Translation was begun in Egypt in the third century B.C.E. readings. It was the language of trade, and of education and writing, even for people who still usually spoke their own languages. Why is it important that we know? Who Wrote the Septuagint and Why was it Written? and was completed in the following century. The background and origin of the Septuagint; The history of Septuagint use among Jews and early Christians; Five reasons you should care about the Septuagint; Examples of important differences between the Septuagint and our Bibles; How to get a copy of the Septuagint; It is difficult to articulate how important this topic is. The Greek translation of the Old Testament has a unique history and was highly favored by early Christians. There are thousands of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. W hat is the Septuagint? The Septuagint is one of the earliest translations of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, produced for the benefit of Greek-speaking Jews. This illustrates the important position which the LXX has attained in Old Testament text critical circles. Septuagint, the earliest extant Greek translation of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew. During the Hellenistic age, the Greek language became an international language for the eastern Mediterranean and beyond. This is a big deal. The Septuagint was presumably made for the Jewish community in Egypt when Greek was the common language throughout the region. Ultimate Significance of the Septuagint It was the adoption of the Septuagint by the early Church that was the biggest factor in its eventual abandonment by the Jews. Analysis of the language … Why was the Septuagint written? The Latin Language. The books in the English Bible follow a subject arrangement and are not in the order they were written. The arrangement mirrors that of the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Old Testament made a few hundred years before Christ. But – we wonder – is such veneration of the Septuagint by academia justified. It was considered by Philo and Josephus to be on an equal footing with the Hebrew Bible. Roughly 200 years before the birth of Jesus, a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures was developed that became widely accepted as a legitimate (even inspired) translation. Whether exact wording is important affects whether our use of the Septuagint is important. When Greek became the lingua franca of the Roman Empire, assimilation became important for the Israelites. The Greek Empire truly brought the Greek language to the entire known world, but one important event sprang from this that would also influence the whole world and especially the Jews. Indeed, one constantly reads in the relevant literature that it was “the” Bible of the early Christians. Tradition relates how King Ptolemy II of Egypt established a vast library at Alexandria. Basically, the Septuagint is the Greek version of the Old Testament with the word “Septuagint” coming from the Latin septuaginta (interpretes), meaning “seventy” or “seventy interpreters,” and is a translation of the Hebrew into the Latin language or Latin Vulgate. The Septuagint. The Septuagint is quite possibly the most important translation of the Bible. The Septuagint's use of parthenos, meaning 'virgin' in Isaiah 7:14 to describe the mother of the promised son Immanuel, was used by Matthew 1:23 as evidence for Yeshua's virgin birth. Many Jews, especially those further from Israel, grew up learning and speaking Greek, not ancient Hebrew. It is the oldest translation of the OT into another language. The fact is, God hasn't given much effort to preserving exact wording for us. The Hebrew Old Testament follows a …