1993

The Septuagint and the Hebrew Bible: Some basic issues

It may be rather imprecise to call the Old Testament a Hellenistic book – as not all Old Testaments can be Hellenistic. It is obvious that the Septuagint must be considered Hellenistic since it was not translated before the Hellenistic period. The Hebrew Bible is, on the other hand, not a Hellenistic book for the simple reason that it – in its present shape – is a Jewish rabbinic collection of writings, no earlier than the second century CE (although the beginning of the process of canonization can be traced further back).

It is, therefore, reasonable to connect the appearance of the Hebrew Bible with the historical catastrophes that drastically influenced the life of Jewish communities, especially in Palestine, at the end of the first century CE and in the first half of the second century CE, which threatened to remove Jews from history. Also a new threat to the Jewish faith may have been important – that is, the Christian religion, which (although originally part of the Jewish world) developed into a major opponent to Jewish religious society. Moreover, Christianity argued that it had replaced the Jewish religion as the only legitimate faith.

According to James Barr, R. H. Lightfoot once claimed that the origin of the New Testament should be sought in the moment early Christians, under the impression of the first Roman persecutions, lost faith in the survival of their religion.