Description
Book SynopsisHow did the New Testament writers and the earliest Christians come to adopt the Jewish scriptures as their first Old Testament? And why are our modern Bibles related more to the Rabbinic Hebrew Bible than to the Greek Bible of the early Church?The Septuagint, the name given to the translation of the Hebrew scriptures between the third century BC and the second century AD, played a central role in the Bible''s history. Many of the Hebrew scriptures were still evolving when they were translated into Greek, and these Greek translations, along with several new Greek writings, became Holy Scripture in the early Church.Yet, gradually the Septuagint lost its place at the heart of Western Christianity. At the end of the fourth century, one of antiquity''s brightest minds rejected the Septuagint in favor of the Bible of the rabbis. After Jerome, the Septuagint never regained the position it once had. Timothy Michael Law recounts the story of the Septuagint''s origins, its relationship to the Hebrew Bible, and the adoption and abandonment of the first Christian Old Testament.
Trade ReviewLaw should be commended for complicating conservative and fundamentalist theologies of scripture vis-à-vis his discussion of the Septuagint ... Law has opened an important conversation about the relevance of the Septuagint today (especially for American Christianity) and wisely points to the past and the east for interlocutors. * James Covington, Journal of Religion *
It is a gripping tale, beautifully told, and should be of profound interest to any reader of the Jewish or Christian BibleTimothy Michael Law has written the first introduction to the LXX that can be read by people outside the guild. It is a remarkable book, full of fascinating detail that I cannot evoke in a short review, a book that tells a rich story that no reader of the Bible can afford to ignore. * Kevin Hart, Los Angeles Review of Books *
a splendid work... I haven't found any book so interesting and enjoyable in years * Sir Fergus Millar, Camden Professor of Ancient History (Emeritus), Oxford, and Fellow of the British Academy *
Table of ContentsTable of Contents ; 1 Why this Book? ; 2 When the World Became Greek ; 3 Was There a Bible before the Bible? ; 4 The First Bible Translators ; 5 Gog and his Not-so-Merry Grasshoppers ; 6 Bird Droppings, Stoned Elephants, and Exploding Dragons ; 7 E Pluribus Unum ; 8 The Septuagint behind the New Testament ; 9 The Septuagint in the New Testament ; 10 The New Old Testament ; 11 God's Word for the Church ; 12 The Man of Steel and the Man who Worshipped the Sun ; 13 The Man with the Burning Hand vs. the Man with the Honeyed Sword ; 14 A Postscript ; Notes ; Index
