But perhaps we can be a bit more specific. In fact, it can be helpful to think of the term “Septuagint” as a catch-all label for a broad area of research in biblical texts and languages. It is helpful to keep in mind that-although one can purchase a physical or electronic copy today-in antiquity, the Septuagint was not actually one thing that existed as a distinct physical entity. ![]() This article will briefly introduce the Septuagint, beginning with the matter of origins before looking at translation style, textual development, and various ways in which the Septuagint weighs upon other areas of biblical scholarship. More than just establishing the text of the Septuagint itself, specialists continue to grapple with numerous parallel questions related, for example, to postclassical Greek, diaspora Judaism, and the history of Ptolemaic Egypt, among other areas. ![]() The complexity explains why, even now, there is still no complete critical scholarly edition of the entire corpus. It is notoriously difficult to define and has been the object of steady and strident debate since its inception right up to the present. Like most important things, the Septuagint is also complicated. It constituted a major part of the textual environment of second temple Judaism and early Christianity both in terms of number of copies and in the influence of those copies on other writers and scribes. It’s difficult to overstate the importance of the Septuagint for the textual history of Scripture in both Hebrew and Greek and in both the Old and New Testament.
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