Septuagint
Often referred to as seventy or “LXX”, being its Roman Numeral, the Septuagint was first translated from the Old Testament in approximately 300 B.C.. It was translated at this time as the Old Testament was written in hebrew and Ptolemy Philadelphus, the reigning emperor of Alexandria Egypt, wanted to include the Greek version in the Library of Alexandria. To do this Ptolemy Philadelphus ordered seventy two scholars, made up of six elders from twelve tribes of Israel, to translate the scriptures of the Old Testament into Greek. Though the translation was for Ptolemy and the Library of Alexandria it did much more than just become a book in the shelves. In fact it began the great expansion of Christianity as a religion, compared to …show more content…
In the Christians case, they did not have any Holy Books for themselves to read and follow so when the Septuagint was released into Public life they took upon this book as their Bible “LXX,…was simply adopted by the Christians as the Church’s Bible”(Bickerman 11). Due to the fact that there was no abundance of Books that the Laity could live by, the Septuagint was the only option. For the Tzaddik’s though, the Septuagint did not nearly influence them as much as it did the Christians. The Septuagint was not a major factor for the expansion of Judaism because after the first century B.C. Jews began to gradually leave the Greek Speaking Roman Empire, just a century and a half after the septuagint was written, and began entering the Aramaic speaking Persian Empire. This was when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. By identifying when the Septuagint was written it helps clarify why Christianity expanded directly because of the Septuagint and why Judaism did not. Jews began to flee the Roman Empire leaving the Septuagint behind, however the Christians; having no other options of Holy Scripture at this time, adopted this new translation of the O.T. (Paulgaard, James. Bickerman. ”The Expansion of Christianity in the Roman Empire.”)(Brenton, Charles Lee, Sir. "An Historical Account of the Septuagint
Often referred to as seventy or “LXX”, being its Roman Numeral, the Septuagint was first translated from the Old Testament in approximately 300 B.C.. It was translated at this time as the Old Testament was written in hebrew and Ptolemy Philadelphus, the reigning emperor of Alexandria Egypt, wanted to include the Greek version in the Library of Alexandria. To do this Ptolemy Philadelphus ordered seventy two scholars, made up of six elders from twelve tribes of Israel, to translate the scriptures of the Old Testament into Greek. Though the translation was for Ptolemy and the Library of Alexandria it did much more than just become a book in the shelves. In fact it began the great expansion of Christianity as a religion, compared to …show more content…
In the Christians case, they did not have any Holy Books for themselves to read and follow so when the Septuagint was released into Public life they took upon this book as their Bible “LXX,…was simply adopted by the Christians as the Church’s Bible”(Bickerman 11). Due to the fact that there was no abundance of Books that the Laity could live by, the Septuagint was the only option. For the Tzaddik’s though, the Septuagint did not nearly influence them as much as it did the Christians. The Septuagint was not a major factor for the expansion of Judaism because after the first century B.C. Jews began to gradually leave the Greek Speaking Roman Empire, just a century and a half after the septuagint was written, and began entering the Aramaic speaking Persian Empire. This was when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. By identifying when the Septuagint was written it helps clarify why Christianity expanded directly because of the Septuagint and why Judaism did not. Jews began to flee the Roman Empire leaving the Septuagint behind, however the Christians; having no other options of Holy Scripture at this time, adopted this new translation of the O.T. (Paulgaard, James. Bickerman. ”The Expansion of Christianity in the Roman Empire.”)(Brenton, Charles Lee, Sir. "An Historical Account of the Septuagint