Septuagint Corruption Undermines Jesus
The Septuagint (aka, LXX) is a translation of the Hebrew Bible into the common Greek language. Tradition from the Letter of Aristeus describes how 72 scholars were sent by Eleazar, the High Priest in Jesusalem, at the request of Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-246 BC), the King of Egypt, to produce a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible for the magnificent library in Alexandria. The requested translation was much needed since use of the Greek language was becoming more widespread in the Middle East, following the world conquering exploits of Alexander (336-323 BC). Greek was the language of commerce and culture and was strongly encouraged by governments of the day and would continue to grow in popularity through the time of Jesus and the Early Christian Church. The Greek language became dominant throughout the Region, even in Jerusalem. The use of Greek for the transmission of Scripture, to include the writings of the Apostles in the New Testament, was providential since Greek was ideal for expressing the true meaning of a text.
As the first century progressed, the Christians skillfully began to prove that Jesus was the promised Messiah by making use of the Scripture of the Old Testament taken from the Greek Septuagint (LXX). “The rise of the ‘heretical sect’ of Messianic Judaism in the first century and beyond, known as Christianity, had become such a threat to the Jewish religious leaders that they were deliberately tampering with the Holy Scriptures in a vain attempt to stamp out Christianity;” particularly after Jesus’ prophesied destruction of the Hebrew Temple (Matt.24) in 70 AD. (“Septuagint The Most Dangerous Book in the World” YouTube) A meeting among Jewish leadership at the Council of Jamnia in 80 AD likely set the course for a continuous program of duplicity in corrupting the Hebrew Scriptures that would last until the time of Jerome’s Latin translation of the Old Testament texts written in Hebrew. Jerome’s translation (The Vulgate) was highly controversial since it avoided the use of the highly valued Greek Septuagint text. St. Augustine was particularly vexed and pleaded with Jerome to make use of the LXX, which he believed was “an accurate and wholly sufficient translation worthy of the highest esteem.” Since the time of its legendary translation between 284 and 246 BC, the text was considered most excellent to the point of being supernaturally inspired; even by the Jews. It was only after the time of Jesus’ ministry and the powerful evangelistic activities of the Early Church that the LXX fell out of favor with the Jewish religious establishment. (Apparently, in the business of religion, loss of market share can be a very big deal.) The Christian sect, or The Way, would become the greatest religion in world history, bringing peace and prosperity everywhere its Bible was disseminated. – JB) see Robert Royal’s The God that Did Not Fail: How Religion Built and Sustains the West (2006). Alarm bells should sound when one considers the consequences of adopting a significantly altered Old Testament Text. Particularly when that text has been diabolically altered with an agenda of writing the Risen Lord out of His rightful place in the Bible. To more fully grasp the depths of treachery applied to Holy Scripture, one need only consider how the Book of Daniel in the Septuagint “migrated” from “The Prophets” Section in the Tanakh into “The Writings” after the 1st century AD. (see footnotes)
JustBelief will attempt here to chronicle the actions and consequences that have provided the West with a suboptimal corrupted translation of the Hebrew Bible. The progression of the sordid events alluded to above will be produced in greater detail so that the case can be made for the adoption of the Septuagint – LXX as the preferred translation of the Old Testament in the modern Bible. The Greek Septuagint was preferred to the Hebrew Old Testament by the Early Church. Most of the direct citations of the Old Testament found in the New Testament match the Septuagint (LXX), not the Hebrew Bible, or Masoretic Text (MT). In cases where the Old Testament is cited word for word, the New Testament writers quote the LXX over the MT 85 – 90% of the time. (“What Is the Septuagint?” Ryan Reeves – TGC) Jesus, the Apostles, Gospel writers, and Paul had no reservations about relying on the Septuagint text. The Church fathers, from Justin Martyr and Irenaeus through to Augustine in the 5th century, regularly quoted the Septuagint over the Hebrew Bible (MT) as well. New Testament Scripture reveals that Jesus demonstrated complete confidence in the Greek text – LXX translated by the 72 Scribal Elders. Dr. Norman Geisler shows that “Whatever Jesus (who is God) teaches is true” (see Geisler and Turek’s “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist” (2004). Jesus’ testimony is all the Christian Church fathers would need to continue the use of the Septuagint well into the future.
The Scripture of Jesus’ day was overwhelmingly the Greek Septuagint. Jesus demonstrated great confidence in the Scriptures quoting them and using them as the foundation of His rabbinic teachings, showing them to be divinely inspired. He also applied Old Testament prophecies to Himself placing great importance on the fulfillment of prophecy where His Messianic ministry was concerned. Jesus spoke as if He, and the people of His day, were working with a flawless copy of the Hebrew Scriptures. Every single word was important to Jesus. In Matthew, Jesus declared that “Not the smallest letter, or stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until everything takes place.” (Mt.5:17-18) Jesus believed all Scripture was divinely inspired, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Mt. 4:4) Jesus said, “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me…(Luke 24:44) Jesus prayed, “your word is truth.” (John 17:17) Meaning; for a divine Jesus, this word would be found in the LXX.
Another reason we should have confidence in the accuracy of the Greek translation is that the LXX employed much older manuscripts than the Masoretic text; more than 1,100 years older than the 9th Century Leningrad Codex of 850 AD. The Septuagint used ancient Hebrew texts predating the 3rd Century BC. (JB believes that there is every possibility that the autographs from the Prophets Jeremiah / Baruch, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the writings of Ezra could have still been available to the Alexandrian translators – though with the exception of Ezra, this is not likely.) Consider also that the original Hebrew manuscripts used in the production of the Septuagint were lost and did not exist in 400 AD when Jerome was producing his translation of the Hebrew text into Latin (The Vulgate). Rabbis, who had been corrupting Scripture for more than 300 years, were “assisting” a hoodwinked Jerome, now living in Bethlehem, in his mastery of Hebrew and with material for his translation for the Pope. Their influence over Jerome assured that the Vulgate translation would be a highly compromised text; (5.“St. Jerome / Septuagint” YouTube) especially where the Messiahship and deity of Jesus the Christ was concerned. – JB Jerome’s naivete would prove tragic as the “Synagogue of Satan’s” coup would influence the content of almost all the Bibles of the West going forward. Numerous mistakes have been identified from Jerome’s tainted translation for Pope Damascus. These mistakes could have been avoided if an oh so foolish Jerome had simply used the trustworthy Septuagint as his peers had pleaded.
The Hebrew contrived Masoretic Text provides virtually no foundation for the brilliant Erasmus’ New Testament translation of the Textus Receptus and the King James Bible. (It is truly fortunate that of the few texts Erasmus had access to, nearly all were Byzantine Majority texts.) The Catholic Church’s Latin Vulgate would become the source for Old Testament English texts to this day. The Pope adopted the Latin Vulgate (420 AD) as the official version of the Old Testament for the Catholic Church thus making Jerome’s Vulgate the predominant Old Testament version throughout the Western World; the Eastern Orthodox Church being the exceptional exception employing the credible Septuagint to this day. Our oldest copy of the Vulgate is from 700 AD. However, most English translations of the Bible use the Masoretic Text (MT) as their primary source; the oldest copy being the Leningrad Codex. (Consider that the oldest complete copies of the Bible are Codex Vaticanus (325 AD), a suspect Codex Sinaiticus (330 AD), and Codex Alexandrinus (400 – 440); All use the LXX as their main source.)
Jesus, the Apostles, and the Early Church fathers strongly favored the use of the Greek Septuagint over the Hebrew texts of their day. The vast majority, more than 90%, of the Old Testament quotes used in the New Testament come from the Greek LXX translation. (“Which Bible Translation Did Jesus Use? The Septuagint!” YouTube) This is why it is incredibly problematic that the Hebrew Masoretic text has become the favored translation used in modern English Bibles. While most current Bibles in popular use are very good; the ESV for example goes to great lengths to correct the dreadful errors from the Masoretic text. If you are not using the LXX, you are utilizing a suboptimal O.T. translation taking you farther away from the inspired word of God. Please consider obtaining a copy of The Septuagint since JustBelief considers it to be the most accurate and reliable version of the Old Testament available.
JustBelief.org strongly encourages readers not to discard, or avoid reading your current Bible; especially if it is one you are comfortable with. Thanks to the work of textual critics, even an inferior translation is acceptable and can yield great benefits. Don’t neglect Bible study with an ESV, NKJV, or CSB Bible; but you may want to steer clear of any Non-Inspired Versions. (Just sayin’)
Tim Harris of Chasing a Lion Ministries provides a persuasive case in support of the argument that the Septuagint (LXX) was intentionally corrupted by leaders within the Jewish religious establishment in order to undermine the Messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth. (Bible scholar Michael S. Heiser is aware of the same historical circumstances and reaches a similar conclusion.) A sampling of Pastor Harris’ commentary is as follows: (“Why You Should Use the Septuagint – LXX” YouTube)
“For centuries, the LXX was the universally accepted version of the Scriptures by the Early Church.” (The most excellent translation of “The Seventy” was celebrated by the Rabbis as well! – comment JB) By the 2nd century AD, Jewish Rabbis began rejecting the LXX in favor of “approved” Hebrew texts. During this time frame, noted Christian scholars such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Julius Africanus, Origen et al. accused the Jews of “maliciously manipulating the Scriptures.” (No one could deny their claims because the evidence was printed in black and white. JB)
(Some of the more egregious and well-known changes made by the Jewish religious leadership to the text of the Septuagint can be found in picture form at the end of this important article.)
Timothy Michael Law, “When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Christian Bible” (2013).
Douglas Woodward, “The Septuagint and the Defense of the Christian Bible: How the Ancient Greek Bible Emends the Biblical Text and Best Presents the Case that Jesus Was the Christ” (2023).
* These 9 YouTube videos are first rate where the textual authority of the Septuagint is concerned:
1) “Septuagint The Most Dangerous Book in the World” Digging Up the Bible
2) “Introduction to the Septuagint” Post-Apostolic Church
3) “Augustine the Septuagint Onlyist vs Jerome – clash of titans” Working for the Word Podcast
4) “Why You Should Use the Septuagint – LXX” Chasing a Lion Ministries
5) “St. Jerome and the Septuagint part 1” boondox00
6) “How the Septuagint PROVES Early Authorship of Daniel” Just Scripture Ministries
7) “Which Bible Translation Did Jesus Use? And Why You Should Read It Too!” Biblical Mastery
8) “The KJV Is Corrupt, Exposing the King James Version of the Bible” Integrity Syndicate
9) “The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Shocking Evidence for the Septuagint” Biblical Studies and Reviews
Jordan Scheetz, “Daniel’s Position in the Tanakh, the LXX – Vulgate, Protestant Canon” OTE 23/1 (2010), 178-193.
Klaus Koch, “Is Daniel Also Among the Prophets?” Interpretation 39/2 (1985), 122-123. “Evidence from the first century and earlier favors the view that the Book of Daniel was originally part of the Prophets, and only later moved to the Writings.” This conclusion is supported by the work of Thomas J. Finley, “The Book of Daniel in the Canon of Scripture,” Bibliotheca Sacra 165/2 (2008): 208.
Coming soon: JustBelief.org will produce “The Rise of the Texas Receptus Biblia Optimus”
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