Septuagint (LXX): the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures

Origin and translation process

Work on the Septuagint began in the city of Alexandria, where a large Jewish community used Greek as its everyday language. The first and best-known stage was the rendering of the Torah — the five books of Moses — from Hebrew into the Greek language. Over the following centuries other books of the Hebrew canon were translated or adapted into Greek. The process was not uniform: different books show different translation techniques, ranging from literal to freer, paraphrastic approaches, reflecting varying purposes and local textual traditions.

Contents and textual characteristics

Originally focused on the Torah, the Septuagint tradition eventually encompassed most books associated with the Old Testament and also preserved a set of additional works. Many of these additional writings are identified as the Deuterocanon in Catholic and Orthodox canons or as the Apocrypha in Protestant usage. The Greek corpus sometimes reflects Hebrew source texts that differ from the later standard Hebrew (the Masoretic Text), so the Septuagint is an important witness to variant ancient readings.

Reception and religious use

In antiquity the Septuagint was the Bible of Greek-speaking Jews and subsequently of the earliest Christians; many quotations in the New Testament follow Septuagint wording. Over time different religious traditions treated the Greek books differently: Catholics and Orthodox Christians generally include the Deuterocanonical books as part of their Old Testament, while many Protestants traditionally label these works as Apocrypha and exclude them from the Protestant canon. The Septuagint also informed liturgy, theology, and biblical interpretation in Eastern Christianity.

Influence on translation and scholarship

The Septuagint has long served as the basis for later translations and as a primary source for historical and textual study. Because it is an early witness to the biblical text in a major world language, modern scholars compare it with Hebrew and other ancient versions to reconstruct earlier readings and to understand how texts were transmitted. Critical editions of the Greek text and comparative studies remain central to Old Testament scholarship and to the history of the Bible in translation.

Notable facts and distinctions

• Name and abbreviation: The Latin word for seventy, septuaginta, gave the Greek translation its familiar name and the numeric abbreviation LXX.
• Scope: What is called the Septuagint is not a single uniform edition but a family of Greek texts produced and used in different communities.
• Canonical differences: Some books and additions found in the Septuagint are absent from the Hebrew Bible tradition; their canonical status varies by religious tradition.
• Legacy: The Septuagint remains a key resource for understanding ancient Jewish scripture, the background of early Christianity, and the history of biblical interpretation.

For further introductory resources see translations and background material linked here: Torah translations, Hebrew Bible overview, Greek language context, Alexandria, Old Testament traditions, Catholic and Orthodox perspectives, Deuterocanonical books, Apocrypha, Protestant viewpoints, Jewish history, Hebrew originals, translation traditions.