I hope Leolaia will weigh in on this subject (not to minimize the value of bluesapphire, my struggle and little sister's posts). Leo? Where are you?
What books were contained in the septuiagant?
by ssn587 21 Replies latest watchtower bible
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bluesapphire
The Catholic Church DID include them in the canon. It was the Protestants who REMOVED THEM hundreds of years later during the Reformation.
Personally, I believe there must have been many many more New Testament writings that were lost. We have some that were found which were not included in the Canon of the RCC. I'm sure others will be found. If you give the Bible any weight then you are de facto giving weight to the authority of the RCC.
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GLTirebiter
The Catholic Church DID include them in the canon.
The RCC Septuagint excludes 3 Macc and 4 Macc; they are in various Orthodox churches' translations.
Or could it just be that these books didn't fit certain peoples doctrinal agendas?
I'm at a loss: how could anybody object to Wisdom and Sirach (Ecclesiaticus)?
GLT
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bluesapphire
I think the bottom line is that there were so many sects in Christianity and the most powerful one won, got rid of anything it didn't like from the other sects and that's what was handed down as the Tradition of the Bible. Down the line it was challenged, a few books were thrown out and now in the US, we have *mostly* what was originally approved. MOSTLY
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Leolaia
I hope Leolaia will weigh in on this subject (not to minimize the value of bluesapphire, my struggle and little sister's posts). Leo? Where are you?
Hi!!!! Sorry been reeeealy busy with work lately (midterms coming up) and haven't had the time to visit the forum.
What books were contained in the septuiagant?
The important question is: Which Septuagint? The original "Septuagint" translated in Alexandria in the third century BC, if we grant historicity to the story in the Letter of Aristeas, was only the Torah. The other books of the LXX came into the corpus at different times. Literary analysis of the Old Greek also shows the independence of the other books from the Pentateuch and the diverse origins of each. For example, the OG Daniel is a composite work, containing an old collection of Daniel stories (ch. 4-6) independent to the Masoretic version of Daniel, which possibly dates to the middle of the third century BC (around the time the Torah was being translated in Alexandria), i.e. older than the MT book of Daniel itself. OG Daniel combines this proto-Daniel core with chapters taken from MT Daniel and other stories from other sources (such as the Prayer of Azariah, the Song of the Three Young Men, Bel and the Dragon, Susanna, etc.). Other books of the OT came to be classed with the LXX over time. This included newer works in the Hagiographa (where Daniel was placed), such as the Apocrypha, but it wasn't fixed until probably the time of Origen.....psalms continued to be added to the LXX Psalter, the Odae is a late compliation (including the Prayer of Manasseh) added to the LXX, and 4 Maccabees came to be included in the LXX although it was written in the first century AD. The book that we commonly call the Septuagint is a Christian book; it also reflects several redactions, usually aimed to harmonize the text with the MT (such as the kaige/Proto-Theodotionic revision, the Lucianic revision, etc.). The OG where it survives is a witness to the LXX of the Second Temple period....the differences between OG Daniel and Theodotionic Daniel (which came to be preferred by the early Church) are vast.
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jwfacts
....the differences between OG Daniel and Theodotionic Daniel (which came to be preferred by the early Church) are vast.
Leo, are there good translations available online to see what these differences are? I am particularly interested in the prophecy of Cyrus and any indication of when this was added to Daniel.
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Leolaia
Pietersma & Wright give both versions....and I think Collins' commentary gives the MT and the OG, and the OG and Theodotion for the additions.
What prophecy of "Cyrus" are you referring to? I think you are referring to Daniel 9, but it probably doesn't have anything to do with Cyrus.
The versions are most different in ch. 4-6. It is quite clear when you compare the two that the OG utilizes independent versions of the same stories....the Greek translator was not translating the Aramaic version represented later by the MT. This is evidence that there was a collection of Daniel stories in Egypt separate to the collection in Judea that later became the book of Daniel (when the Hebrew expansions were added in the second century BC). Similarly, the the OG and Theodotion have independent versions of the Bel and the Dragon story that came to added to the Egyptian collection, and not the Judean one. The Dead Sea Scrolls, on the other hand, contain other Aramaic Daniel stories that didn't make it into either collection.
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Cadellin
YAY!! Leo is back !!!!
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jwfacts
Thanks Leo.
I was actually confusing Daniel with Isaiah. It is Isaiah where the birth of Cyrus is apparently prophesied. It is therefore a bit off topic, but is there any way of accurately dating when Isaiah was completed?
*** it-1 p. 566 Cyrus ***
Although this prophecy had been recorded well over one and a half centuries before Cyrus’ rise to power and though the desolation of Judah evidently took place before Cyrus was even born, still Jehovah declared that Cyrus would act as His “shepherd” on behalf of the Jewish people. (Isa 44:28; compare Ro 4:17.) By virtue of this advance appointment, Cyrus was called Jehovah’s “anointed one” (a form of the Hebrew ma?shi′ach, messiah, and the Greek khri?stos′, christ). (Isa 45:1) God’s ‘calling him by his name’ (Isa 45:4) at that early date does not imply that He gave Cyrus his name at birth, but means that Jehovah foreknew that such a man by that name would arise and that Jehovah’s call to him would be, not anonymous, but direct, specific, by name.
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Leolaia
See my posts in this thread: