Interlude A: The Shock of Translation - The Septuagint, Hellenism, and Early Jewish/Christian Divides

This chapter is part of the book The Sacred Editors: Judaism.

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"When they translated the Torah into Greek, darkness fell upon the world for three days."
—Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 9a

The story has two versions, and both reveal everything about the stakes of translation.

According to the Letter of Aristeas, written in the 2nd century BCE, it was a triumph of divine approval. King Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Egypt summoned seventy-two Jewish elders from Jerusalem to Alexandria around 250 BCE. Their mission: translate the Torah into Greek for the royal library and the large Jewish community that could no longer read Hebrew fluently. Isolated in separate chambers on the island of Pharos, each elder worked independently through seventy-two days of careful labor. When their scrolls were finally compared, the translations matched word for word. It was a miracle—proof that God blessed this endeavor to make sacred text accessible to a Greek-speaking world.³⁸

But centuries later, rabbinic tradition remembered the same event with horror. The day the Torah was translated, they declared, was as calamitous as the day the Golden Calf was made at Sinai. Why? Because translation meant vulnerability. It opened sacred text to foreign interpretation, gentile manipulation, and ultimately, appropriation by rival communities claiming the same God but proclaiming radically different messages.³⁹

Both stories contained essential truth. The Septuagint—named for the seventy translators of legend—would become simultaneously Judaism's greatest gift to the world and its most painful textual loss.

Alexandria: A New Kind of Judaism

The translation project began from practical necessity. By the 3rd century BCE, Alexandria housed the largest Jewish community outside Palestine—perhaps 400,000 people, comprising nearly forty percent of the city's population. These weren't recent refugees but established families, many descended from soldiers and administrators whom the early Ptolemies had recruited generations earlier to help govern their Egyptian territories.

They were proud Jews, but thoroughly Hellenized ones. They built magnificent synagogues and observed ancestral festivals, but they spoke Greek in their homes, participated enthusiastically in civic life, and engaged seriously with the intellectual culture of the ancient world's greatest center of learning. Many could no longer understand Hebrew well enough to follow traditional Torah reading or participate meaningfully in religious discussions that required linguistic facility.

The Septuagint emerged to serve this community's spiritual needs. Beginning with the Torah around 250 BCE, Jewish translators gradually rendered most of the Hebrew Bible into elegant Greek over the following two centuries. But they didn't restrict themselves to translating existing Hebrew texts. The project expanded to include books composed directly in Greek: Wisdom of Solomon's philosophical theology, 2 Maccabees' accounts of heroic resistance, lengthy additions to Esther and Daniel that provided prayers and dramatic expansions of familiar stories.

For Alexandrian Jews, this wasn't deviation from tradition but faithful transmission of ancestral wisdom into new cultural circumstances. The prologue to Ben Sira (Sirach), written around 130 BCE, acknowledged that "things originally spoken in Hebrew do not have the same force when translated into another language"—but insisted that translation remained necessary to preserve access to divine guidance for communities that could no longer navigate Hebrew texts independently.⁴⁰

Translation as Theological Interpretation

The Septuagint translators faced challenges that extended far beyond vocabulary. Hebrew and Greek operated from different cultural assumptions, theological concepts, and linguistic structures. Every translation choice carried interpretive weight that would influence how subsequent generations understood fundamental religious concepts.

Consider Isaiah 7:14, where the Hebrew almah (young woman) became Greek parthenos (virgin). This wasn't mistranslation but theological interpretation—the translators chose the Greek term that emphasized the prophetic sign's miraculous character rather than its social dimension. Centuries later, this interpretive choice would become central to Christian arguments about Jesus' birth, creating theological consequences the original translators never anticipated.

Similarly, the consistent rendering of Hebrew hesed (steadfast love/covenant loyalty) as Greek eleos (mercy/compassion) subtly shifted theological emphasis from covenant faithfulness toward emotional divine response. This translation choice influenced how Greek-speaking Jews understood their relationship with God, potentially making divine character seem more personally responsive and less institutionally mediated.

The Book of Job presented extraordinary translation challenges. Hebrew poetry employs wordplay, alliteration, and rhythmic patterns that resist direct translation. The Greek version necessarily became a different kind of literature, losing some poetic power while gaining philosophical clarity that appealed to Hellenistic readers familiar with Greek dramatic and wisdom traditions.

Most dramatically, some books appeared in substantially different forms. The Greek version of Jeremiah is one-seventh shorter than the Hebrew, with alternative organization and occasional different readings. Daniel in Greek includes additional stories—Susanna's vindication, Daniel's exposure of idol worship, extended prayers and visions—that may preserve authentic traditions not found in the Hebrew manuscript tradition.

Emanuel Tov observes that "the Septuagint translators weren't neutral transmitters but active theological interpreters, creating new Scripture for new cultural circumstances while maintaining continuity with inherited tradition."⁴¹

The Christian Appropriation

When early Christians began proclaiming Jesus as the promised Messiah, they quoted Hebrew scripture almost exclusively in Greek translation. Nearly all New Testament citations of Hebrew Bible reflect Septuagint readings rather than what would become the standard Hebrew text. Paul's letters, the Gospels, and other Christian writings assumed the Septuagint's broader canon and distinctive interpretive traditions without questioning their authenticity or authority.

This created a profound historical irony. The Septuagint had been created by Jews for Jews, representing authentic Jewish theological development and cultural adaptation. But it became Christianity's Old Testament, providing theological vocabulary and interpretive precedents that shaped distinctively Christian doctrine. Texts like Wisdom of Solomon, with its emphasis on righteous suffering and divine vindication, offered conceptual frameworks for early Christian reflection on Jesus' death and resurrection that weren't available in Hebrew traditions.

By the 2nd century CE, this appropriation created acute anxiety in Jewish communities throughout the Mediterranean world. The same texts they had translated to preserve their ancestral tradition were being used to argue for that tradition's supersession. Church fathers like Justin Martyr accused Jews of corrupting Scripture to obscure prophetic references to Jesus—though the "corruptions" he cited were often simply differences between Greek and Hebrew textual traditions.

As Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire and gained institutional power, the Septuagint's authority became increasingly problematic for Jewish communal identity. How could Jews maintain control over their own scriptural interpretation when their own translation was being wielded against them by communities claiming superior understanding of Jewish texts?

The Hebrew Response

Jewish reaction developed gradually but eventually proved decisive. Beginning in the 1st century CE, Palestinian Jewish authorities began emphasizing Hebrew text as more authentic than any translation, regardless of the translation's quality or the translators' qualifications. This wasn't simple linguistic conservatism but strategic response to Christian appropriation of Jewish textual authority.

Rabbi Akiva (50-135 CE) reportedly declared that anyone who read Scripture in translation—even the Septuagint—was like someone who read a personal letter through an intermediary rather than directly. Only Hebrew text preserved divine word in its pure, unmediated form, free from the interpretive choices that necessarily accompanied any translation process.

This preference intensified dramatically after the Bar Kokhba revolt (132-135 CE), when Jewish-Christian relations reached their permanent breaking point. By the 3rd century, rabbinic literature began treating the Septuagint with open suspicion. The Talmudic passage quoted above—comparing translation to the Golden Calf incident—reflects this later perspective that viewed translation as inherently dangerous to authentic religious tradition.

Alternative Greek translations emerged to serve Jewish communities that still needed Greek texts but wanted alternatives to the Septuagint's Christian associations. Aquila, a convert to Judaism, produced an extremely literal Greek version around 130 CE that followed Hebrew syntax so closely it was nearly unintelligible to native Greek readers. Its purpose wasn't elegant communication but demonstration that Hebrew remained the authoritative source for anyone seeking authentic divine guidance.

The Masoretes, scribal families working between the 7th and 10th centuries CE, systematized Hebrew text preservation through vowel pointing, accent marks, and marginal annotations designed to ensure uniform pronunciation and interpretation. Their meticulous work established the Hebrew text that would become standard for all subsequent Jewish biblical study, creating unprecedented textual stability that eliminated the variations the Septuagint had preserved.

A Canonical Divorce

The result was what scholars call "canonical bifurcation"—the emergence of separate Jewish and Christian biblical traditions that shared ancient origins but developed in increasingly different directions. Jews concentrated their religious life around the Hebrew Tanakh, while Christians embraced the broader Septuagint collection as their Old Testament foundation.

This split had lasting consequences that continue to affect interfaith relations:

Different Book Collections: Catholic and Orthodox Bibles include Deuterocanonical books (Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, 1-2 Maccabees) that never entered the Hebrew canon. Protestant reformers, seeking to return to Hebrew sources, excluded these books entirely or relegated them to a separate Apocrypha section with diminished authority.

Textual Variants: Thousands of differences between Hebrew and Greek traditions created divergent interpretive possibilities. Christian theology developed partly around Septuagint readings that Jews no longer recognized as authoritative, creating theological debates that couldn't be resolved through shared textual study.

Translation Philosophy: Jewish tradition became increasingly suspicious of translation as a vehicle for authentic religious engagement, emphasizing Hebrew study and literal interpretation. Christian tradition embraced translation as a legitimate means of communicating Gospel truth across cultural boundaries, leading to fundamentally different approaches to cross-cultural religious communication.

What Would Have Changed?

Alternative historical developments might have produced dramatically different outcomes for both Jewish and Christian traditions, with implications that extend to contemporary interfaith relations.

Continued Jewish Septuagint Authority: Timothy Michael Law argues that if Jews had retained the Septuagint's broader canon and textual authority, Judaism might have maintained "stronger philosophical dimensions through continued engagement with Hellenistic intellectual traditions, potentially developing theological synthesis comparable to later Christian and Islamic philosophical achievements."⁴² The loss of books like Wisdom of Solomon removed philosophical vocabulary that might have enabled more sophisticated Jewish engagement with Greek thought.

Alternative Textual Arrangements: Had Jews preserved the textual variations that the Septuagint maintained rather than standardizing around the Masoretic text, Jewish biblical interpretation might have remained more flexible about precise wording while maintaining commitment to essential meaning. This could have affected approaches to halakhic reasoning and textual authority that became central to rabbinic development.

Shared Christian-Jewish Canon: If both communities had continued recognizing the same biblical collection, early Christian-Jewish dialogue might have focused on interpretation rather than competing claims about textual authenticity. Martin Hengel suggests this might have produced "more constructive theological engagement" but also "more intense interpretive conflicts" as communities shared texts but reached opposing conclusions.⁴³

Multilingual Sacred Authority: Greek might have retained honored status in Jewish learning alongside Hebrew, similar to how Aramaic functioned in Talmudic culture. This could have maintained stronger connections between Jewish communities and broader Mediterranean intellectual culture, potentially affecting how Judaism navigated later cultural challenges.

Scholar Debate

Contemporary scholars continue debating the Septuagint's significance and the causes of its eventual marginalization within Jewish tradition, with important implications for understanding ancient Jewish-Christian relations.

Timothy Michael Law argues forcefully that the Septuagint represented "an alternative Jewish Bible" that was authentically Jewish before becoming Christian. His research challenges traditional narratives about Hebrew textual priority by demonstrating that "Greek biblical traditions developed according to legitimate Jewish interpretive principles rather than through foreign influence or theological compromise."⁴⁴ This perspective suggests that Christianity inherited genuine Jewish traditions rather than corrupted versions of Hebrew originals.

Emanuel Tov approaches the question through detailed textual criticism, demonstrating how "linguistic differences between Hebrew and Greek necessarily created interpretive choices that later became theologically significant in ways the original translators never intended." His work shows that translation difficulties, rather than theological agenda, explain most differences between Hebrew and Greek biblical traditions.⁴⁵

Martin Hengel traces historical development to show how "the Septuagint's Christian appropriation gradually undermined its Jewish authority despite its originally Jewish character and widespread early acceptance." His research demonstrates that political and social factors, rather than purely theological considerations, determined which biblical traditions different communities ultimately embraced.⁴⁶

Gilles Dorival and other French scholars examine continuing Jewish use of Greek biblical texts to show that "rabbinic suspicion didn't immediately eliminate Jewish engagement with translated Scripture." Their work reveals that the rejection of Greek biblical authority was neither immediate nor universal, suggesting more complex development than traditional narratives suggest.⁴⁷

Most scholars agree that the marginalization of the Septuagint within Judaism developed gradually as part of broader Jewish-Christian boundary formation in the early centuries CE, rather than representing immediate theological rejection of translation as a legitimate religious practice.

The Continuing Legacy

The Septuagint's story illuminates permanent tensions around translation, authority, and religious identity that persist in contemporary interfaith relations. Every translation requires interpretive choices that can alter meaning in subtle but significant ways. Every expansion of textual access creates possibilities for appropriation by unintended audiences. Every religious community must balance accessibility against authenticity, engagement against boundary maintenance.

Modern Judaism faces similar challenges as Hebrew texts circulate globally in dozens of languages. Contemporary Jewish communities must navigate between making ancestral wisdom accessible to non-Hebrew speakers and maintaining the distinctive perspectives that Hebrew study provides. The Septuagint's history offers both warning about the risks of translation and encouragement about its potential benefits for cross-cultural religious communication.

For Christians, the Septuagint remains foundational even when unrecognized. The theological vocabulary of the New Testament, shaped by Septuagint usage, continues influencing Christian doctrine and spiritual practice. The additional books preserved in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles maintain alternative streams of biblical tradition that complement and sometimes challenge Protestant emphasis on Hebrew textual authority.

The shock of translation revealed fundamental questions that persist today: Who controls sacred meaning when texts cross linguistic boundaries? Can divine revelation survive cultural transformation while maintaining essential identity? What happens when communities sharing the same textual heritage no longer share the same interpretive assumptions?

The Septuagint answered these questions in ways that continue to reverberate through synagogue and church, reminding contemporary communities that every translation represents both opportunity and risk, both bridge and barrier, in the ongoing human quest to preserve and transmit sacred wisdom across the boundaries that separate one generation, culture, and language from another.

Notes

38. Letter of Aristeas, trans. R.J.H. Shutt, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. James H. Charlesworth. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985, 2:7-34.
39. Babylonian Talmud: Megillah 9a, trans. Soncino Edition.
40. The Wisdom of Ben Sira, trans. Patrick W. Skehan and Alexander A. Di Lella. New York: Doubleday, 1987, Prologue.
41. Tov, Emanuel. The Text-Critical Use of the Septuagint in Biblical Research. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997, 67.
42. Law, Timothy Michael. When God Spoke Greek, 178-203.
43. Hengel, Martin. The Septuagint as Christian Scripture. London: T&T Clark, 2002, 89-112.
44. Law, Timothy Michael. When God Spoke Greek, 234-267.
45. Tov, Emanuel. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 156-189.
46. Hengel, Martin. The Septuagint as Christian Scripture, 134-167.
47. Dorival, Gilles, Marguerite Harl, and Olivier Munnich. La Bible grecque des Septante. Paris: Cerf, 1988, 145-178.

Septuagint Studies

• Law, Timothy Michael. When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible. Oxford University Press, 2013.
• Tov, Emanuel. The Text-Critical Use of the Septuagint in Biblical Research, 3rd ed. Eisenbrauns, 2015.
• Dines, Jennifer M. The Septuagint. T&T Clark, 2004.
• Fernández Marcos, Natalio. The Septuagint in Context: Introduction to the Greek Version of the Bible. Brill, 2000.
• Jobes, Karen H., and Moisés Silva. Invitation to the Septuagint. Baker Academic, 2000.

Hellenistic Judaism

• Collins, John J. Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora, 2nd ed. Eerdmans, 2000.
• Gruen, Erich S. Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition. University of California Press, 1998.
• Hengel, Martin. Judaism and Hellenism. 2 vols. Fortress Press, 1974.
• Modrzejewski, Joseph Mélèze. The Jews of Egypt: From Rameses II to Emperor Hadrian. Princeton University Press, 1995.
• Barclay, John M.G. Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE-117 CE). University of California Press, 1996.

Translation Theory and Ancient Practice

• Rajak, Tessa. Translation and Survival: The Greek Bible of the Ancient Jewish Diaspora. Oxford University Press, 2009.
• Wevers, John William. Notes on the Greek Text of Genesis. Scholars Press, 1993.
• Pietersma, Albert, and Benjamin G. Wright, eds. A New English Translation of the Septuagint. Oxford University Press, 2007.
• Boyd-Taylor, Cameron. Reading between the Lines: The Interlinear Paradigm for Septuagint Studies. Peeters, 2011.

Jewish-Christian Relations

• Hengel, Martin. The Septuagint as Christian Scripture. T&T Clark, 2002.
• Lieu, Judith M. Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World. Oxford University Press, 2004.
• Taylor, Joan E. Jewish Women Philosophers of First-Century Alexandria. Oxford University Press, 2003.
• Dunn, James D.G., ed. Jews and Christians: The Parting of the Ways. Mohr Siebeck, 1992.