Was the Septuagent the Holy Scripture used at the time of Christ?

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I was asked an interesting question by a Protestant friend. I contended that he Septuagint is the bible used in Palistine by Jews at the time of Christ. My friend said that they probable spoke Aramaic, and believes this refutes the notion that they used the Septuagint. I believe that it is historically accurate that the Septuagint was the Scripture used at that time, but I can’t answer the question about them reading Greek. Can you please help me with this issue? Thank you.

Yours in Christ.
 
What your friend is confusing is the local language verses the common tongue. Greek was the common tongue of at least the eastern part of the Empire. Aramaic was simply a local language. Anyone who had an education in that area would have spoken and written Greek. The Septuagint was a time honored text and the only one that was considered authoritative at that time.

Since anyone who would have been capable of reading the scriptures would have been fluent in Greek the Septuagint would have become a natural choice.
 
There are quotes liberally sprinkled throughout the NT that can only be found in the Septuagint. So it would appear that Jesus and the Apostles were very familiar with them.

I think the Sadducees only accepted the Torah - the first 5 books of the OT.

The Council of Javneh (Jamnia) around AD90 set the canon of the OT for the Jews but not everyone accepted it. Even today Ethiopean Jews still use the Septuagint.
 
The New Testament quotes from the Septuagint not the Hebrew version, for its old testament quotes, .

example;
Isaiah 7:14
Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

The Septuagint used the word “virgin” in its translation, while the Hebrew version used the term “young women”.

If the New testament authors were the Apostles and those who knew them, and the Apostles were around during the time of Christ, and they used the Septuaqint for their old testament quotes, then this fact could lead one to suspect that it was indeed used during that time. If the authors of the new testament quoted from the greek version,then I would suspect that they were able to read from it.
 
Either Jesus Christ used the Greek Septuagint or He used a Hebrew or Aramaic language version of Holy Scripture that, when translated into Greek, was closer to the Greek Septuagint than it was to the Hebrew language version used by today’s Jews.
 
The Dead Sea Scrolls contained books from the Septuagint.

Some manuscripts were written and copied in the third century B.C.E., but the bulk of the material, particularly the texts that reflect on a sectarian community, are originals or copies from the first century B.C.E.; a number of texts date from as late as the years preceding the destruction of the site in 68 C.E. at the hands of the Roman legions.
 
The Jews of that time period were divided into two groups by language:

The Jews of Hebraic descent generally used Hebrew as their religious language. Their scriptures were in Hebrew, not Greek.

Those who had converted to Judaism and their descendents, who were not of Hebraic descent, particularly those outside of Israel, used Greek as their religious language and the Greek scriptures (Septuagint).

There was significant conflict between those two groups; they did not get along. Then after some from each group converted and became Christians, they still did not get along:

[Acts of the Apostles 6]
{6:1} In those days, as the number of disciples was increasing, there occurred a murmuring of the Greeks against the Hebrews, namely that their widows were treated with disdain in the daily ministration.

Ron
 
There has been a lot of good scholarhip in this area. The idea that the Palestinian Jews only spoke Hebrew and the Diaspora knew only Greek has been proven false. We now know that a large number of Greek-speaking Jews lived in Judea in the first century and the Jews of the Jesus’ day likely knew Greek and Hebrew/Aramaic. Archeology has discovered Synagogues with Greek inscriptions. Scholars believe that the Septuagint was read in many synagogues in Judea. One must also remember that the Septuagint appears to be a literal translation of a Hebrew original. Traces of this original underlying text was discovered in Qumran. So, it is possible that Jesus and his Apostles either used the Greek Septuagint or perhaps the Hebrew textual tradition of the Septuagint.

Gary Michuta
www.HandsOnApologetics.com
 
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