[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

Thanks Tim for opening up a fascinating thread. I will only have time for a couple of quick comments at the moment. This first one is probably the most substantive in filling in the scholarship blanks.

Originally Posted by jerry

ALL that existed prior to Christ was the Pentateuch translated into Greek. The first actual account and copies of all the OT in Greek were done by Origen (there were no copies of the OT in Greek found that existed prior to this time)... Alfred Edersheim (a 19th century messianic Jewish scholar) makes mention of this, and quotes or refers to Josephus to back up his statements.

Hi Jerry,

However, I do not see that Edersheim takes that position.

http://www.levendwater.org/books/lif...heim_book1.pdf
Ptolemy III., who reigned from 247 to 221 b.c.29 In his reign, therefore, we must regard the LXX. version as, at least substantially, completed.

If there are some quotes to share from Edersheim that back up the 'no Greek copies' and Origen positions, please share. I have not read his pages very carefully, often I find him dry, but on many topics he has a lot of good stuff, including the Greek OT issues.

However we do have a very strong indication from Josephus, apparently not mentioned by Edersheim and even neglected by more recent writers, that the Hebrew history books were not available in Greek when Josephus wrote Antiquities. From his Preface and Antiquities proper, bold added.

http://www.ccel.org/j/josephus/works/ant-pref.htm
Antiquities of the Jews -- Preface

"Now I have undertaken the present work, as thinking it will appear to all the Greeks worthy of their study; for it will contain all our antiquities, and the constitution of our government, as interpreted out of the Hebrew Scriptures. And indeed I did formerly intend, when I wrote of the war, (Jewish Wars 75AD) to explain who the Jews originally were, - what fortunes they had been subject to, - and by what legislature they had been instructed in piety, and the exercise of other virtues, - what wars also they had made in remote ages, till they were unwillingly engaged in this last with the Romans: but because this work (Antiquities 93 AD) would take up a great compass, I separated it into a set treatise by itself, with a beginning of its own, and its own conclusion; but in process of time, as usually happens to such as undertake great things, I grew weary and went on slowly, it being a large subject, and a difficult thing to translate our history into a foreign, and to us unaccustomed language."

And this section in Antiquities.

http://www.godrules.net/library/flav...viusb10c10.htm
Antiquities of the Jews 10.218

"But let no one blame me for writing down every thing of this nature, as I find it in our ancient books; for as to that matter, I have plainly assured those that think me defective in any such point, or complain of my management, and have told them in the beginning of this history, that I intended to do no more than translate the Hebrew books into the Greek language, and promised them to explain those facts, without adding any thing to them of my own, or taking any thing away from there."

Why this has been missed in most discussions in a puzzle. Josephus writes plainly, and what he writes indicates that he planned to translate the history books of the Tanach (OT) to Greek, to make those available, but he decided to write Antiquities instead. This essentially cinches the case that there was not a full Old Testament circulating in Greek even by the end of the first century.

Shalom,
Steven Avery