed original Hebrew text. The LXX is not God-breathed and infallible. When Jesus said that, man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God he was referring to the extant Hebrew scriptures copied and preserved throughout the history of God's covenant people. We need to exegete the Hebrew Bible if we want to fully appreciate what God revealed to the children of Abraham beginning with Moses and all of the subsequent authors chosen by the Almighty for our spiritual benefit. For example, while the narrative found in Acts between the Sudanese Eunuch and the evangelist Phillip, we have the prophet of Isaiah being quoted from the LXX insofar as Luke followed that translation. My contention is that the Eunuch was reading that in Hebrew, not Greek, but since the account of the early church was in Greek, it was natural for Luke to quote the LXX. The Eunuch was from ancient Cush, Sudan today, and the ancient people of Cush, what became the Kingdom of Meroe, the ruins of which can be seen today, spoke in a Semitic based tongue as is evident in those people who settled the territory of Ethiopia, ancient Abbysinia, whose native language is Semitic. In Psalm 68, Cush in Hebrew, not Ethiopia which is an unfortunate translation in our English bibles taken from the LXX, not the Hebrew. The Greek Ethiopia does not refer to today's nation of Ethiopia but was a word that describes the so-called black races who inhabit North and East Africa and even as far as the more remote parts of the Persian empire and beyond. The Eunuch was either a convert to Judaism or one who simply was a God fearer who came to know and worship the God of Israel. We know that Jews brought Judaism to these regions, and while we are all aware of the Ethiopian Jews we often overlook the fact that knowledge of the God of Israel and Judaic practice found its way into the ancient land of Cush. And since the Eunuch brought the gospel to Meroe, a great and mighty Kingdom, we can assume that many who were also worshiping the God of Israel and practicing a form of Judaism became Christian. Historically, Christianity was the prevailing religion in the Kingdom of Meroe for a long time before it began to wane and fade away among the people right before Islam conquered northern Sudan. The Christian community was greatly reduced over time, and a remnant retreated into the Nuba mountains and other parts of the south. Islams persecution continues even today. Because of the Semitic base of the language of these people, it was a small step to fully adopt and receive Arabic as the official language of Sudan under the rule of Muslims. When the Sudanese peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) was established, they were mostly a Christian resistance militia. At any rate, this is the history of how the Hebrew scriptures came into the hands of this important convert to the true Christian faith. The fact that he had his own copy of the Hebrew of Isaiah shows the impact and influence of Biblical Jidaism in the purpose and providence of the Most High who made Himself known through the children of Abraham Isaac and Jacob as He prepared the world for the life and redemptive work of Jesus the Messiah just as the Hebrew scriptures foretold! To the Judean first and also to the Greek was anticipated by this peculiar and providentially prepared translation. Just as it was when God raised up Alexander the Great and the Greco Roman empire, which set the stage for world evangelism. In your seed (Messiah) shall all of the nations, goyim be blessed! The Sovereign God of creation is the Sovereign God of history and the Sovereign God of redemption in His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased! Hear Him and find Him in the original Hebrew and Greek scriptures. There are no accidents or coincidence in God's universe. For of Him and to Him and for Him are all things. Paul to the Romans 11:36. All things were created by Him and for Him. Paul to the Colossians. 1:16.
The Septuagint is not the original the Septuagint way only the Torah and that doesn't exist what they have is a copy of copies if you have a original I would like to get it that will worth a fortune
Don’t forget to mention that the 72 Jewish scribes (150 BC) only translated the five Books of Moses (Torah) and that it was this work that was done so well. This is the original Septuagint. Unfortunately this translation was destroyed of a fire in the Alexandrian library. The whole of Tanach was translated all over by the Christian Church much later (100-150 AD). It was probably done by unknown Hellenistic Jews and Greek Church writers. This was later also called “Septuagint”, but must be separated from the first original one done perfect by Jewish scribes and of only Torah.
You're wrong about the scribes only translating the PenTateuch in 150 BC. The translation of Isaiah contains allusions to historical situations and events that point to the years 170-150 BCE" (Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Emanuel Tov, p 131, 2012). Isaiah isn't in the Pentateuch. And Septuagint Chronicles is quoted by Eupolemos in the middle of the 2nd century BC. It had to have then been in existence before 150 BC, and Chronicles also isn't in the Pentateuch.
Professor Aitken speaks wonderfully. A pleasure to listen to him.
Indeed. Thank you 🙏
I do some work editing closed captions and at times it shocks me how inarticulate some speak. Great content and Prof. Aitken delivers it perfectly.
@@KEDEMChannel So what version of the septuagint is the oldest or closest to the original? Which do you recommend?
So what version of the septuagint is the oldest or closest to the original? Which do you recommend?
Professor James Aitken (1968-2023) ז"ל
Jim suffered a heart attack on Friday 31 March, 2023. He died a week later, in the early hours of the morning of 7 April.
It was only 2 months after we recorded this interview. RIP James Aitken 🕯️
Same age as my mom... Scary
Thank you for informing us.
Memento mori.
That's terrible. He looks perfectly healthy here, but that's the awful thing about heart attacks.
Alex and Prof. Aitken, thank you for your clear introduction of The Septuagint. It is really eye and mind opening.
Our pleasure! Thank you 🙏
Excellent intro to Septuagint! Will surely be one of the go-to videos on RUclips on this topic - deserves repeated viewings!
Thank you very much!
@@KEDEMChannel Thank _you_ for consistently high quality content! Btw there's a small typo in video description "Book by professor Lames Aitkin (affiliated link)"
@@notanemoprog Thank you, fixed 🙏
@@jeremiah6540
At 12:04 "Professor eichen what happened after the pentateuch was translated
so far I've only spoken about the pentateuch and its origins in the 3rd Century BC what becomes interesting is that gradually other translations are produced and this seems to have taken a long time anything up to the first century CE"
@Jeremiah side note thought: today I drove my 77yr old parents 6hr so that my mother could have brunch (omelet n pancakes) with her 95yr old dad. My own dad, always focused on time and return home, sadly inserts the unwarranted aspect of time. Try not to miss out on the journey as the having isn't always as sweet. Anywho, just a thought. 😇
I must admit: your videos were one of the reasons that made me study עִברִית. Thank you very much.
Wonderful! Thank you 🙏
The professor spoke calmly and clearly, and was well informed. Great video.
Glad it was helpful! Thank you 🙏
Watch the debunking of Septuagint before it is erased again
ruclips.net/video/I9dztt0evpQ/видео.htmlfeature=shared
You are right. It is an honour to be an audience for that. Thank you.
Thank you 🙏
I don’t believe that the Septuagint added entire sections to the book of Esther. I believe that these sections were intentionally removed from the Hebrew. The strongest witness to this are the writings of Josephus, which were derived from an original Hebrew source. Josephus’ account of Esther includes all of the “additional” sections found in the Septuagint of Esther.
Thank you for that information.
The Septuagint / LXX / has been a mainstay in my personal studies.
Initially, I doubted any validity until I studied the writings of Iranaeus - Against Heresies - Book 3 Ch 21.
For those glancing through and unfamiliar: Iranaeus was a student of of Polycarp, who was a student of the Apostle John. He argued against the heresies that clearly exist today.
As our Lord Jesus said, "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. "
Fear not. The enemy is angry because he knows his time is short.
Thank you for that information about Esther in Josephus. I don't think the sections were intentionally removed later, but that there were different text traditions among Jews and some of the traditions, maybe the one in Babylonia, by mistake or accident, didn't contain the sections.
@@Achill101
Were 95 references to God (51 direct names and 44 personal pronouns) removed by mistake?
The reason these sections were removed is because they went against the agenda of Rabbi Akiba. The Rabbis wanted to teach that Mordecai was a great Rabbi, and Esther was his disciple who obeyed whatever he said. Hence the MT reading of Esther 2:20, “Esther obeyed the commandment of Mordecai” in place of the original (LXX) reading, “Esther hearkened to Mordecai’s wishes, which were to always obey God and keep His commandments.”
In the story, Mordecai is more than a ‘teacher’, as the Rabbis wanted to place him; he is a prophet. God gave him a prophetic dream of future events. How could the Rabbis liken Mordecai to themselves when God was not speaking to them through prophetic dreams? The solution: to remove the dream and any references to it.
boy- the Septuagint did nothing : the corrupt church did the redactions, forgings and mistranbslations ..
@ClothedByGrace - I had heard that it was debated among Jews if Esther should be included in the Hebrew Bible because it didn't mention God. According to you, only the parts of Esther that are in the Hebrew Bible don't mention God, but the additional parts that are in the Septuagint do - interesting! It could be, of course, that the lack of God in Esther disturbed some Jews, and they looked for and found passages with God that they included to include God. I plan to look more into that.
. . . Is it similar with the other book of the Hebrew Bible that doesn't mention God, the Song of Songs: does its Septuagint version include God?
Enriching conversation, good questions and even better answers, thank you
Glad you enjoyed it, thank you!
Amazing - about 12 hrs ago I mentioned the Septuigint to a friend who pursue study of Abrahamaic religions - then going online I come across this scholarly video ! TQ Alex & Prof Aitken - Cheers from Borneo 🙌🌏
🙏
You should probably look into it's spurious origin.
For the record I'm a Christian and I believe the word of God. However the idea that the first Bible was a loose translation and not the majority text is absurd. If 99.9% of all manuscripts match the reformation Bibles and not the septuagint which matches nothing. Its impossible to believe the early Christians were using it when all the quotes in books match the majority texts. I shouldn't say impossible because there are the scholars who agree with the catholic ones sadly like James White SJ.
Another very informative video. Thank you very much for posting.
Our pleasure, thank you!
Great scholarship cannot be hidden.
Thank you 🙏
I learned a lot from this interview. Thanks.
Glad to hear it, thank you 🙏
great video. RIP Prof Aitken.
A fascinating presentation that answered more questions than I knew I had
Stay tuned 👍
When will we get an English translation of the Ethiopian Bible?
I doubt that there's a market for it (translators want to get paid, too), except for the Book of Enoch whose only complete version is in the Ethiopian Bible. In Greek, we've got only fragments of it.
IIRC there are multiple translations of the Book of Enoch from the Ethiopian language into English.
I believe there is some English translation of the books, just not the entire Bible together. I think they were done some time ago and I don’t know the quality of the translation
Fantastic talk on a topic of immense importance. I now know so much more of the multifaceted issues surrounding what I thought was much more straightforward textual translation. I'm now hungry to learn more. Thanks!
Glad it was helpful! Thank you 🙏
Don’t forget to mention that the 72 Jewish scribes (150 BC) only translated the five Books of Moses (Torah) and that it was this work that was done so well.
This is the original Septuagint. Unfortunately this translation was destroyed of a fire in the Alexandrian library.
The whole of Tanach was translated all over by the Christian Church much later (100-150 AD). It was probably done by unknown Hellenistic Jews and Greek Church writers.
This was later also called “Septuagint”, but must be separated from the first original one done perfect by Jewish scribes and of only Torah.
Lol. Ok man.
The full Tanakh was translated into Greek by 150 BC. Lucky it was, as the war which is commemorated by the Hanukkah celebration did great damage to the availability of Hebrew writings of all types. The Seleucids destroyed much more than the Temple oil, they destroyed everything Hebrew they could find. The Septuagint was the dominant Scriptures used in synagogues until Rome made Christianity legal in the 4th century AD.
Interesting note: The Jews celebrate Hanukkah but the only description of it is in Greek as part of the Septuagint. When the Jews attempted to put together a better Hebrew Tanakh in 190 AD - after the Roman wars which destroyed the Temple and exiled the Jews from Jerusalem, they didn't want a Greek based text - even if translated into Hebrew - included.
Outside Judea, close to 100% of the diaspora synagogue inscriptions are in Greek.
In Judea, where the default language is Aramaic, 80% of these inscriptions are Greek.
Some have said the Deuterocanon was never written in Hebrew but the DSS have proven that to be false as at least 3 so far (Baruch, Sirach, and Tobit of the Deuterocanon), have been found within the DSS written in Hebrew; using the word "recension" against them is a continual knee-jerk reaction to the Deuterocanon being written in Hebrew, and a moving of the goal posts.
Septuagint Chronicles is quoted by Eupolemos in the middle of the 2nd century BC, and Septuagint Job by Pseudo-Aristeas in the beginning of the 1st century BC. The translation of Isaiah contains allusions to historical situations and events that point to the years 170-150 BCE" (Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Emanuel Tov, p 131, 2012). Thus more than the Torah was translated into Greek by 150 BC.
The ToRaH was translated into Greek from 283-246 BC under Ptolemy II Philadelphus and the prophets and writings for the Septuagint within the next 100 years. Thus the Septuagint was not created by Christianity but preceded it by centuries.
R. K. Harrison confirms its early use: "While there are certain differences in New Testament usage, there is no doubt that of all Greek versions the LXX was employed predominantly and that it enjoyed independent existence in the period just prior to the time of Christ." The Septuagint was also most likely the standard Old Testament text used by the early Christian church. Early LXX material is included in the Rylands Papyrus 458, which dates back to 150 BC.
OTOH, the MT base text for the TaNakH was still being altered even as late as 1,000 AD.:
From Haaretz: *Israeli Scholars Discover Corrections, Erasures, Revisions in Oldest Biblical [Masoretic] Manuscript*
"Analysis of Leningrad Codex shows that about a millennium ago, there were *several different versions* of the Bible that evolved over time..."
Other highly concerning things: "The corrections in the Leningrad Codex reveal another stage in the development of the Masoretic text, a process that continued for hundreds of years. Early on, during the first centuries of the Common Era, there are still changes in entire sentences. Later, the changes are limited to individual words, and finally merely to vocalization marks and cantillation notes."
Concerning changes in entire sentences of the MT in the first few centuries CE, Justin Martyr said the scriptures in his time period were being altered. See Jer. 8:8. Eupolemus had no agenda though.
@@evelynmcewen8874 That is all consistent with what I have read, Evelyn.
I've read that the rabbis twice tried to circulate "redacted" - my term - Septuagint - Aquilla's? - but the Jewish people would not accept them. Only with Rome legalizing Christianity - and the rabbis had to see where this would lead - was there success in getting Hebrew reintroduced as the main teaching texts in the synagogues. They knew the Hebrew texts were deficient, so they continued to work on getting the best text available, which resulted many centuries later as the Masoretic Text, used today. If is wasn't for Christianity, the Jews would have relied on the Septuagint to reconstruct its Hebraic Scriptures.
Emanuel Tov, whom you mentioned, is quoted in the following link, toward the bottom, as thus: “My intuition tells me that more often than not the LXX [Septuagint] reflects an earlier stage than MT [Masoretic Text] both in the literary shape of the biblical books and in small details.” Professor Tov chose his words very carefully. denverseminary.edu/the-denver-journal-article/the-text-critical-use-of-the-septuagint-in-biblical-research/
This link provides many, but not all of the differences between the Septuagint and the MT. It emphases the differences that diminish Christianity and the New Testament quotes from the Septuagint. Note that "Hebrew" here means the Masoretic Text. web.archive.org/web/20040602211822/www.scripturecatholic.com/septuagint.html
There are sources that show many other differences having the same effect - to cast doubt that Jesus came as the Hebrew Scriptures foretold. It is appropriate that Christian apologists can trace the existence of a Triune God from the Torah and certain prophetic writings, including Isaiah.
This is getting lengthy, but I will close that Jerome was warned that the Hebrew texts he - mostly - used in preparing his Latin translation of the Old Testament, were corrupted. Thus through the Catholics, the Protestants are mostly attuned to the MT as the basis for the Hebrew Scriptures, rather than the Greek Septuagint which vastly predates it, and was developed from better Hebrew source writings. This is beginning to change.
KJV Onlyist liar alert!
This is a great interview. I deeply appreciated waching this. At the same time I was very sad to be reminded of the fact that Prof Aiten had died earlier this year, which I think is a terrible loss to this field of study as well as his kindness, civility and humility. Such a sad loss. RIP.
Oh no... I was just thinkingI must find more of him. A sad loss indeed :(
Do u know what had happened ?
Indeed, a terrible loss :(
This was an excellent survey of the use of the Septuagint, especially when it mentions the evolution of the text from earlier, Hebrew forms to the current Masoretic text. A polemic often used against Christians is that they changed the meaning of the Hebrew, when they in fact, did not. They may have been working often from an earlier, Hebrew.
Well it’s not disputable that the meaning of Isaiah 7 was changed by the author of Matthew
@@avibenavrahamit is disputable that the meaning was changed. There is nothing miraculous about a young woman having a child. Happens all the time today as did then. Parthenos meaning “virgin” was used in the Septuagint for Isaiah 7 as well as in Genesis regarding Rebekah.
Very grateful for another fascinating vid. Prof. James Aitken's eloquence makes us understand the story of the Septuagint in a fluid yet substantial manner. Many many thanks!
Glad you enjoyed it, thank you 🙏
Thank you for this very interesting video on Septuagint. There are some excellent questions. For instance Septuagint is from 3rd century BCE and the Masoretic text is from 10th century AD. That means 1300 years between them. What text is more closed to the ORIGINAL text of the Torah???
Thanking you. The earliest Masoretic text that we found so far is actually from the 9th and 10th centuries AD, but it dose not mean that the text is not much older. Texts that are very similar to the Masoretic text were found in Qumran and they are dated as early as to the 2nd century BC
Septuagint removed Isaiah 2:22 and changed many passages.
@@KEDEMChannel were any Greek manuscripts found in Qumran from the prophets?
@@Nudnik1 Probably this was the situation at the translation time. There is no equivalent of the Old Testament in 3rd century BC to compare. We simply do not know. Comparison with the Masoretic text which is 1300 years older, has no meaning.
@@KEDEMChannel Yes, the issue is that Dead Sea scrolls are from a Judaic sect which was somehow outside the mainstream 2nd Temple Judaism. Essenes were a sect that retired from society and used to follow own rules.
Utterly fascinating, especially the discussion on literary and word for word translation (never mind revised translations of minor prophets)
Thank you very much!
Why did Jerome create a translation of the Old Testament based on a Hebrew version, rather than the Septuagint, as Latin Bible translations had done before him?
He didn't. Scholars have gone over the Vulgate and it's most definitely based on the Septuagint. However, Jerome also "completed" the Vulgate by translating the original Hebrew Bible in places where he knew the Septuagint was missing stuff or where the Greek is known to be problematic but not theologically significant (Isaiah still says "ecce virgo concipiet" in the Vulgate).
Yet vulgate says that Amos said in 9:12 that they would possess the remnant of Edom and all the nation called after His name despite the fact that the first council the apostles said that Amos said that the Gentiles and all the nations called after His name would seek Him. Clearly Jerome favored the corrupted Hebrew and disregarded the apostles from the first council in Jerusalem who agreed with the Septuagint reading.
Clearly Jerome favored Psalm 39(40) reading for “ears” rather than “a body prepared” as testified by the apostles in Hebrews 10.
It is apparent that Jerome did not favor apostolic tradition even with the scriptures right in front of him despite the warnings of St. Augustine and Justin Martyr in the places that obviously mattered most.
And if Jerome did not follow apostolic tradition, then the Roman Catholic Church looses claims to apostolic succession and rather has succession from those described 1 John 2:19 seeing they clearly choose to use scriptures that have failed to follow after apostolic tradition.
@@StripedCheeseBreadI think you’re taking all that out of context on him preferring the “corrupt Hebrew” text. At the time he started his translations the Pope requested him to use the Greek as was historically normal to use. However, he didn’t have access to a complete copy of the Septuagint, only individual books and other sources translated to Latin. He did however have access to complete Hebrew OT and the scholars of the time that would help him with the Hebrew. He used it to fill in or correct places where he felt his Greek copies where not correct. That’s why the vulgate till this day is heavily Septuagint and and then supported by Hebrew and now also DS scrolls.. Jerome’s translation wasn’t perfect and other church scholars made corrections down the road but he did a pretty good job with what he was working with.
What is the book he mentions first at 13:30?
Esdras - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_Esdras
Rest in peace James Aitken
💔
Very good channel, beautiful and quite reasonable explanation of the origin of the virgin birth narrative, which I have no problem accepting as a Christian.
Thank you so much!
So fascinating! I'm a translator myself, albeit (rather prosaically) translating technical manuals between English and German. Even that throws up certain difficulties inherent in the nature of languages! And these are two living languages, and I have spent years living in the German-speaking and the English-speaking world. It boggles my mind how linguists of ancient languages can figure out the intricacies of translation between two long-dead languages!
Indeed. Thank you!
Thank you very much for these wonderful history videos. I've watched a fair number of them and they are engaging and informative. Keep up the good work.
How much evidence do we have for conversions to Judaism from the time of creation of the Septuagint? Was this a factor?
Thank you for your kind words 🙏 Your question is a good one that can’t be answered in short. One interesting story is the conversation of the Edomites (by force) at the time of John Hyrcanus at the end of the second century BCE
ברוך דיין האמת. Professor Aitken passed away this morning. A wonderful man and a great scholar.
Terrible loss. Rest In Peace Prof. Aitken, our condolences to his family 💔🕯
Oh No. He still looked very lively in this video that was recently published. Rest in Peace, Professor James Aitken.
Video 43/23 Here in Cairo Genizah location of this interesting interview
This was an excellent dialogue - ask the right questions and the answers look after themselves. The topic is complex but the the analysis opens it up so that one can begin to grasp the multiple issues raised. A great scholar can enlighten our understanding without dumbing down - here is enlightenment and clarity. The discussion of the literary character of translations - should you mimic the original language or aim to produce a translation which makes sense in the new language was fascinating. It was a process akin to the production of the English Bible over a hundred years in the 16/17th centuries. Some words from the Hebrew and Greek could not be translated and so new words entered the English language. In 1611 the King James Bible tried to take the best of previous traditions but to present a text which sounded well when read aloud. A sabbath eve well spend! Many thanks!
Thank you very much, dear Ian 🙏
It's hard enough for the average person to speak complete sentences without injecting "um" and "ah" into what is being said. Writing perfect grammatically correct sentences are also difficult for the smartest people that have ever lived.
All the grammar problems are doubled when two languages have different grammar rules. Throw in different idioms that may also differ from one community to another, grammar mistakes will be made.
A fascinating discussion, very informative.
I watched Kedem's video with Jonathan Adler on the archaeological evidence for the beginning of Jewish practices just prior to this one. His idea that widespread Torah observance starrted primarily with the Hasmoneans seems to contradict the timeline here. If there was a torah literate community of diaspora Jews in Egypt in the second century BCE that had the means and desire to fund a translation into Greek and fund a prayer house, that would predate the hasmoneans by around 100 years ,correct? We know there were Judeans in Egypt already (Elephantine, etc.) but they seemed to have little knowledge of the Torah according to Adler. Would be interesting to see how to reconcile these two timelines in a future video!
Prof. Adler advocates against the widespread of the Torah among common people of the time, but he does not exclude the possibility of such among certain elite groups (i.e Priests).
I own three Greek-to-English translations for which I trust more than the Hebrew Old Testament!
Which is your favorite?
A fascinating subject with many surprises! Very well done. Thank you for presenting this video.
Our pleasure, thank you!
The Seventy was based on Egyptian texts that were quite similar to the Palestinian texts that Jesus and His disciples used; in AD 90 the Jews adopted the Babylonian text as their official scripture because it was the most different from the Seventy which Christians were using--in the middle ages it became the Masoretic text which Protestants use, and which is similar to the text Jerome translated as the Vulgate.
If the Jews adopted the babylonian text in 90CE, then I doubt that they did it because of anything the Christians did who were by then still a very small group.
@28:40: The Hebrew translators were using the original Hebrew living text, not the Masoretic. This was proven by the finding of the dead sea scrolls. The Hebrew scholars that created the Masoretic text changed a number of verses and words, which initially were thought as being errors or later revisions, but after the finding of the dead sea scrolls it proved that the original translation of the Septuagint were actually correct in translating from the original living word. For example, prior to the dead sea scrolls it was thought that 1 Enoch was quoting the Bible in a number of passages, however it ended up being the opposite where Jesus and the authors were quoting 1 Enoch. The Hebrew scholars that made the Masoretic text changed a number of words and verses to deter people away from 1 Enoch because he prophesied Jesus as the Messiah, they saw the connection and wanted to remove it. And for other reasons. Son's of God being angels is another example, which they changed to Son's of Israel which is now being corrected to angels of God or Sons of God in a lot of modern translations.
Very eye opening and accessible! Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Fantastic! ✌️❤️
Thanks
guys you left out the important question: who coined/invented the modern term 'Septuagint' -- because it is a term of the missionizing christian church! So the church wants to gain credit/reputation by using the term septuagint everywhere - even if it doesn't make any sense
Unfortunately, Prof. Aitken has passed away so we can no longer ask him, hope to be able to interview someone else in the field soon.
The term Septuagint is based on the legend that there were seventy (or 72) translators of the Pentateuch into Greek, and their translations all agreed. The legend is older than Christianity.
@@Achill101septuagint is exactly about the Tora-translation _NOT_ the Bible-translation! do you get it? the Greek Old Testament - so called septuagint - wasn't related at all to the legend of 70/72 Jewish translators in hennelistic Egypt! The church is in controll off the corrupt Greek Old Testament and tries to render credebility for its anti-semitic original bible by 'lending' the term and the legend and applying it in a propagandist way!
How could representatives be assembled from each of the 12 tribes in 3rd century BC, when 10 tribes had been lost earlier?
The ten tribes had not been lost, only their leaders were exiled by the Assyrians and not heard from anymore in history (as opposed to the leaders of the Judahite kingdom whose descendents partly migrated from the Babylonian Exile back to Israel). Many Jews probably saw themselves as member of one tribe, like the apostle Paul who saw himself as from Benjamin. But tribe membership was religious by that time and didn't correspond to tribe areas etc.
72 scribes in 72 separate rooms translated 72 scrolls in 72 days. Their translations matched perfectly. Sounds like legend to me
Did the 72 scribes open their 72 doors at the same exact moment?
Seems suspicious. Why fabricate the origins of a religious text?
Brilliant.......... Shalom
Thank you!
@@KEDEMChannel Thanks be to ABBA FATHER
Excellent
Thanks 🙏
Thanks!
Thank you Jerry!
How does he know that the LXX changed some proverbs if we don't have the Hebrew text from before the LXX? If he's using the Masoretic Text to make that argument, it's chronologically illogical.
We have older Hebrew, Syriac, and Aramaic scrolls and pieces they can reference too before the masoretic. What I can’t figure out is how some scholars will argue till the death for the defense of the Masoretic being the true accurate translation when we know there are things not correct in it.
@wadeevans4355 an unhealthy allegiance to Tradition™️ isn't just a RCC and EO problem. It is alive and well in modern Protestantism.
Thank you.
The music is not necessary.
Good interview and good information. Terrible wet smacking noises. Please work on the audio
Working on it, thank you 🙏
@@KEDEMChannel thank!
Septuaginta - Daniel and Dragon, ist not in Classic "western" Bibel. WHY?
Does the professor know of an original #AncientGreekText which is purported to be the "Old Testament", and which is extremely different than its translations, including the Septuagint, and which contained the old mysteries of their pagan world?
Thanks ❤
Super interview.
Thanks!!!
we don’t have any parts of the hebrew bible that are older than the septuagint. the bible is greek
It's not fully correct that we have no parts of the Hebrew Bible that are older than the Septuagint: the Ketef Hinnom scrolls are from around 600BC and contain a biblical blessing in Hebrew.
. . . Scholarly consensus sees Hebrew as the original language of the bible, but there are deviating opinions.
When the Septuagint Pentateuch was composed the word παρθένος also meant a young woman who was not a virgin. This is evident in the criminal sexual assault of Dinah and Jacob's sons' revenge in Genesis 34 LXX.
To get off on a tangent, there was no criminal sexual assault.
Speaking of word choice, the word for forcing intimacy is never used. Dinah made a clear choice to go out unprotected into the heathen world, and commit fornication which IS the heinous crime described. Why would the bible say that a rapist was more righteous? You are confused by the story because you are interpreting through a modern judaized lens where fornication isnt bad, instead of what it actually says happens. I hope this helps.
Yes. Legend. It is worth doing your own independent research on the Septuagint. The legend is based on the translations of the first 5 books of the OT. The Septuagint is not the entire OT you find in the Christian bible. The term, from what I understand, stuck even as early Christian leaders continued to add to the "OT." So, for Christians, your OT IS NOT the current Jewish scriptures. There are differences. I often wonder why people are unaware that the Jewish scriptures do not match, w/o clear differences, that of the Christian OT. Later church leaders were so dismayed with the many different versions of the Septuagint, that they needed to codify or define the canonical collections so there wasn't as much confusion. Of course, as this was done, early Christians made more changes to the 'Septuagint.' All in the all, the "septuagint" of legend IS NOT the septuagint people refer to today.
Even your post needs to be nuanced. There are more than one Christian OT canon so you make it sound as if there is only one - quite misleading. Undoubtedly not on purpose, maybe, maybe not???
@10:03 he said Jews in Egypt started learning Greek for business purposes but that they didn't lose their knowledge of Hebrew - IIRC Hebrew was by 300BC a purely religious language, Jews spoke Aramaic in Isael or Mesopotamia or maybe Egyptian in Egypt. There don't seem to have been more incentive to translate Hebrew texts into Greek than into Aramaic, or was there? Greek was the language of the new ruling class (in Egypt, Israel, Mesopotamia).
@16:56 he said when Christianity came along, not necessarily knowing it (the Septuagint) was a translation - that sounds wrong to me: the first generations of Christians were mostly Jews, the second generation (like the communities Paul founded) were taught by Jews, and the further development was driven by the church fathers and their contemporaries. I would agree that in the later generations not all members of Christian parishes had heard of Hebrew, but the leaders certainly had.
@20:07 he said that it (the Septuagint) led to a belief in the afterlife - but many Jews in Israel believed in the afterlife already in the 1st century CE: the Pharisees did, the Saducees didn't, and Jesus did (which is one reason to count Jesus among the Pharisees).
. . . But his prior explanation about the translation of Nefesh are interesting: the adaption of Plato by Christians was, ofc, made easier by it.
I don't want to sound too negative: I thoroughly enjoyed the many explanations of James Aitken. Good video.
Thank you 😊
Thanks, Prof., for adding polysemous to my vocabulary.
: )
Didn't christianity come from the Essene? Why is it a 2nd Temple worship religion?
2nd temple Judaism means the Judaism in the whole period from the resurrection of the temple under the Persians until the destruction of the temple by the Romans in 70CE. The Hebrew Bible was completed in the beginning of this period, the Hasmoneans became Kings, Herod rebuilt the temple, and Jesus lived during the end of this period.
DSS & ORIGEN
The Dead Sea Scrolls Nahal Hever 5/6 Hev - Col. XI, fragment 9
There has long been a controversial dispute between Christians and Jews over 366 "evidence texts" about Jesus in the O T. Psalm 22 is the O T text (second only to Isaiah 53) which Christian apologists use to affirm the Christian faith. The Church calls Psalm 22 The Crucifixion Psalm. Read with thought the words that the church father Origen (d. 232 AD) wrote about the Greek translations (O T) produced by the Church who was not like the Original Hebrew Scriptures.
A letter from Origen to Africanus, Ante-Nicene Pathers, Volume 4
"We urgently need to reject the copies used in our churches and oblige the fraternity to put down the sacred books that are relevant among them and to gather the Jews and convince them to give us copies that will be unambiguous and free from forgeries."
6248 Treutel Plains
The title is misleading. The Septuagint was a translation of the Torah ALONE. Other books were later translations done by christians. God spoke in Hebrew
The deutercanon were translated before the birth of christ. We know they were in circulation around 100 BC
@@justinking3558Some of the Deuterokanonika were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.
@@danx4813 yea, pretty cool
@@justinking3558 I added that to your comment so that people can look those DSS up to see that your comment is true.
@@danx4813 appreciate it
While interesting, this Doc is (purposefully?) reading in an anti-christian dogma
Thank you. We have nothing against any religion or belief system, whatsoever. We respect them all. Our goal is to bring an objective approach, from an academic point of view.
@@KEDEMChannel that's really good. Thanks
For clarity, by Doc, I didn't mean Documentary but the proffessor/doctor.
I watch scholars in Archaeology that support Christianity as well. As a Christian, I like to get all perspectives! There are some wonderful Christian scholars that offer a balanced view. Since the advent of RUclips and other platforms, a wealth of knowledge is available to all. I can certainly share a number of channels/podcasts, if you are interested.
Many Blessings🇨🇦☺🇨🇦
@@KEDEMChannel in my opinion: Jewish is an older brother to Christian and also with the Muslim is the younger brother of both. So I respects Jewish religion because Jew is the source/root of the believer through patriarch Abraham and Jesus Christ is an Jewish. Thanks. Shalom
Did they not feel Greek during the Greek occupation of Judaea when they embraced the Greek Way!
Some Jews did indeed feel VERY Greek - but not all of them: that is exactly what the Maccabean revolt leading to the Hasmonean dynasty was about and the rebels were not AT ALL kind to their "greekified" fellow Jews!
@@notanemoprog
But eventually that dynasty too became Hellenized , did they not?
@@arulsammymankondar30 Sure but with a specific Jewish twist, here is how Regev Eyal puts it in "The Hellenization of the Hasmoneans" : "The archaeological excavations of the Hasmonean palaces in Jericho and the numismatic evidence on the Hasmoneans are examined in order to understand the Hasmonean rulers’ approach to Hellenistic culture. They enable us to see not only the extent of Hellenistic influence, but also how and why Hellenistic markers were used. Hellenistic art, swimming pools, bathhouses, and symbols on the coins that represent victory, success, government and power, shaped Hasmonean cultural and political identity. At the same time, however, their scope, meaning, and use were limited by the observance of ritual purity and the maintenance of local ethnic identity. Certain Greek symbols were altered to reflect Jewish religious messages. Thus, the Hasmoneans’ adoption of Hellenistic culture, while balanced, mainly served political ends."
@@notanemoprog
Thanks for the information; but if I am not wrong, there appears to have been an active enthusiasm, at least for some, to ingratiate to the cultural dictates as evidenced by attempt to obliterate the marks of circumcision- the very symbol of the covenant relationship with Jehovah.
The real Kohanim priest spoke both languages at the time of the Septugiant. Edomite priest then slowly murdered them and took over the text.
The original Septuagint was only Genesis to Deuteronomy not the rest of Tanakh.
The rest was put together later by Hellenists apostates heretics translated the Hebrew bible into Greek.
No one has the original Septuagint .
10th of Tevet is a fast day for the forced translation by 72 rabbis.
תודה רבה שלום
Thank you. Prof. Aitken is referring to the below in details during the interview.
finally someone with Torah knowledge תודה לכם
@@ayidala7 many nice people are unaware.
תודה רבה שלום
Do you believe in God’s providence? In God’s almighty power? Is there anything impossible for Him?
It's not written in "good Greek" for a very simple reason. It's called "translation Greek". It's a translation of the original Hebrew and they sought to preserve the grammar and words as much as possible from the original. This is the same kind of Greek in the New Testament Greek manuscripts. Shock!!!! Yes, the New Testament is written in "translation Greek" as well. It was originally written in Aramaic.
Hebrew
The NT was originally written in Greek.
@@danx4813 Please provide proof for your assertion. Church tradition is not proof.
@@jparks6544 How many sources do you want? I can copy paste so many non-Church historians from Wikipedia alone. Here's one (the Gospel of Matthew is the only book of the NT that might not have been originally written in Greek, but even that's false):
The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia p281 ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley - 1959 "Almost all scholars agree that our Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Greek and is not a translated document. Matthew's Greek reveals none of the telltale marks of a translation."
@@jparks6544 Also, all the earliest manuscripts and codices of the NT are Greek, we have no early Hebrew/Aramaic manuscripts (the earliest Aramaic NT MS is from the 5th century). It was the lingua franca and official language of eastern Rome, of which Roman Judea was a part of.
Just as a heads-up, if you believe John 3 of your Bible is historically accurate, the conversation of Jesus and Nicodemus could have only taken place in Greek according to Bart Ehrman (non-Christian atheist/non-church history source).
And then Luther in a hissy fit took scissors to the ot
*Jerome
Luther just took Jerome's work and ran with it
@@NeuKroftaNice try, Prot. Saint Jerome accepted the decision of the Church (read his introduction to Daniel where he explains why he kept the additions to Daniel), that's why he inculded the Deuterokanonika in his Vulgate.
@danx4813 I'm confirmed and baptised Catholic. Yea and Jerome's reasoning is stupid, his explanation contradicts Jesus's teachings.
@@NeuKrofta Oh, now I get it. I also disagree with him (he just accepted the canon of the Jews while every Christian before and after him didn't). Yet he did submit to the decision of the Church.
The OT has yet to be translated. The little- but significant- parts Kamal Salibi has translated tells a different “story.” Without Salibi this floundering will continue. “The Bible Came from Arabia “, plus his 3 other bible study books, or start with his blog.
In a synagogue in the 1st century, one could only read the Hebrew scrolls or the Targum (a translation of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic). Greek was forbidden. Recall that Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the Solomon’s temple circa 170 BC. Thus, the need for Herod to build the 2nd temple. The Jews of the 1st century despised the Greeks, for that and other reasons.
The only evidence for a BC Septuagint is the letter of Aristeas, which no one believers but everyone quotes. It is a fantastic tale (read fantasy). There is no reference to a Septuagint prior to 50 AD (+/-). If you trace all the reference to a BC Septuagint, you will find that each and every on them references the Letter of Aristeas in one form or another. So, the only witness to a BC Septuagint is the Letter of Aristeas (LOA)
If one believes the LOA, one has to believe also that the 10 northern tribes of Israel were not dispersed to four winds after 721 BC. From this diaspora they never returned. Rather you have to believe that they were still in Israel in 283 BC, since the LOA claims that 12 scribes from each of the 12 tribes of Israel were assembled in Egypt. Incidentally, a land to which the Jews were forbidden ever to return to. Deuteronomy 28:68.
Only the Levites were to handle the scriptures (with the exception of the King who had to make a copy for himself). So, one has to add to that belief that 72 scribes (not Levites) defiled themselves among the Greeks and defied the scriptures and God’s wishes in order to handle the scriptures as well as going to a land to which they were forbidden ever to return.
Moreso, add to that belief, that 72 scribes, each without a copy of the Hebrew scriptures, translated them from memory into Greek in 72 days and every single word was identical all the while being locked up in 72 chambers on the isle of Pharos without any collaboration between them. And by the way, why is it called LXX "The 70"?
And may I say ”Incidentally” again?
Incidentally, the pharos light house was not built until 280 BC, 3 years after the blessed event. A minor point.
To sum up, we are to believe that God inspired the work of 72 (not 70) disobedient, non-Levitical scribes who rendered 72 identical copies of the Hebrew scriptures from memory into Greek. Really?
Incidentally, the LOA section 176 also says that the whole scroll was written in gold. Really? Where is it? You’d think that someone would have a vested interest in preserving such a priceless document. Where is it? It doesn’t exist!
Finally, If you were to get a copy of the Septuagint, you would find that it is nothing more than the Old Testament portions of the codex Alexandrinus, the codex Sinaiticus and the codex Vaticanus, along with the Apocrypha.
If you believe that Jesus quoted from the Septuagint, you have to also believe that Jesus endorsed the Apocrypha.
Mother Church here come.
Really?
Octavia Island
It wasn’t a translation. The Greek is the original. The Hebrew text didn’t come about until 1000 AD when it was translated from the Greek.
What people know as the Torah/Pentateuch/Old Testament was written in the 4th century BCE. Judaism didn’t even exist as a way of life until 2nd/1st century BCE.
This is, to make it short, not truth. There are overwhelming, solid evidence to the fact that the Hebrew text was indeed the original.
The first complete bible in Hebrew that we still have is indeed from about 1000CE, but we have many prior fragments that show the Hebrew text is much older than that, especially the Dead Sea Scrolls.
. . . Judaism as we know it today is based on the Hebrew Bible AND on the Talmud, and the latter was written after 100CE. But the Talmud has little bearing on the age of the Hebrew Bible (except that the latter must be older).
Forget the erroneous septuagint.
They changed some of the scriptures to suit their erroneous beliefs.
We have to go by what true Hebrew. Not the changed and erroneous septuagint.
We don't have the true Hebrew text.
The Septuagint is closer to the Samaritan Pentateuch than to the Masoretic text, implying a Hebrew first text closer to the Septuagint than the Masoretic text is.
There's also a passage in the Masoretic text that seem to have been changed to avoid a hint of polytheism - the Septuagint kept the passage's original meaning.
@@Achill101 Forget the erroneous Septuagint, because it was the erronious Aiexandrians of Egypt who were
ant-christians who translated the Masoretic Hebrew into Greek, and they changes the meanings of some words, and ADDED many more books, Books that weren't in the Old Tesament cannon. The Old Testament Hebrew cannon was closed way before the naughty Alexandrians translated it into Greek.
@alanhales1123 - scholarly consensus today holds that the canon of the Hebrew Bible was NOT closed before the destruction of the temple in 70CE and that all parts of the Septuagint, including the parts that were not included in the Hebrew Bible, were translated before 70CE. Sometimes, a scholarly consensus is wrong, of course, but to show it was wrong here you would have to address the arguments for it first. A RUclips comment section is too small for that.
When the Greeks invaded Egypt in 325 BCE which name was Kemet at the time the Greeks Illiterate barbarians the Egyptians put a phonetic alphabet to the Greek language.
So every Greek scribe before that date was created unless you can name the institutions where they got their Education. There were none. The first university was built in turkey which was Lebanon at the time called the Hagia of Sofia which was also the first Christian church where the ancient Egyptians were the teachers according to Dr. Walter Williams The Origans of Christianity. There were Hebrews but there were no jews until the 6 century.
BC
BS
Go see David Daniel’s work on debunking the Septuagint.
Many Christians today think that Jesus and his disciples strolled over to their local Bible store and purchased a copy of the Septuagint, the same and complete Greek version that we have today. Some Christians even rant that the Septuagint is the only true word of God because it is older than the Jews' Bible and those accursed Jews corrupted and distorted Christ's truth in their so-called Masoretic text. It is refreshing to hear an unbiased understanding free of polemics and supported by neutral research.
Many Christian translations of the Tanakh are based on the Masoretic text. The NASB is known to stick to it even where other translations consult the Septuagint. The NET, RSV, NRSV, and NRSVue also stick with the Masoretic text reasonably consistently even where the rendering disagrees with the traditional Christian translations such as the KJV, NKJV, ASV, NIV, etc.
Clearly neither of you have properly done your research nor carefully thought the subject over carefully.
@@jeremiahcastro9700 and your contribution added nothing of value. You haven't pointed out anything that either of us have said that is incorrect. Like saying the sky isn't red and waltzing off into the sunset. Honestly, what was the point of your comment?
Shoot... I thought they carried around a 1611 Authorized KJV 😲
@@starchild2121
Not far from what some people think. A co-worker believes that only the original King James is the inspired word of God. I tried to explain that language changes. For example, suffer little children does not mean they should suffer. She argued with me that God does not like sinners and if you spare the rod, you spoil the child. So yes, Jesus does want little children to suffer just as written in King James.
According to Walter Williams an African historians when the Greeks invaded Egypt in 325 BCE the Greeks were Illiterate
There was no greek alphabet before then there were no learning institutions in Greece before 325BCE the ancient Egyptians are the ones who put a phonetic alphabet to the Greek language. But when you conquer you can write history the way you want to you can even make up people that never existed.
Get the book by professor James Aitken (affiliated link)
===
No Stone Unturned: Greek Inscriptions and Septuagint Vocabulary (Critical Studies in the Hebrew Bible)
amzn.to/3WYINrn
===
" It created the story of the Virgin birth" ummm ... No.
No? Considering that the translation of Isaiah came long before the time of Christ, you can’t blame the Christians for changing the meaning of that passage in the Greek vs. the Hebrew.
@@steve-4045 the Greek translation was far before Christ, and it was specific about being a virgin
@@cyberjunk2002 And why was that? Dr. Aitken says that parthenos could also have the same general meaning as alma. In that case, later generations read the virgin meaning into the passage. One might also wonder why even so. I don’t know that anyone believes there was a virgin birth at the time of King Ahaz.
@@steve-4045 Yes it was right under their nose. That is not the same as creating. It is called discovering
What you have read is not the original Septuigent, it was destroyed. and the original was a translation of only Torah. What you are calling Septuigent is a Catholic work
Tell me Mr. Conspiracy, Did the 70 translated only Torah because rest of Tanakh was *NOT* worthy of translation?
What is the evidence for anything you claim? (Except that the Pentateuch was translated first.)
The 2 complete copies of Isaiah discovered with the Dead Sea scrolls disagree with you.
But thanks for playing
Pr. Aitken sounds like Elmer Fudd. Very interesting. The host should go on a diet.
More accurately, "The Septuagint, the translation of the Church that they like to make seem older than it is."
The Septuagint was translated, before Jesus was crucified.
The mythological Septuagint and all of it’s contradictions is nothing short of blasphemy. It came from an unsaved Greek communist/fascist philosopher (Plato) that denied Jesus and His deity, along with the rest of the cult leaders (Pantnaeus, Philo, Clement, and Origen) at his school in Alexandria, Egypt. These “educators” think they know better God. That’s why they say, “a better translation,” “an unfortunate rendering,” or “yea, hath God said?” All of the blasphemous denominations that began in a America such as Mormons, Jehova Witnesses, SDA, etc were created from these corrupt gnostic manuscripts that these liars/educators are promoting in the seminaries today. God has a special place in hell for those who mess with his words...
The Septuagint is quoted in the New Testament. Almost all of the OT quotations in the NT match the Septuagint. Therefore the Septuagint predates the New Testament.
@@curtthegamer934 let me know when you’re done following those scholarly fools. I’m through wasting time with it.
@@curtthegamer934 go study Gail Riplinger’s work
@@daniellogue3702 Gail Riplinger is a heretic
@@curtthegamer934 actually all those Bible perverts you follow are heretics
"No stone unturned." An attempt to justify the deception made.
Nope not at all. Didn't exist until modern times. At least the fraudulent modern one.
Source?
@@EdwardM-t8p- there is no source for this simple lie. It's made up.
The oldest complete manuscripts of the Septuagint are from the 4th century CE.
The Septuagint was printed in Egypt because the ancient Egyptians taught the Greeks how to write orher wise it would have been printed in Greece. But they will never admit they were Educated by black north Africans that was before they created the middle east. Please, get a map Egypt is still in Africa. The Hebrews were black and their religion was derived from Kemitic spiritualality.
In anthropology, black would mean subsaharan African. North Africa is a blend depending on the century.
Book printing came first in the 15th century CE.
Actually the Masoretic text paved the way for Christianity. The Septuagent was written in Latin and paved the way for Catholicism. Catholicism is not.... and I repeat...NOT Christianity.
LXX was written in Greek and quoted by the NT authors. Catholicism = Christianity, everything else is heresy.
Please make yourself knowledgeable before writing obvious falsehoods: the Septuagint was written in Greek. A quick view on Wikipedia and other sites would have saved you from embarrassing yourself.
. . . Jerome translated the Septuagint into his Latin Vulgata that became the dominant Bible for Catholics until 1500. But Jerome knew some Hebrew and used the Hebrew text, too, when translating the Septuagint.
I have a poo poo bottom.
The LXX is a translation approved of by God for not only Greek speaking Jews but a translation that would be used authoritatively by the Holy Spirit for Greek speaking Jews and the Greek speaking Gentiles who together became the Ecclesia of God according to the promises of a new covenant fulfilled in Jesus the Messiah. However, the LXX is a translation of the infallible and God-breathed original Hebrew text. The LXX is not God-breathed and infallible. When Jesus said that, man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God he was referring to the extant Hebrew scriptures copied and preserved throughout the history of God's covenant people. We need to exegete the Hebrew Bible if we want to fully appreciate what God revealed to the children of Abraham beginning with Moses and all of the subsequent authors chosen by the Almighty for our spiritual benefit.
For example, while the narrative found in Acts between the Sudanese Eunuch and the evangelist Phillip, we have the prophet of Isaiah being quoted from the LXX insofar as Luke followed that translation. My contention is that the Eunuch was reading that in Hebrew, not Greek, but since the account of the early church was in Greek, it was natural for Luke to quote the LXX. The Eunuch was from ancient Cush, Sudan today, and the ancient people of Cush, what became the Kingdom of Meroe, the ruins of which can be seen today, spoke in a Semitic based tongue as is evident in those people who settled the territory of Ethiopia, ancient Abbysinia, whose native language is Semitic. In Psalm 68, Cush in Hebrew, not Ethiopia which is an unfortunate translation in our English bibles taken from the LXX, not the Hebrew. The Greek Ethiopia does not refer to today's nation of Ethiopia but was a word that describes the so-called black races who inhabit North and East Africa and even as far as the more remote parts of the Persian empire and beyond. The Eunuch was either a convert to Judaism or one who simply was a God fearer who came to know and worship the God of Israel. We know that Jews brought Judaism to these regions, and while we are all aware of the Ethiopian Jews we often overlook the fact that knowledge of the God of Israel and Judaic practice found its way into the ancient land of Cush. And since the Eunuch brought the gospel to Meroe, a great and mighty Kingdom, we can assume that many who were also worshiping the God of Israel and practicing a form of Judaism became Christian. Historically, Christianity was the prevailing religion in the Kingdom of Meroe for a long time before it began to wane and fade away among the people right before Islam conquered northern Sudan.
The Christian community was greatly reduced over time, and a remnant retreated into the Nuba mountains and other parts of the south. Islams persecution continues even today. Because of the Semitic base of the language of these people, it was a small step to fully adopt and receive Arabic as the official language of Sudan under the rule of Muslims. When the Sudanese peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) was established, they were mostly a Christian resistance militia. At any rate, this is the history of how the Hebrew scriptures came into the hands of this important convert to the true Christian faith. The fact that he had his own copy of the Hebrew of Isaiah shows the impact and influence of Biblical Jidaism in the purpose and providence of the Most High who made Himself known through the children of Abraham Isaac and Jacob as He prepared the world for the life and redemptive work of Jesus the Messiah just as the Hebrew scriptures foretold! To the Judean first and also to the Greek was anticipated by this peculiar and providentially prepared translation. Just as it was when God raised up Alexander the Great and the Greco Roman empire, which set the stage for world evangelism. In your seed (Messiah) shall all of the nations, goyim be blessed! The Sovereign God of creation is the Sovereign God of history and the Sovereign God of redemption in His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased! Hear Him and find Him in the original Hebrew and Greek scriptures. There are no accidents or coincidence in God's universe. For of Him and to Him and for Him are all things. Paul to the Romans 11:36. All things were created by Him and for Him. Paul to the Colossians. 1:16.
The Septuagint is not the original the Septuagint way only the Torah and that doesn't exist what they have is a copy of copies if you have a original I would like to get it that will worth a fortune
Don’t forget to mention that the 72 Jewish scribes (150 BC) only translated the five Books of Moses (Torah) and that it was this work that was done so well.
This is the original Septuagint. Unfortunately this translation was destroyed of a fire in the Alexandrian library.
The whole of Tanach was translated all over by the Christian Church much later (100-150 AD). It was probably done by unknown Hellenistic Jews and Greek Church writers.
This was later also called “Septuagint”, but must be separated from the first original one done perfect by Jewish scribes and of only Torah.
very true תודה
You're giving fairy-tale history.
You're wrong about the scribes only translating the PenTateuch in 150 BC. The translation of Isaiah contains allusions to historical situations and events that point to the years 170-150 BCE" (Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Emanuel Tov, p 131, 2012). Isaiah isn't in the Pentateuch.
And Septuagint Chronicles is quoted by Eupolemos in the middle of the 2nd century BC. It had to have then been in existence before 150 BC, and Chronicles also isn't in the Pentateuch.