Victor R. Claveau, MJ
Sometime between BC 250-200 devout Jews in Egypt began the translation of the Torah into Greek. This translation was called the Septuagint. The name Septuagint is Latin for “seventy,” from the tradition there were 72 scholars who did the translating work. A second possible explanation for the title is the 70 elders in Jerusalem supposedly approved the translation.
This translation was for Jews — as well as Christians — one of the most significant events in history. What had been previously known only in the sanctuary, only in Hebrew and only to the nation of Israel, was now made available and understandable for people of other languages and races. The carefully guarded door was thrown open as the Septuagint unlocked the treasures of the Hebrew religion to the entire Gentile world.
By 100 BC, a translation of all the Hebrew books had been completed. The entire collection of Scripture — those books originally written in Hebrew and those written in Greek — came to be known as the Septuagint.
The Septuagint is the most ancient translation of the Old Testament. Jews made use of it long before the Christian era. Because the language of the early Christian community was Greek, the Septuagint became its Bible. At the time of Christ, it was recognized as a legitimate text and was employed in Palestine even by the rabbis.
It is certain neither Christ nor the apostles ever challenged the value of the Septuagint. That the Apostles and evangelists used the Septuagint is not in question. Of approximately three hundred fifty quotations from the Old Testament in the New Testament, about three hundred are direct quotations from the Septuagint, and the remaining are paraphrases, especially in regard to the prophecies. Matthew, in his gospel, quoted the Septuagint 130 times.
As mentioned, the Septuagint canon had been assembled, in the form that we how have it, 100 years before Christ. Scholar, after scholar, whether Catholic, Protestant, or Jew, recognizes that the Septuagint was the Bible of the early Christian Church, just as it is the Old Testament of the Catholic Church today.
I would like to present a few quotes to substantiate that: The first comes from the Encyclopedia Judaica, published in Israel:
“Together with the New Testament, the Septuagint constituted the Bible of the Christian Church. And it is still the Bible of the Greek Orthodox Church. The Old Testament contains a translation of all of the Books of the Hebrew canon. It also embodies the deuterocanonical Books of the Catholic Church.”
When we speak about the deuterocanonical Books versus protocanonical, “protocanonical” means first canon and “deuterocanonical” means second canon. It does not mean that the deuterocanonical books have lesser stature within the canon of Scripture, only that these books were established as canonical at a later date.
Many people do not realize that there are both protocanonical and Deuterocanonical books in the New Testament. For example, the letter of Saint Paul to the Hebrews wasn’t actually established as Scripture until about 380 AD, so that’s an example of deuterocanonical book.
Another quote is from the Tanakh, the Jewish Bible published today:
“With the growth of Christianity in the first century, the Church adopted the Septuagint as its Bible and the Septuagint was translated into the language of various Christian communities.”
Further, from a Protestant perspective, F. F. Bruce, a leading Protestant scholar:
“There are two main reasons why the Jews lost interest in the Septuagint. One was that from the first century AD onwards, the Christians adopted it as their version of the Old Testament and used it freely in the propagation in defense of the Christian faith.”
And again, one more from the Nelson’s Bible dictionary, which is another non-Catholic source:
“When Christianity penetrated the world of the Greek speaking Jews and then of the Gentiles, the Septuagint was the Bible used for preaching the Gospel. Most of the Old Testament quotations used in the New Testament are taken from the Greek Bible. In fact, the Christians adopted the Septuagint so wholeheartedly, that the Jewish people lost interest in it. They produced other Greek versions that do not lend themselves so easily to Christian interpretation. The Septuagint thus became the authorized version of the early Gentile Churches. To this day it is the official version of the OT used in the Greek Orthodox Church. After the Books of the NT were written and accepted by the early Church they were added to the Old Testament Septuagint to form the complete Greek version of the Bible.”
So here we have Protestant, Catholic and Jewish sources all readily admitting that the Bible of the early Christian Church was the Septuagint. Why is that important? Because the Septuagint contained 46 Books. If you do some study in Apologetics or Bible history, you’ll see the Septuagint described as 42 Books, 24 Books, or 22 books, depending upon the numbering. But what you will find is that regardless of this numbering, the content was the same. Essentially the Old Testament canon of the early Christian Church was identical to the Bible we Catholics have today.
The Septuagint was the foundation for Saint Jerome’s translation of the Old Testament into Latin, and became known as the Alexandrian Canon of Scripture.
The canon of Scripture was assembled during councils held in Northern Africa. The Council at Hippo was convened in 393 AD. At the time, Saint Augustine was the Bishop of Hippo and was very active in this Council. There were also the 4th and 5th Councils of Carthage in 397 and 419 AD respectively. It took 26 years for the leaders of the Catholic Church to establish which books belonged in the NT. At the time, there were actually almost 50 gospels and 22 Books of Acts.
What happened to account for the difference between the Protestant Bible and the Catholic Bible canons of today?
Approximately eleven hundred years passed from the Fifth Council of Carthage to the Protestant Reformation in 1517. During this period, the canon of Scripture remained the same. Every Christians used a Bible whose canon is identical to the one we Catholics use today.