Title: Ep 10 | “Why the Septuagint is a big deal!”
Plot: The Greek translation of the Old Testament Bible created in 300 BC
Listen to "Ep 10 | "Why the Septuagint is a big deal!"" on Spreaker.
Full Transcript
Hey, welcome back!
This channel is still pretty new. And whenever a channel is new it’s easier to make sense of the metrics and give a shot out to my listeners. Therefore, hello to my listener on podcastAddict. I noticed you listened to all my podcasts in one day and that encouraged me tremendously - thank you! And it implies you and I have some things in common. And I’m always happy to meet people who share my interests. I do confess I feel bad that I’ve neglected this channel just a little bit. It’s been 10 days since my last podcast and when I saw that you downloaded all of my messages yesterday, I decided to make this podcast just for you. I’d sing you a love song, but that would be weird. And somewhat desparate. And so instead I’ll just say thanks!
I haven’t forgotten about you apple podcasts, iTunes, Spreaker and Spotify. At this point I estimate I have five listeners, one on each channel. Go me! But you four some work to do if you’re going to catch my new friend on podcastAddict though. And yes, I am trying to manipulate the rest of you into listening more.
So podcastAddict, I have three other channels you might be interested in. The Bible Why Guy, The Book Matrix, and The Septuagint Audio Bible. The last one I’ve also just started. I mention this because it is shameless self-promotion, but also because I allowed 10 days to elapse on this channel without a message. And that makes me feel bad. It’s not like me, but that audio Bible channel is sucking up a lot of my time, and it is very worth it. It’s leading to revelations that will soon adorn this channel. I’ll give you some examples.
You may or may not know that the Septuagint was a version of the Bible commissioned in order to add it to the illustrious collection of books in the famous Library at Alexandria. It receives it’s name because 70 Jewish bi-lingual men were hired to write translations of the Old Testament in Greek. And in the Greek the number seventy itself, means Septuagint. So what we have is a copy of the entire Hebrew Bible written in Greek now.
There are all sorts of cool things I can tell you about this book. I would imagine you know that Jesus was born into a nation that predominately spoke Greek thanks to Alexander the Great who conquered the world. And though Rome controlled Jerusalem at the time of Christ, that event was still so recent it didn’t have time impact their language yet. In fact, there were some who still spoke Aramaic because of the captivity in Babylon. The gospel of Mathew was of course written by Matthew and it’s the only book in the New Testament not in Greek; It’s in Aramaic. Meaning that during the time of Christ the men and women of Israel were heavily dependent on the Septuagint. Therefore, it is the version of the Bible that Jesus would have used. And I’ve read articles that say that the Septuagint was quoted by New Testament authors, meaning Jesus and the apostles, well over three hundred times, while the Hebrew version of their Bibles was quoted 90% less, less than forty times.
I became interested in the Septuagint because while reading Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, written in 300 AD, I noticed he kept quoting Old Testament scripture using our Lord’s proper name. I often saw quotes with the name Jesus or Christ and I wondered was his copy of the Old Testament different than mine? Different than ours? And after considerable research I discovered it was. And that raised the questions, why and how? Have our Bibles been tampered with?
And in a sense they have, but in a way that can be justified. This is what they did: The name Jesus in Greek is rendered as Yeshua in Hebrew, but in English we would, butcher that Hebrew word, by saying Joshua. But all three words are the same word. Since the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew someone somewhere sometime agreed the name (possibly the Nicean council — I'll let you know when I find out) they agreed it should be rendered as Joshua to be true to the Hebrew roots. Similarly the Greek word Christ would be rendered as Messiah in Hebrew and, by the way, the noun anointed can refer to either Jesus or Christ because kings were anointed as Jesus and priests were anointed as Christ. Hence the expression Jesus Christ is our king and our priest. And so since the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew, they used the Hebrew names Joshua, Messiah and anointed. And since the New Testament was written in Greek they rendered the names as Jesus and Christ. And even though we can tell people that the names mean the same thing, having read the prophesies with the names Jesus and Christ written plainly in them, really makes the Bible come alive. It's so much more clear! It comes across as absolute and undeniable. As if the blinders have come off my eyes and I can see clearly that the entire Old Testament is about Jesus.
And it also explains why when accusations were hurled at him, who did they trot him out in front of? The church and the government. If you were Herod and you were anointed as Jesus, and if you were Caiaphas and you were anointed as Christ, then encountering a man named Jesus Christ would imply he's gunning for your jobs. But it was even worse than that because both the king and the priest were illigitemate. There was a prophecy that until the coming of the Messiah, there would not fail to be a descendant of David on the throne. Meaning that with Herod, the king who named the high priest, everyone was holding their breath because they knew the arrival of the Messiah was imminent.
Even though Jesus had every right to threaten those two offices, being the rightful owner of the name, he had broken no laws. Therefore, they created trumped up charges in order to save their jobs. Everything I am explaining to you now would have been incredibly obvious to the people of the day. Particularly since their Bibles referred to Jesus by name. Sadly, I misplaced the quotes from Eusebius to Old Testament Scriptures that refer to Christ by name, but I will edit this podcast and transcript when I locate them. I can tell you that in Book 4 Chapter 6, Eusebius refers to the Book of the Bible called Jesus Nun as if we all had that in our Bibles.
Everything I'm explaining reveals the reason why Jesus would have accused the Scribes of being snakes and sons of the devil. Because although the Scriptures were faithfully copied over hundreds of years under the threat of judgement by God, the Scribes knew full well who they were crucifying because as Jesus said, the Scriptures testified of him -- by name. They should have supported Jesus, it was written clearly in the book. But Scripture is obvious: they were very quiet. Remember that the Greek Septuagint was translated between 2 and 300 years before Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us.
Meaning they had no reason to be dishonest in their writings because they were expecting a savior they would like. One that conformed to their hopes and dreams of setting them free from Greece and Rome. They wanted to know who he would be so they would recognize him when he showed up. Those third century writers had no idea their kids would reject and crucify their Lord and call down curses upon themselves and their descendents.
And that he would explain their bondage to their sins was a bigger problem than their bondage to Rome. They were focused on their present condition not on the problem that impacted their eternal destination in heaven or hell. Christ came to solve the bigger problem, first. But some didn't handle that sin message well. And since he threated the jobs of Herod and Caiaphas, who I'm sure you can imagine had many loyal followers, those men turned public opinion against him because he was taking their fans and jeopardizing their power base.
And so reason number one why you should want to read the Septuagint version of the Bible is because it is the version of the Bible that Jesus would have used. However, I've done some new and different things with my audio version. I have incorporated seven techniques that will ensure that when you start the audio, you will be engaged and listening. Not that I need to tell you, but these are the seven things I do to ensure that you remain riveted:
- Background music, you would be surprised how much this helps even if it's not your favorite tune;
- Excitement while I read the word of God as it was meant to be;
- But I disrupt the chapters with a commentary podcast every so often making it an interactive study,
- telling you what mysteries to look for in the next block of Scripture,
- and the solutions I came up with from the last block.
- For example I explain why I'm confident the earth was created in one thousand year days;
- I don't expect you to agree with all my opinions, but I do expect them to get your wheels spinning, even if you've read the Bible many times.
- We can agree to disagree, but hopefully do agree that studing the Bible is important;
- Since the Septuagint itself is different, I compare it to the King James Version throughout because that also reveals mysteries. For example, it's clear in the Septuagint why God rejected Cain's sacrifice.
God refers to his word as food for the spirit. Therefore, everyone should be reading the Bible every day and since the Bible says faith comes from hearing the word of God, my Bible series is designed to make a hard thing, fun.
I have come to discover that my view of coincidences is a useful spiritual mirror. Before I got saved, coincidences were coincidences, they didn't happen very often, and I didn't think much of them. After I got saved coincidences increased. During my backslide I agreed with Solomon who, during his backslide, said everything was meaningless. And after repenting of my backslide and getting serious about the things of God coincidences exploded for me. Convincing me that based on all prior messures, what I was observing was statistically impossible.
If you're here, it is no coincidence, and I hope you can relate to my view. And so this tidbit might grab your attention: everyone knows about the twelve apostles, but Scripture tells us that there was also a group referred to as the seventy. And before anyone met Jesus in person, he sent the seventy ahead of him into the towns to proclaim his coming. And so if you'd like to meet Jesus, consider the possibility that there is a pre-requisite. Before you meet him, the seventy will likely show up, first. And what did you learn about the number seventy at the beginning of this podcast? The Greek word for seventy is Septuagint. But I'm sure that's just a coincidence.
Three hundred years before Jesus Christ came, something possessed Ptolemy to hire, not one, not ten, but seventy bilingual Jews to translate the Bible from Hebrew to Greek from beginning to end, which consisted of every book available today in the Protestent Old Testament. And according to Eusebius, the bishop who lived in 300 AD who is known as the father of church history, according to him though all seventy of those translators were in different rooms doing independent writings. All of those writings in the entire Old Testament, all of them were translated identically word for word from beginning to end. Which is clearly a miracle of supernatural proportions. Yes, you heard that right, not just the Torah, the whole book known to exist at the time. There is no such thing as asking what are the odds of that? Because there are no odds! It simply can't be done — apart from God. Our God, who eats the impossible for dinner and has the mind blowing, for desert.
And so to my five listeners: podcastAddict, Apple podcasts, and Apple iTunes, Spreaker, and Spotify. I welcome you and thank you all for listening to this channel, I will try to keep the podcasts rolling in at a rate of one per week, but if I should happen to slip, check out my other channels because I have a big mouth that runs constantly, so you'll be sure to find more in those other locations. I'm still fairly new at podcasting, so even I find myself listening to my old messages wondering what I was thinking. So please forgive my mistakes, God isn't finished fixing me yet.
As always, thank you for listening!
Y'all come back now! Ya hear?
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