Septuagint: History

In the mid 3ʳᵈ century BC, King Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Egypt ordered a translation of the ancient Israelite scriptures for the Library of Alexandria. This translation later became known as the Septuagint, based on the description of the translation by seventy translators in the Letter of Aristeas. By 132 BC, the Septuagint included all the books later adopted by the Byzantine Orthodox church as the Old Testament section of the Christian Bible. Some of these books were rejected by the Hebrew translators during the Hasmonean Dynasty of Judea, and never formed part of the Masoretic text. The Septuagint of 132 BC, included four sections: the Torah, History, Wisdom, and Prophets sections. The History section includes the books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Kingdoms, Paralipomena, Ezra, Tobit, Judith, Esther, and Maccabees.

One of the problems with academic translations of the Septuagint, is the use of unfamiliar names or terms, as the Septuagint was written in Greek, and therefore many names are unrecognizable to modern readers who are used to Hebrew-derived names. This project uses the more commonly understood Hebrew-derived names instead of their Greek translations, such as Canaan instead of Chanaan, and Melchizedek instead of Melchisedec. Common modern names are also used instead of either Greek or Hebrew terms when geographical locations are known, such as the archaeological name Uruk instead of the Greek Orech, or the Hebrew Erech, and the archaeological term Sumer instead of Shinar or Senar. While this could be argued as not being a correct academic procedure, it does fulfill the goal of making the translation easy to read and understand.