GREEK VERSIONS OF OT

of Aristeas, he released the Jewish captives in his kingdom, to the number of some 100,000, paying the (absurdly small) sum of 20 drachmas apiece for them to their masters; how he then sent presents to Eleazar, the high priest at Jerusalem, and begged him tosend sixelders out of each tribe to translate the Law; how the 72 elders were sent, and magnificently entertained by Ptolemy, and were then set down to their work in the island of Pharos; and how in 72 days they completed the task assigned to them. The story is repeated by Josephus (Am. XII. ii.) from Aristeas in a condensed form. In later times it received various accretions, increasing the miraculous character of the work; but these additions have no authority.

3. That the Letter of Aristeas is substantially right in assigning the original translation of the Law to the time of one of the early Ptolemys there is no reason to doubt ; but the story has the air of having been considerably written up, and it is impossible to say precisely where history stops and fiction begins. Demetrius of Phalerum wasUbrariantoPtolemyi.,butwasin disgrace under his successor, and died about 283 ; hence he can hardly have been the prime mover in the affair. But if not, the writer of the Letter cannot have been the person of rank in Ptolemy's court that he represents Umself to be, and the credit of the document is severely shaken. It cannot be depended on for accuracy in details, and it is necessary to turn to the internal evidence for further information. It will be observed that Aristeas speaks only of 'the Law,' i.e. the Pentateuch ; and there is no reason to doubt that this was the first part of the OT to be translated, and that the other books followed at different times and from the hands of different translators. A lower limit for the completion of the work, or of the main part of it, is given in the prologue to Sirach {written probably in b.c. 132), where the writer speaks of ' the law itself and the prophets and the rest of the books ' {sc. the Hagiographa) as having been already translated. It may therefore be taken as fairly certain that the LXX as a whole was produced between b.c. 285 and 150.

4. Its character cannot be described in a word. It is written in Greek, which in vocabulary and accidence is substantially that koiriS diaiektos, or Hellenistic Greek, which was in common use throughout the empire of Alexander, and of which our knowledge, in its non-literary form, has been greatly extended by the recent discoveries of Greek papyri in Egypt. In its syntax, however, it is strongly tinged with Hebraisms, which give it a distinct character of its own. The general tendency of the LXX translators was to be very literal, and they have repeatedly followed Hebrew usage (notably in the use of pronouns, prepositions, and participial construc-tions) to an extent which runs entirely counter to the genius of the Greek language. [For examples, and tor the grammar of the LXX generally, see the Introduction to Selections from the SexHuagint, by F. C. Conybeare and St. George Stock (1905).] The quaUty of the translation differs in different books. It is at its best in the Penta-teuch, which was probably both the first and the most dehberately prepared portion of the translation. It is at its worst in the Prophets, which presented the greatest difficulties in the way of interpretation. Neither the Greek nor the Hebrew scholarship of the translators was of a high order, and they not infrequently wrote down words which convey no rational meaning whatever. ■Something has been done of late to distinguish the work of different translators. [See the articles of H. St. J. Thackeray in JThSt iv. 245, 398, 578, viii. 262, the results of which are here summarized.) It has been shown that Jer. is probably the work of two translators, who respectively translated chs. 1-28 and 29-51 (in the Greek order of the chapters), the latter, who was an inferior scholar, being responsible also for Baruch. Ezek. like-wise shows traces of two translators, one taking chs. 1-27 and 40-48, the other 28-39. The Minor Prophets form a single group, which has considerable affinities with the

GREEK VERSIONS OF OT

first translators of both Jer. and Ezekiel. Isaiah stands markedly apart from all these, exhibiting a more classical style, but less fidelity to the Hebrew. 1 Kings ( = 1 Sam.) similarly stands apart from 2-4 Kings, the latter having features in common with Judges.

6 . Some other features of the LXX must be mentioned which show that each book, or group of books, requires separate study. In Judges the two principal MSS (Codd. A and B, see below, § 10) differ so extensively as to show that they represent different recensions. In some books (notably the latter chapters of Ex., 3 K 4-11, Pr 24-29, Jer 25-51) the order of the LXX differs completely from that of the Hebrew, testifying to an arrangement of the text quite different from that of the Massoretes. Elsewhere the differences are not in arrangement but in contents. This is especially the case in the latter chapters of Jos., 1 Kings ( = 1 Sam.) 17-18, where the LXX omits (or the Heb. adds) several verses; 3 K 8 and 12, where the LXX incorporates material from some fresh source; Ps 151, which is added in the LXX; Job, the original LXX text of which was much shorter than that of the Massoretic Hebrew; Esther, where the Greek has large additions, which now appear separately in our Apocrypha, but which are an integral part of the LXX; Jer., where small omissions and additions are frequent; and Daniel, where the LXX Includes the episodes of Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, and the Song of the Three Children, which have now been relegated (in obedience to Jerome's example) to the Apocrypha.

6. The mention of the Apocrypha suggests the largest and most striking difference between the LXX and the Hebrew OT, namely, in the books included in their respective canons; for the Apocrypha, as it stands to-day in our Bibles, consists (with the exception of 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh) of books which form an integral part of the LXX canon, but were excluded from the Hebrew canon when that was finally determined about the end of the 1st century [see Canon OF OT]. Nor did these books stand apart from the others in the LXX as a separate group. The historical books (1 Esdras, Tob., Judith, and sometimes Mac.) have their place with Chron., Ezr., Neh.; the poetical books (Wisd., Sir.) stand beside Prov., Ecoles., and Cant.; and Baruch is attached to Jeremiah. The whole arrangement of the OT books differs, indeed, from the stereotyped order of the Massoretic Hebrew. The latter has its three fixed. divisions — (i) the Law, i.e. the Pentateuch; (ii) the Prophets, consisting of the Former Prophets (Jos., Judg., 1-4 Kings) and the Latter Prophets (Isaiah, ■leremiah, Ezekiel, and the Minor Prophets); (ill) the Hagiographa, including Chron., Ps., Job, Prov., Ruth, Cant., Eccles., Lam., Esth., Dan., Ezr., Nehemiah. But the LXX attaches Ruth to Judges, Chron. and Ezr.-Neh. to Kings, Baruch and Lam. to Jer. , and Dan. to the three Greater Prophets. Its principle of arrangement is, in fact, different. In place of divisions which substantially rep-resent three different stages of canonization, it classifies the books in groups according to the character of their subject-matter — Law, History, Poetry, and Prophecy. The details of the order of the books differ in different MSS and authoritative lists, but substantially the principle is as here stated; and the divergence has had considerable historical importance. In spite of the dissent of several of the leading Fathers, such as Origen and Athanasius, the LXX canon was generally accepted by the early Christian Church. Through the medium of the Old Latin Version it passed into the West, and in spite of Jerome's adoption of the Hebrew canon in his Vulgate, the impugned books made their way back into all Latin Bibles, and have remained there from that day to this. [For an explanation of the curious misapprehen-sion whereby 1 Esdras (on which see § 17) was excepted from this favourable reception in the Latin printed Bibles and relegated to an appendix, see an article by Sir H. Howorth in JThSt vii. 343 (1906).) In the Reformed Churches their fate has been different; for the German

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