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Translations of the Septuagint into English

cyberjosh

cyberjosh

Member
I have been looking for a good translation of the Septuagint for a while and finally I found one available online from a translation that is now in the public domain: The Septuagint LXX:Greek and English by Sir Lancelot C.L. Brenton (http://ecmarsh.com/lxx/).

Also, and this was quite interesting to me, one of the founding fathers of the United States, Charles Thomson, translated the whole Bible from the Greek, which means he used the Septuagint for the Old Testament instead of the Hebrew. I will work on finding a link to any downloads of that translation I find, but until I do here is a brief description of his translation: http://greatseal.com/committees/finaldesign/thomsonbible.html.

Any more recommendations would be welcome here.
 
I have the Brenton Hardcover. It also has the Greek, although it's not in interlinear format. I also have the Brenton version on mp3. I'm not impressed with the NETS. It's online for free somewhere.

Gary F. Zeolla is working on the LXX. He is releasing it in volumes. More details on his website: http://www.dtl.org/alt/OT/background/project.htm
 
King James said:
I have the Brenton Hardcover. It also has the Greek, although it's not in interlinear format. I also have the Brenton version on mp3. I'm not impressed with the NETS. It's online for free somewhere.

Gary F. Zeolla is working on the LXX. He is releasing it in volumes. More details on his website: http://www.dtl.org/alt/OT/background/project.htm
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Nice! Thanks! Do you consult the LXX when doing studies in the Old Testament?

A professor that I am taking a class on Christian Morals under right now surprised most of the class recently when he pointed out that Malachi 2:16 does not say "he hates putting away" (KJV) or "I hate divorce" (NASB), as if God was saying that he hates divorce, when consulting the most ancient translations and manuscripts. Rather in the LXX, Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Targums they all make it plain that it is talking about if the man hates his wife and divorces her on that ground alone he "covers his garment with violence" (is throwing her out of home and livelihood on no justifiable grounds - thus "violence"). The Brenton translation of that passage in the Septuagint seems to show that: "But if thou shouldest hate thy wife and put her away, saith the Lord God of Israel, then ungodliness shall cover thy thoughts, saith the Lord Almighty: therefore take ye heed to your spirit, and forsake them not." The NIV and ESV translation take their queue from the LXX, Dead Sea Scrolls, and other versions and render similar to Brenton's translation.

Have you ever noticed that?
 
Thanks for that excellent insight. Yes I do consult the LXX and DSS in translations and it's nice that some newer bibles have consulted these for their translations. I like to really look close at certain passages as you have. I also like this set of videos when considering the LXX not to mention some Christians have always and still do use this version in different parts of the world.


An interesting link: http://www.doxa.ws/Messiah/Lxx_mt.html
 
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I'm interested in Genesis 1:1 as far as heaven being singular vs. plural. These below all have the singular.

Brenton's: http://ecmarsh.com/lxx/Genesis/index.htm
Polyglot: http://biblehub.com/interlinear/apostolic/genesis/1.htm
Zeolla's: http://www.amazon.com/Analytical-Literal-Translation-Old-Testament-Septuagint/dp/1300237805/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383014029&sr=8-1&keywords=Analytical-Literal Translation of the Old Testament#reader_1300237805
LXX Interlinear: http://www.scribd.com/doc/28425335/Interlinear-Old-Testament-LXX-Greek-English

The NETS is plural but I'm afraid that it relies too heavily on the RSV for it's base text as it didn't start an English translation from scratch. Zeolla I'm believe is using Brenton's for his base text so his translation could be borrowed form that for his singular form. I don't believe Brenton's singular form is borrowed from the KJV's singular as I believe the Brenton is a new translation and there are some serious variants form the KJV text. Douay-Rheims and Wycliffe are Latin Vulgate influenced which is also singular to which the KJV was also influenced. It's safe to say that all of the reformation era bibles have it as singular. Also the Polyglot is a translation from scratch as well I believe so it would have borrowed from Brenton's for the singular.
 
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Another interesting thing is in Numbers 13:33 in the Brenton's, NETS, or any other LXX version there is no mention of them being the sons of Anak, and that the people are of the giants or nephilim. Only that they were giant people and it doesn't really connect with the Genesis 6:2 and 6:4 meanings.
 
cyberjosh said:
Nice! Thanks! Do you consult the LXX when doing studies in the Old Testament?

A professor that I am taking a class on Christian Morals under right now surprised most of the class recently when he pointed out that Malachi 2:16 does not say "he hates putting away" (KJV) or "I hate divorce" (NASB), as if God was saying that he hates divorce, when consulting the most ancient translations and manuscripts. Rather in the LXX, Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Targums they all make it plain that it is talking about if the man hates his wife and divorces her on that ground alone he "covers his garment with violence" (is throwing her out of home and livelihood on no justifiable grounds - thus "violence"). The Brenton translation of that passage in the Septuagint seems to show that: "But if thou shouldest hate thy wife and put her away, saith the Lord God of Israel, then ungodliness shall cover thy thoughts, saith the Lord Almighty: therefore take ye heed to your spirit, and forsake them not." The NIV and ESV translation take their queue from the LXX, Dead Sea Scrolls, and other versions and render similar to Brenton's translation.

Have you ever noticed that?
Click to expand...

Is the prof. guy also in favor of divorce/remarriage, by the way?

Blessings.
 
farouk said:
Is the prof. guy also in favor of divorce/remarriage, by the way?

Blessings.
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In favor? Certainly not. No more so than the Bible itself is. What God has made one let man not separate. But he does believe in legitimate causes of divorce (as did Jesus). In other words he believes divorce is permissible on certain Biblically defined grounds. He is far more considerate of the issue than most Baptist denominations would be though (they basically forbid remarrying - at least among those in Church leadership). He did an excellent job of starting with the OT Jewish views, then the Rabbinical views in the intertestamental period through the first century, and finally what the New Testament says on it. We are continuing the topic next class. I am thinking of starting a new thread on just this topic some time soon. I just thought I would mention it here since the LXX supports the same reading in the DSS and the Targums and other ancient sources. I'm pretty much convinced now that it is the original reading. The Masoretic text doesn't even make much sense as it stands (ambiguities in the Hebrew). Anyway, that was a bit of a digression.
 
cyberjosh said:
In favor? Certainly not. No more so than the Bible itself is. What God has made one let man not separate. But he does believe in legitimate causes of divorce (as did Jesus). In other words he believes divorce is permissible on certain Biblically defined grounds. He is far more considerate of the issue than most Baptist denominations would be though (they basically forbid remarrying - at least among those in Church leadership). He did an excellent job of starting with the OT Jewish views, then the Rabbinical views in the intertestamental period through the first century, and finally what the New Testament says on it. We are continuing the topic next class. I am thinking of starting a new thread on just this topic some time soon. I just thought I would mention it here since the LXX supports the same reading in the DSS and the Targums and other ancient sources. I'm pretty much convinced now that it is the original reading. The Masoretic text doesn't even make much sense as it stands (ambiguities in the Hebrew). Anyway, that was a bit of a digression.
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it was ambiguous as that was what the hillel and shimei were arguing over. jesus sided with shimei.
 
Along with the LXX, it is now possible to complete the Eastern Orthodox bible in English with two different new testament majority texts.


The ALTD using the Robinson & Pierpont 2005 Text ISBN: 1105603881
or
The WEB using the Farstad & Hodges 1985 Text ISBN: 0970334427
or
The older ALT SE if one preferred the Robinson Pierpont 1991 Text: 141847519X

Here is a PDF comparison of the two: http://www.triviumpursuit.com/downloads/robinson-pierpont-vs-hodges-farstad.pdf
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PDF for the NT of this 1904 version. First printed in 1904 thus the name. Literally from one byzantine text. The text chosen out of 20 texts. They claim it is very close to the Hodges Farstad MT which they call the so-called Majority Text. They also in their introduction are skeptical of the CT of modern versions. They list variants of the MT, CT, and TR in the footnotes of their version. They also used the WEB(links for variants of this version listed above and below) as their base English as listed in their introduction area I assume since it's in a contemporary language if not poetic at times, is in the public domain, and uses a Majority text. It includes 1 John 5:7 Comma Johanneum. In the footnotes they say it's an interpolation, but says it's included because its in their Patriarchal Text. So they must be using a very late text for their version.
http://pc-freak.net/files/nt6x9.pdf

EOB: The Eastern Greek Orthodox New Testament: Based on the Patriarchal Text of 1904 with extensive variants 148191765X This one is working on an OT

The Eastern / Greek Orthodox New Testament- Another 1904 text version in three volumes:
Vol. 1 193902806X Vol. 2 1939028078 Vol. 3 1939028094

The Orthodox New Testament Volume 1 0944359175 Volume 2 0944359183
This one is based off of the Original Greek of the authorized version (1912) of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. I'm not familiar with base texts of this or the 1904 versions. These are expensive out of print on amazon. Here is the official website: http://www.holyapostlesconvent.org/...h=1_2&osCsid=ad11c2090a0d7bdb870456632dd501cd
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Orthodox Study Bible: Ancient Christianity Speaks to Today's World 0718003594
(This one mentioned as a warning. No LXX or Majority Texts used.

Or for Messianics, Besorat HaMashiach: Good News of the Messiah 0970334419
Online version for this: http://ebible.org/eng-webbme/JHN01.htm

Here is an online WEB with footnotes with comparisons of the NU and TR:
http://ebible.org/web/MAT01.htm

The WEB audio books for free download MP3 format
Old Testament https://archive.org/details/bible_web_old_testament_0901_librivox2
New Testament https://archive.org/details/web_new_testament_0811_librivox1
 
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Awesome! You are a wealth of information King James! I want to come back and review all the links (and the videos) that you posted when I get a chance.
 
cyberjosh said:
I have been looking for a good translation of the Septuagint for a while and finally I found one available online from a translation that is now in the public domain: The Septuagint LXX:Greek and English by Sir Lancelot C.L. Brenton (http://ecmarsh.com/lxx/).

Also, and this was quite interesting to me, one of the founding fathers of the United States, Charles Thomson, translated the whole Bible from the Greek, which means he used the Septuagint for the Old Testament instead of the Hebrew. I will work on finding a link to any downloads of that translation I find, but until I do here is a brief description of his translation: http://greatseal.com/committees/finaldesign/thomsonbible.html.

Any more recommendations would be welcome here.
Click to expand...

The Orthodox Study Bible uses the LXX for the Old Testament and the NKJV for the New.
 
 
Also consider where Brenton's was primarily Vaticanus, you will find differences with those taken primarily from Sinaiticus, and also with the universally accepted text at the time represented best in Byzantine versions. But thanks so much because I always wanted to view this in detail and now we can get it as PDF...this is great!
 
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