12 lines
1.7 KiB
TeX
12 lines
1.7 KiB
TeX
\subsection{The Septuagint}
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("sep-TOO-uh-jint")
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When Alexander the Great conquered the known world about 300 BC, he made Greek the official language of his empire, as well as enforcing a common form of currency. This Greek came to be known as Koine Greek, (pronounced ``koy-NEY'') which means ``Common Greek''. With a common language and common currency, trade was greatly facilitated. Koine Greek was still the working language of the Roman Empire in the 1st century.
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Alexander also founded the city of Alexandria there, and his successor Ptolomy II Soter founded a library and museum. Scholars were set to work translating books into Greek for inclusion in the library. One of the books that they translated was the the Torah --- the five books of Moses --- from the original Hebrew into Greek. The work was supposedly completed by 'seventy scholars', hence the name 'Septuagint' from the Latin word for 'seventy'. Thus, a common abbreviation for the Septuagint is `LXX'.
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Originally only the Torah was commissioned, a consensus date for this effort is 282 BCE. The remaining books of the Old Testament were translated later.
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The Septuagint was the ``Greek Old Testament'' in use at the time of Jesus --- it was something like the Old Testament King James of the first century Judeo-Christian world. When Jesus and the New Testament writers quoted from the Greek Old Testament, they quoted from the Septuagint. Certainly Jews in Palestine would still be able to read Hebrew, but Jews scattered throughout the Roman Empire might not. They would, however, be able to read Greek (the almost mandatory common language of the first century Roman Empire), so this might be the only Old Testament they used.
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