SEPTUAGINT

The seventy, is the name of the most ancient Greek version of the Old Testament, and is so called because there were said to have been seventy translators. The accounts of its origin disagree, but it should probably be assigned to the third century before Christ. This ancient version contains many errors, and yet as a whole is a faithful one, particularly in the books of Moses; it is of great value in the interpretation of the Old Testament, and is very often quoted by the New Testament writers, who wrote in the same dialect. It was the parent of the first Latin, the Coptic, and many other versions, and was so much quoted and followed by the Greek and Roman fathers as practically to supersede the original Hebrew, until the last few centuries. The chronology of the Septuagint differs materially from that of the Hebrew text, adding, for example, 606 years between the creation and the deluge. See ALEXANDRIA.

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Septuagint. Septuagint
See VERSIONS.

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septuagint. Septuagint, n. a Gr. version of the Old Testament

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Sep″tu‐a‐gint (?), n. [[From L. septuaginta seventy.]] A Greek version of the Old Testament; — so called because it was believed to be the work of seventy (or rather of seventy-two) translators. ☞ The causes which produced it , the number and names of the translators, the times at which different portions were translated, are all uncertain. The only point in which all agree is that Alexandria was the birthplace of the version. On one other point there is a near agreement, namely, as to time, that the version was made, or at least commenced, in the time of the early Ptolemies, in the first half of the third century b.c. Dr. W. Smith (Bib. Dict.) Septuagint chronology, the chronology founded upon the dates of the Septuagint, which makes 1500 years more from the creation to Abraham than the Hebrew Bible.