Protestants and the Septuagint

[rfournier103]

There was a constant history of faithful people from Paul’s time through the Apostolic and Post Apostolic Church.

Melito, bishop of Sardis, an ancient city of Asia Minor (see Rev 3), c. 170 AD produced the first known Christian attempt at an Old Testament canon. His list maintains the Septuagint order of books but contains only the Old Testament protocanonicals minus the Book of Esther.

The Council of Laodicea, c. 360, produced a list of books similar to today’s canon. This was one of the Church’s earliest decisions on a canon.

Pope Damasus, 366-384, in his Decree, listed the books of today’s canon.

The Council of Rome, 382, was the forum which prompted Pope Damasus’ Decree.

Bishop Exuperius of Toulouse wrote to Pope Innocent I in 405 requesting a list of canonical books. Pope Innocent listed the present canon.

The Council of Hippo, a local north Africa council of bishops created the list of the Old and New Testament books in 393 which is the same as the Roman Catholic list today.

The Council of Carthage, a local north Africa council of bishops created the same list of canonical books in 397. This is the council which many Protestant and Evangelical Christians take as the authority for the New Testament canon of books. The Old Testament canon from the same council is identical to Roman Catholic canon today. Another Council of Carthage in 419 offered the same list of canonical books.

Since the Roman Catholic Church does not define truths unless errors abound on the matter, Roman Catholic Christians look to the Council of Florence, an ecumenical council in 1441 for the first definitive list of canonical books.

The final infallible definition of canonical books for Roman Catholic Christians came from the Council of Trent in 1556 in the face of the errors of the Reformers who rejected seven Old Testament books from the canon of scripture to that time.

catholicapologetics.org/ap030700.htm

Thank you for the link. Always looking for good sites to peruse.

Great thread, guys. Thanks for reviving it. Missed it the first time around!

 

[KathleenGee]

Correct me on this…

I was having breakfast with some Catholics who are on fire…coming into the faith after being cradle Catholics their whole lives…just happened this way for them.

Anyone, one of them was sharing with me that the Septuagint tradition is the one followed by SS Peter and Paul, whose passages prophesized the coming Messiah as we know Christ.
Adamski’s contributions reflect this image of Messiah.

Martin Luther wanted to get back to the original Hebrew texts. But did he end up with the Mazoretic tradition that has a different image of messiah?

I am reviewing now another thread on this topic.

But my friend’s comment made me think Protestants who use the Mazoretic tradition of interpretation are following the one used by certain Jews who do not accept Christ as Messiah, etc., etc., vs the Apostles who used the Septuagint. I am understanding this correctly?

 

[KathleenGee]

Obviously I am not in the same category as others here in the history of interpretations of Sacred Scripture. My education focused more on ecclesiology, foundation of the Church.

We covered the history of Sacred Scripture, and were taught that the Council of Trent reaffirmed its use of the 7 books the Reformers removed.

Likewise…I am waiting to find out if SS Peter and Paul did use the interpretation of Scripture, as I am told it is the Septuagint, and likewise I did not hear of any other apostles doing so likewise.

If SS Peter and Paul did indeed use the interpretation of the Septuagint, and that the Church was using the 7 books at its inception, then this is the sign of the Holy Spirit at work in the Church leading it in its formation of Salvation History.

Likewise, the Council of Trent did address corruption and other issues in the Church that led to the Protestant Reformation, this Council correcting and reforming abuses in the Church, namely clericalism.

To see clerics or lay break away to form other ecclesial communities is of the same gendre…fragmenting clericalism, both Catholic and not.

 

[Tomyris]

There are two issues raised here I would like to comment on.

First, the use of the LXX in the NT is complex. It is quoted from as Scripture frequently, and sometimes something else (perhaps the Hebrew translated?) is used. That does not prove that the LXX in itself was regarded as authoritative, as Paul also quotes pagan philosophers in Acts, so merely because something is quoted does not mean that the source is regarded as Scripture. I’ve compared a number of NT quotes in the Greek with the OT reference in the LXX, so this is first hand research. Perhaps there were variant LXXs and Greek translations of the OT floating around, as well as various Hebrew texts. The Masoretic text and the LXX-source text are clearly different as an examination of translations of the LXX and the Hebrew will show.

Secondly, historically, the portions of the Bible that are disputed by the Reformers were disputed. They did not create the dispute out of thin air but were observing the historic questioning of the texts and the regard for certain writings as subcanonical but still edifying. You will find the disputed books in Episcopalian Bibles, for example. You cannot clearly speak of these books without clarifying whether they are regarded as fully canonical or something less. Does the CC regard all the deuterocanonicals as on the same level as the rest of the Bible? I don’t know, so I’m asking.

 

[guanophore]

There are two issues raised here I would like to comment on.

First, the use of the LXX in the NT is complex. It is quoted from as Scripture frequently, and sometimes something else (perhaps the Hebrew translated?) is used. That does not prove that the LXX in itself was regarded as authoritative, as Paul also quotes pagan philosophers in Acts, so merely because something is quoted does not mean that the source is regarded as Scripture.

This is true, but the reason the CC adopted the Alexandrian Septuagint is because that was the collection used by the Apostles in the diaspora, and the one that Paul referred to as “the Scriptures” in writing to Timothy.

I've compared a number of NT quotes in the Greek with the OT reference in the LXX, so this is first hand research.  Perhaps there were variant LXXs and Greek translations of the OT floating around, as well as various Hebrew texts.  The Masoretic text and the LXX-source text are clearly different as an examination of translations of the LXX and the Hebrew will show.

Yes. We have the Dead Sea Scrolls, with Jerome, Augustine, and the Reformers did not, so we can see that the Masoric text was still under development.

Secondly, historically, the portions of the Bible that are disputed by the Reformers were disputed. They did not create the dispute out of thin air but were observing the historic questioning of the texts and the regard for certain writings as subcanonical but still edifying. You will find the disputed books in Episcopalian Bibles, for example. You cannot clearly speak of these books without clarifying whether they are regarded as fully canonical or something less. Does the CC regard all the deuterocanonicals as on the same level as the rest of the Bible? I don’t know, so I’m asking.

 

[KathleenGee]

Thanks, Guan…

I have been spending time reading the links discussing the complexity of text, translations, and even references of Jews after the growth of Christianity of removing parts that do not infer Christ.

I did 5th year language study and a quarter of graduate school linguistics at U of WA…long time ago, as well as working in a shared foreign language among other foreigners…in service of the local indigenous population that did not have its own grammar and language books. The missionaries were working at that time to create and develop such materials for them, and always the issue of translation and meaning and exegesis.

What I keep coming back to is what translations did the Apostles use? And didn’t it say in Acts that they were appointed to be chosen Christ’s witnesses before they were even born?..isn’t this the working of the Holy Spirit.

Considering the relativistic-like approach to language and culture and histories of people, overwhelmingly complex that you cannot get your finger on any as science is an ongoing revelation, ever changing…we have to turn our eyes to God and His Holy Spirit to guide us. The Councils of Hippo and Carthage reflect this trust in the Holy Spirit moving in the Apostles even in their formation before they were actuallychosen by Christ.

 

[Tomyris]

This is true, but the reason the CC adopted the Alexandrian Septuagint is because that was the collection used by the Apostles in the diaspora, and the one that Paul referred to as “the Scriptures” in writing to Timothy.

Perhaps I should have been clearer here. The Orthodox regard the LXX as more authoritative than any Hebrew text. And Augustine clearly believed the translation was miraculous. The LXX has a high standing historically. I was not arguing that it has no authority, just attempting to demonstrate the point that apostolic citation alone does not qualify something as Scriptural, in conjunction with the statement that both LXX and non-LXX sources were cited in the NT as Scripture.

There is the added complication that “Scripture” is not intrinsically a term in the NT. Instead we have a word that is simply translated as “writings”, whether inspired or not.

Yes. We have the Dead Sea Scrolls, with Jerome, Augustine, and the Reformers did not, so we can see that the Masoric text was still under development.

I don’t know anything about the development of the OT text. The Orthodox, in defending the LXX, maintain that it has been continually in Christian hands since the beginning of the Church, while the Hebrew texts were in Jewish hands and possibly corrupted.

I’m not sure why you left the following:

Secondly, historically, the portions of the Bible that are disputed by the Reformers were disputed. They did not create the dispute out of thin air but were observing the historic questioning of the texts and the regard for certain writings as subcanonical but still edifying. You will find the disputed books in Episcopalian Bibles, for example. You cannot clearly speak of these books without clarifying whether they are regarded as fully canonical or something less. Does the CC regard all the deuterocanonicals as on the same level as the rest of the Bible? I don’t know, so I’m asking.