Chapter Five
General
NAME
The name of the Septuagint derives from the legend that 72 (70) elders trans• lated the Pentateuch into Greek. In the second century c. E. this tradition was extended to aile the translated books of the Bible, and finally the name 'Septuaginta' referred to all the books contained in the canon of the Greek Bible, including books that are not translations of an original Semitic text. Ancient sources mention 72, 70 or 5 translators of the Pentateuch. The main tradition-which is found in rabbinic, Jewish-Hellenistic and Christian sources1 -mentions 72 or 70 elders, and only a few sources (e.g. A vot de-Rabbi Natan B 37, 94f.) mention 5 translators. The numbers 70 and 72 are probably legendary and the precise relationship between them is unclear. Possibly the original tradition referred to 72 translators (6 elders from each tribe as mentioned in the Epistle of Aristeas) and this number was then rounded off to 70. But it is also possible that seventy, which often serves as a typological number, was the original one: to the tradition that seventy elders translated the Pentateuch into Greek one can compare the 'seventy of the elders of Israel' who went up to the mountain of Sinai together with Moses (Exod 24:1,9), the seventy elders who were appointed to assist Moses (Num 11:16ff.) and the seventy members of the Sanhedrin.2 The name 'Septuagint' denotes both the first Greek translation of the Bible and the collection of Jewish-Greek Scripture, containing inter alia this trans• lation. The latter usage is imprecise because this collection contains also late revisions of the original translation and books that were originally written in Greek. In order to distinguish between the two usages of the word, the collec• tion of Jewish-Greek Scripture is generally called the 'Septuagint', while the first translation of the Bible is often named 'the Old Greek (translation)'.
1 The rabbinic sources have been collected and described by Miiller, 'Rabbinische Nachrichten', 73-93. The Greek and Latin sources have been collected by Wendland, Aristeae ad Philocratem Epistula. 2 Cf. Metzger, 'Seventy or Seventy-two'.
161 THE SEPTUAGINT
SCOPE, ORDER AND NAMES OF THE DIFFERENT BOOKS The canon of the Septuagint contains three types of books: a) A Greek trans• lation of the 24 canonical books of the Hebrew Bible. b) A Greek translation of books not included in the Hebrew canon. c) Books written in Greek as the Wisdom of Solomon and the Additions to Daniel and Esther. The latter two groups together form the so-called Apocrypha. The Septuagint canon is arranged differently from the Hebrew canon. While the Hebrew books are arranged in three groups reflecting different stages of the process of canonization, the books of the Greek Bible are arranged according to their literary character:a) Pentateuch and Historical books. b) Poetical and Sapiential books. c) Prophetical books. Within each group the sequence of books does not correspond to that of the Hebrew canon. The names of many of the books of the LXX differ from their counterparts in the Hebrew Bible, but they, too, reflect early Jewish traditions. For example, the Greek name of the fourth book of the Pentateuch, 'AQL8!J.OL, 'Numbers', has its counterpart in the Mishna and Talmud as 'C,,,p!lil W?J,n (Hebrew Bible: i:J.,?J:J.).
TIME OF COMPOSITION Only a few data are known concerning the time of composition of the trans• lations contained in the canon of the 'Lxx'. According to the Epistle ofAristeas the Pentateuch was translated in the third century B.C. E.; this seems plausible in the light of the early date of some papyri of the Pentateuch (middle or end second century B.C.E.). The books of the Prophets and Hagiographa were translated after the Pentateuch, since in them extensive use is made of its vacabulary and it is often quoted. As for the terminus ad quem, since the grandson of Ben Sira knew the translation of the books of the Prophets and part of the Hagiographa (132 or 116 B.C.E., according to different computations), these translations were probably finished before the first century B.C. E. Most of the books may have been translated at an early stage (beginning second century B.C.E. or earlier). One may note that the following books are quoted in early sources: Chronicles is quoted by Eupolemus (middle second century B.C.E.) and Job by Pseudo-Aristeas (beginning first century B.C.E.). Additionally, Isaiah contains allusions to historical occurrences which indicate that it was translated in the middle of the second century B.C.E.3 The Septuagint canon also contains some revisions of 'Old Greek' trans• lations, dating from the first century B.C. E. until the second century C.E .. Thus some 400 years passed from the time of the first translation contained in this canon until the time of the last one.
3 Cf. Seeligmann, Septuagint Version, 76-94.
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