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Old 01-08-2009, 04:17 AM
Tmonk Tmonk is offline
 
Join Date: Dec 2008
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As far as the LXX goes, one needs to know some history. There is no reason to doubt that the Torah was translated to Greek early, at least 2nd century BC, that being Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. When the rest were translated , its hard to say.

The Jews divided the OT into 3 categories , The Torah (Law), Prophets , Writings. The later two were slowly translated later as each book was needed.

The Old Testament as a whole was not put under one cover until about 90 AD after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem around 70 AD. Why put it together so late? The Jews had Jerusalem as a religious center and was very centered around local temples as well. At this time books were rare because they were somewhat expensive and hard to make, so scrolls were the common media. The Roman invasion caused a need for preservation.

As far as the NT quotes matching, its simple for a few reasons. Both are Hebrew to Greek to English so they should match in how we read it. Besides, any Hebrew translation has a little dynamic equivalence / paraphrase to it because of the nature of the Hebrew language. Its not a perfect word for word, it would make for very bad English grammar if it was. The OT of the Latin Vulgate is slavishly literal which makes it somewhat hard to read.

Our Lord Jesus Christ most likely did not use a Greek OT even when Scripture quotes Him as actually "reading" from Scripture. In Judah or Israel temples only used Hebrew texts, the Greek texts were mainly for Jews living outside of the land of Israel that actually spoke Greek as a primary language.

The Apostles , post Crucifixion, may have used a Greek OT when preaching to the Gentiles as they would NOT have spoken or even read Hebrew or Aramaic.