Septuagint, Old Testament, and the Canon of Scripture

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Septuagint, Old Testament, and the Canon of Scripture

Post by Bootstrap »

In church a few weeks ago, the pastor was preaching from Jeremiah, and I was reading from the Septuagint (in Greek), which was quite different from the text he was preaching from. I mentioned that to him, and he asked if I considered the Septuagint to be part of the canon.

My response: I don't know that the answer to that question really makes a difference to me, because I filter the Old Testament through the eyes of the New Testament, and do not directly apply many laws and direct commandments of the Old Testament. In practice, I suppose I use the Old Testament as rich background for understanding the New Testament, including historical background, the story of the covenant, rich symbolism, who God is and how he relates to his people ...

Whether or not the Septuagint is inspired, the Maccabees is still one of the best sources for understanding the historical background of the New Testament. Sirach contains wisdom similar to that of Proverbs, and I would filter both through New Testament eyes.

I'm not sure if that was good theology or not, but it does describe my current attitude. How do the rest of you see it? How did early Anabaptists see it?
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Re: Septuagint, Old Testament, and the Canon of Scripture

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Jesus quoted from the Septuagint, which is why a couple of His quotes of Scripture are not in the Protestant Bible-
In our class at church yesterday morning, the importance of the OT was emphasized- certainly it was the only Scriptures used to lead people to Christ for quite awhile- when the Bereans searched the Scriptures to see if these things were so- they were searching the OT - not the New, there was no NT yet-
Most Protestants hold the OT in high esteem as well as the Ancient faiths-
I'm not sure, when the Septuagint was dismissed in various Protestant sects/denoms- I first learned of it on MD- the LXX I think, from Mr. Jim- and soon after learned about it more-
It's quite amazing how the Septuagint was compiled, have you read the history of that Bootstrap?? I was in awe of the history of the Septuagint- Simeon, was one of the 70!! Do you realize how old that made him, when he prophesied over the infant Jesus when He was presented to the Lord in the temple??

I was telling my son this morning, Christianity is ANYTHING but boring- it is all fascinating-
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Re: Septuagint, Old Testament, and the Canon of Scripture

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Valerie wrote:Jesus quoted from the Septuagint, which is why a couple of His quotes of Scripture are not in the Protestant Bible-
It's not that clean. Many of his quotes match the Septuagint, some do not, and some are pretty close to the Septuagint but differ somewhat. But the Greek Septuagint was clearly in widespread use among Jews at the time.
Valerie wrote:In our class at church yesterday morning, the importance of the OT was emphasized- certainly it was the only Scriptures used to lead people to Christ for quite awhile- when the Bereans searched the Scriptures to see if these things were so- they were searching the OT - not the New, there was no NT yet-
Most Protestants hold the OT in high esteem as well as the Ancient faiths-
But most Christians eat pork, few have separate furniture for women of childbearing years to sit on, most of us do not stone disobedient children to death. We read the Old Testament through the eyes of the New Testament.

Ancient Faiths? Like Druids, Atenism, and Mithraism? Many Mennonites do think that pagan influences came into the Church under Constantine, and so do many scholars. Here's Schaff's description of this:
Schaff wrote:But the elevation of Christianity as the religion of the state presents also an opposite aspect to our contemplation. It involved great risk of degeneracy to the church. The Roman state, with its laws, institutions, and usages, was still deeply rooted in heathenism, and could not be transformed by a magical stroke. The christianizing of the state amounted therefore in great measure to a paganizing and secularizing of the church. The world overcame the church, as much as the church overcame the world, and the temporal gain of Christianity was in many respects cancelled by spiritual loss. The mass of the Roman empire was baptized only with water, not with the Spirit and fire of the gospel, and it smuggled heathen manners and practices into the sanctuary under a new name.
But let's focus on biblical Christianity and the Septuagint here.
Valerie wrote:I'm not sure, when the Septuagint was dismissed in various Protestant sects/denoms- I first learned of it on MD- the LXX I think, from Mr. Jim- and soon after learned about it more-
LXX is just an abbreviation for the Septuagint. It's the Roman numeral representation of 70, and the name Septuagint comes from the Latin septuaginta, which also means 70. Both of these are references to the legend you mention, which comes from the Tractate Megillah of the Babylonian Talmud:
King Ptolemy once gathered 72 Elders. He placed them in 72 chambers, each of them in a separate one, without revealing to them why they were summoned. He entered each one's room and said: "Write for me the Torah of Moshe, your teacher". God put it in the heart of each one to translate identically as all the others did.
I don't know if that's true or not. There clearly were different manuscripts of the Septuagint with different wording, even for the Books of Moses (the first five books of the Bible), which are mentioned in that legend, so if it is true, we do not have the exact wording today. Regardless, most scholars think that the completion of the entire Septuagint took much longer, perhaps 100 years or so.
Valerie wrote:Simeon, was one of the 70!! Do you realize how old that made him, when he prophesied over the infant Jesus when He was presented to the Lord in the temple??
What is the evidence for that claim?

I was telling my son this morning, Christianity is ANYTHING but boring- it is all fascinating-[/quote]
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Re: Septuagint, Old Testament, and the Canon of Scripture

Post by Valerie »

Bootstrap wrote:
Valerie wrote:Jesus quoted from the Septuagint, which is why a couple of His quotes of Scripture are not in the Protestant Bible-
It's not that clean. Many of his quotes match the Septuagint, some do not, and some are pretty close to the Septuagint but differ somewhat. But the Greek Septuagint was clearly in widespread use among Jews at the time.
Valerie wrote:In our class at church yesterday morning, the importance of the OT was emphasized- certainly it was the only Scriptures used to lead people to Christ for quite awhile- when the Bereans searched the Scriptures to see if these things were so- they were searching the OT - not the New, there was no NT yet-
Most Protestants hold the OT in high esteem as well as the Ancient faiths-
But most Christians eat pork, few have separate furniture for women of childbearing years to sit on, most of us do not stone disobedient children to death. We read the Old Testament through the eyes of the New Testament.

Ancient Faiths? Like Druids, Atenism, and Mithraism? Many Mennonites do think that pagan influences came into the Church under Constantine, and so do many scholars. Here's Schaff's description of this:
Schaff wrote:But the elevation of Christianity as the religion of the state presents also an opposite aspect to our contemplation. It involved great risk of degeneracy to the church. The Roman state, with its laws, institutions, and usages, was still deeply rooted in heathenism, and could not be transformed by a magical stroke. The christianizing of the state amounted therefore in great measure to a paganizing and secularizing of the church. The world overcame the church, as much as the church overcame the world, and the temporal gain of Christianity was in many respects cancelled by spiritual loss. The mass of the Roman empire was baptized only with water, not with the Spirit and fire of the gospel, and it smuggled heathen manners and practices into the sanctuary under a new name.
Let's focus on biblical Christianity.
Valerie wrote:I'm not sure, when the Septuagint was dismissed in various Protestant sects/denoms- I first learned of it on MD- the LXX I think, from Mr. Jim- and soon after learned about it more-
LXX is just an abbreviation for the Septuagint. It's the Roman numeral representation of 70, and the name Septuagint comes from the Latin septuaginta, which also means 70. Both of these are references to the legend you mention, which comes from the Tractate Megillah of the Babylonian Talmud:
King Ptolemy once gathered 72 Elders. He placed them in 72 chambers, each of them in a separate one, without revealing to them why they were summoned. He entered each one's room and said: "Write for me the Torah of Moshe, your teacher". God put it in the heart of each one to translate identically as all the others did.
I don't know if that's true or not. There clearly were different manuscripts of the Septuagint with different wording, even for the Books of Moses (the first five books of the Bible), which are mentioned in that legend, so if it is true, we do not have the exact wording today. Regardless, most scholars think that the completion of the entire Septuagint took much longer, perhaps 100 years or so.
Valerie wrote:Simeon, was one of the 70!! Do you realize how old that made him, when he prophesied over the infant Jesus when He was presented to the Lord in the temple??
What is the evidence for that claim?

I was telling my son this morning, Christianity is ANYTHING but boring- it is all fascinating-
[/quote]

History!

Well, the New Covenant Church, did not have the New Testament Scriptures, to look at the OT through- what did they have? The Church! The Living Word, and those whom the Holy Spirit breathed through and guided-
Those things you mention in the OT are not relevant to NT Christianity.
Slavery in NT is not relevant to today- there are cultural distinctions in both-
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Re: Septuagint, Old Testament, and the Canon of Scripture

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Simeon, was one of the 70!! Do you realize how old that made him, when he prophesied over the infant Jesus when He was presented to the Lord in the temple??
I would like to hear the source for that, even if its just some dead guy in the catholic church. Sounds like an interesting read.
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Re: Septuagint, Old Testament, and the Canon of Scripture

Post by Bootstrap »

Soloist wrote:
Simeon, was one of the 70!! Do you realize how old that made him, when he prophesied over the infant Jesus when He was presented to the Lord in the temple??
I would like to hear the source for that, even if its just some dead guy in the catholic church. Sounds like an interesting read.
When the Orthodox say it is a tradition, that usually means that some early writing mentions it. The OCA page on Simeon tells us this:
Ancient historians tell us that the Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.) wished to include texts of Holy Scripture in the famous Library at Alexandria. He invited scholars from Jerusalem, and the Sanhedrin sent their wise men. The Righteous Simeon was one of the seventy scholars who came to Alexandria to translate the Holy Scriptures into Greek. The completed work was called “The Septuagint,” and is the version of the Old Testament used by the Orthodox Church.

Saint Simeon was translating a book of the Prophet Isaiah, and read the words: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a Son” (Is 7:14). He thought that “virgin” was inaccurate, and he wanted to correct the text to read “woman.” At that moment an angel appeared to him and held back his hand saying, “You shall see these words fulfilled. You shall not die until you behold Christ the Lord born of a pure and spotless Virgin.”

From this day, Saint Simeon lived in expectation of the Promised Messiah. One day, the righteous Elder received a revelation from the Holy Spirit, and came to the Temple. It was on the very day (the fortieth after the Birth of Christ) when the All-Pure Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph had come to the Temple in order to perform the ritual prescribed by Jewish Law.
It does not say which ancient historian tells us that Simeon was one of the translators. If this were true, Simeon would have been perhaps 360 years old. I would really want to see evidence for this claim before believing it.
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Re: Septuagint, Old Testament, and the Canon of Scripture

Post by Valerie »

Bootstrap wrote:
Soloist wrote:
Simeon, was one of the 70!! Do you realize how old that made him, when he prophesied over the infant Jesus when He was presented to the Lord in the temple??
I would like to hear the source for that, even if its just some dead guy in the catholic church. Sounds like an interesting read.
When the Orthodox say it is a tradition, that usually means that some early writing mentions it. The OCA page on Simeon tells us this:
Ancient historians tell us that the Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.) wished to include texts of Holy Scripture in the famous Library at Alexandria. He invited scholars from Jerusalem, and the Sanhedrin sent their wise men. The Righteous Simeon was one of the seventy scholars who came to Alexandria to translate the Holy Scriptures into Greek. The completed work was called “The Septuagint,” and is the version of the Old Testament used by the Orthodox Church.

Saint Simeon was translating a book of the Prophet Isaiah, and read the words: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a Son” (Is 7:14). He thought that “virgin” was inaccurate, and he wanted to correct the text to read “woman.” At that moment an angel appeared to him and held back his hand saying, “You shall see these words fulfilled. You shall not die until you behold Christ the Lord born of a pure and spotless Virgin.”

From this day, Saint Simeon lived in expectation of the Promised Messiah. One day, the righteous Elder received a revelation from the Holy Spirit, and came to the Temple. It was on the very day (the fortieth after the Birth of Christ) when the All-Pure Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph had come to the Temple in order to perform the ritual prescribed by Jewish Law.
It does not say which ancient historian tells us that Simeon was one of the translators. If this were true, Simeon would have been perhaps 360 years old. I would really want to see evidence for this claim before believing it.
Oh ye of little faith!! The Bible is FULL of incredibly hard stories that take faith to believe-
I have no problem believing this- after all this is God we are talking about- Simeon was rare- John the Baptist was who? Jesus was who? Born of who? The story of Simeon is easier to believe than who Jesus said John the Baptist was, or about a Virgin birth, or that Jesus was God in the Flesh- with the 'intellect' some things take faith. A man of God being 360 was no big deal to God-
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Re: Septuagint, Old Testament, and the Canon of Scripture

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Valerie wrote:Oh ye of little faith!! The Bible is FULL of incredibly hard stories that take faith to believe-
I have no problem believing this- after all this is God we are talking about- Simeon was rare- John the Baptist was who? Jesus was who? Born of who? The story of Simeon is easier to believe than who Jesus said John the Baptist was, or about a Virgin birth, or that Jesus was God in the Flesh- with the 'intellect' some things take faith. A man of God being 360 was no big deal to God-
But that hardly means that it is true.

Do you know which historian the OCA site is referring to? Where does this story come from? You're right - I have little faith in a lot of stories that came to be widely believed during the Middle Ages.
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Re: Septuagint, Old Testament, and the Canon of Scripture

Post by Valerie »

Bootstrap wrote:
Valerie wrote:Oh ye of little faith!! The Bible is FULL of incredibly hard stories that take faith to believe-
I have no problem believing this- after all this is God we are talking about- Simeon was rare- John the Baptist was who? Jesus was who? Born of who? The story of Simeon is easier to believe than who Jesus said John the Baptist was, or about a Virgin birth, or that Jesus was God in the Flesh- with the 'intellect' some things take faith. A man of God being 360 was no big deal to God-
But that hardly means that it is true.

Do you know which historian the OCA site is referring to? Where does this story come from? You're right - I have little faith in a lot of stories that came to be widely believed during the Middle Ages.
What makes you think the history of Simeon comes from the middle ages? I mean, there is history out there about many people that aren't recorded in the Scriptures- i.e. the woman at the well, we know what happend in her life, and her martyrdom even if it isn't explained in the Bible-

◄ John 21:25 ►
And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they could be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.

Now if they didn't record all that Jesus did (and said), why on earth would they record in the Scriptures every detail of everyone's life?
It's no wonder the Orthodox tend not to share outside their Church very much, even though as they say 'the toothepaste has been let out of the tube' but they are constantly hit with doubt so- I don't know- believe it about Simeon or not- I am sure the Apostles at the time knew, and I'm sure it was no secret at the time, even if it wasn't recorded in Scripture- no reason to lie about it either, what good would that do?
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Re: Septuagint, Old Testament, and the Canon of Scripture

Post by Bootstrap »

Valerie, could we please discuss this thread from a Mennonite perspective? I already know what the Orthodox teach about the Septuagint and its canonicity, that's not what I believe, and the whole point of this thread is to discuss the question from a Mennonite / Protestant perspective.

I am so far from believing that the Orthodox Church knows all the answers through some secret oral tradition that it isn't even worth discussing. I'm much more interested in discussing what Mennonites and like-minded believers think about the questions posed in the original post.
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