sentence into a philosophical description of the spiritual nature of angelic heings, and say
fin the Greek), ‘ He maketh his angels into spirits, and his servants into a flame of fire. Again,
-when the Hebrew text, in opposition to the polytheism with which the Jews were surrounded,
says (Text, Deut. vi. 4), ‘ The Lord is our God, the Lord alone [literally, Hear,
0 Israel! IeHOuaH, our God, IeHOuaH (is) one/’] ; the translators turn it to contradict
the Egyptian doctrine of a plurality of persons in the unity, of the Godhead, (153) by
which the priests said that their numerous divinities only made one God; and in the Alexandrian
Greek this text says, ‘ The Lord our God is one Lord.’ ” (154)
Should the reader now turn to the above passages in our “ authorized ”, version, he will
perceive that the forty-seven have rendered into English the exact words of the Greek; and
thus he will behold a little of the damning evidence produceable that thèse worthies could
not construe a simple line of the Hebrew Text; but have palmed off upon us, as genuine
“ inspiration,” language that, being Alexandrian forgeries, cannot be Divine; confessions
of creed that, not being in the original Hebrew, cannot he “ inspired.”
Here, as concerns king James’s translation in its relations to-the Greek versions, we
might bring our inquiries to a close : the seal of condemnation has been so legibly stamped
upon it. But, inasmuch as some data respecting the origin of these-Grecian documents
may be useful to our researches into the Hebrew Text, -it is desirable to reach that epoch
when the Septuagint had not yet been manufactured.
Ascending from St. Jerome in the IYth century to the great Origen in the lid , we find
him complaining of the corruptions manifest in the Greek MSS. of his day — “ But now
there is obviously a great diversity of the copies, which has arisen either from the negligence
of some transcribers, or the boldness of others—or from others still, who- added or
to o k away, as they saw fit, in making their corrections.” (1-55)
“ From the time of the birth of Christ to that of Origen,” continues Eichhôrn, “ the
Text of the Alexandrian version was lamentably disfigured by arbitrary alterations, interpolations,
omissions, and mistakes. Justin Martyr had a very corrupt Text, at least in the
minor Prophets.” (156) He was decapitated in a. d. 164, having been converted about the
year 132 ; thus sealing his convictions with his blood.
The works of Origen’s predecessors in the first century, Flavius Josephus, born A. p. 37, and
of Philo Judeeus, who flourished about a . d . 40, exhibit through their citations, (both being
Hellenized Jews writing in Greek rather for Grecian and Roman readers than for their own
countrymen,) that spme alterations had already been made in the copies of the Septuagint
respectively used by them: at the same time that the writers of the New Testament, by
quoting the Greek version, in lieu of the Hebrew, have invested the former with a traditionary
sanctity, fabulous when claimed for extracts from the Old Testament not cited
directly from the Hebrew Text. (157). Its discussion would lead us astray from the inquiry
as to when and by whom the Original Greek translations were made ; and the fact is noted
merely to establish the existence of the latter, in what state of literal preservation no man
can tell, at the Christian era.
“ All we can determine with certainty is, — that the whole, or the greater part of the
Old Testament was extant in the Greek language m the time of Jesus the son of Siracn.
[Sirach presupposes that ‘ the Law and the Prophets, and the rest of the books, were
already extant in his time; that is, in the 38th year, which-is probably the 38th year of
Evergetes II., about 130 b. c.] ” (158)
This year befor^Christ 130 is recognized, nowadays, by all biblical scholars, to be the
minimum epoch at which Greek versions of certain books of the Old Testament canon were
already in circulation at Alexandria. Tradition, itself, claims no date for the existence of
(153) Compare Bumttr: Expository Lectures; Boston, 1845; p.0; - a n d C ra im ita : Système Thédogigued*
la Trinité; Geneva, 1831; passim.
(15 4 ) Sh a r p e : Hist, o f Egypt ; 1 8 4 6 ; p . 196.
(1 5 5 ) D e W ette : i . p . 1 6 5 .
(1 5 6 ) D e W ette : i. p . 166.,
(157) Str a u s s : TiedeJem; and Hnron: Origin, he.-, enlarge upon these themes.
(1 5 8 ) D e W e t t e : p. 1 1 6 ; — also, S t u a e t ; Cpt. B id . and Defence; p p . 241, 123.
same circumstances earlier, as the maximum, than the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus ; and
about 260 years b . c. suffice for a chronological stand-point that reconciles scientific probabilities.
The medium suits well with the dispersion of some Hebrew exemplars after the
caocage of the temple by Antiochus, b . c . 164; and is parallel with the literary restorations
of the Maccabees.
To read (as we ourselves formerly did with confidence) the works of some leading English
Divines in quest of information about the Septuagint, and the chronology erected upon its
numerations, one would actually suppose, from the positive manner in which statements
are put forward, that they had studied the subject ! Hales, (159) for instance, assures us that
Seventy, or Seventy-two, elders of the Jewish congregation, after the reception by the king
of a copy of Law from Jerusalem written in letters of gold, sat down at Alexandria, and did
the Hebrew into Greek in 72 days, “ d ’una sola tirata ” ; with many episodes equally
romantic. Half a century has elapsed since any Continental critic of biblical literature
who ventured to give further currency to such wretched stories would have been jeered
into silence and overwhelmed with literary obloquy. The reader is referred to De Wette
for facts and authorities, (160) and to Bunsen (161) for endorsement of the following sketch ;
after remarking that wherever the number “ 70,” or its cabalistic equivalent “ 72,” occurs
in Jewish connections, it carries with it more cogent evidences of historical untruth than
even ila* forties, or “ Erbainàt,” so common in Hebraical literature.(162)
The origin of the Greek version, stripped of verbiage and exaggerated traditions, was
the natural consequence of the great influx of Jews — a people ever partial to the fleshpots
of Egypt— into Alexandria, immediately upon the foundation of that city by Alexander
the Great, about b . c. 382. Enjoying privileges under the early Ptolemies, .the number of
Jewish colonists constantly augmented: at the same time that incipient intercourse with
their Greek fellow-citizens superinduced first the disuse and next the oblivion of that Syro-
Chaldee idiom the Israelites had brought back with them,from Babylonish bondage, in lieu
of the Old Hebrew orally forgotten ; and led their Alexandrine descendants to adopt the
Greek tongue, together with much of Grecian usages and Philosophy. They became Heir
lenizing- Jews (163) at Alexandria, without ceasing to be Hebrews in lineage or religion;
just as their present descendants are Germanizing, Italianizing, or Americanizing Israelites,
according to the country of their birthplace or adoption.
The conquests of the Macedonian are to us the most salient causes of the transmutations
that took place throughout the Levant owing to the wide-spread of Grecian influences ; but
Pythagoras, Plato, and Herodotus, are earlier prominent expressions of Greek infiltration into
Babylonia and Egypt during the fifth and sixth centuries b . c., which was far more exten-
(159) Analysis of Chronology.
(160) Op. cit.; i. pp. 136-144.
(161) EgypPs Place in Universal Hist.; 1848; i. pp. 184, 185.
(162) L e p s ic s \~Ghronologie der_ AEgypter; 1849; -i. p. 365. ' We find the subjoined to the purpose among Ci Talmudica!
statements : — In Megilla, ix. a, we read the following account : ‘ Ptolemy the king called seventy-two
old and wise men to Alexandria, and confined each in a separate room, without telling them the reason of their
being called. He afterwards visited each of them, and directed them to write down in Greek the words of
Moses. God inspired them with a sameness of ideas, so that their translations literally agreed.’ In Snphrim,
21> we read another passage: ‘Five sages were called to Alexandria by the king Ptolemy, to translate the law
mto the Greek language ; this day was as oppressive to Israel as the one when the golden calf was made, for
they were unable to do justice to the subject. Then the king assembled seventy-two sages, and set them in
seventy-two cells,’ &c In Taanith occurs the following passage, which also D e R o s s i quotes (Imrai Binali,
i 0: ‘There are certain days on which we fast on account of the law: such a day is the eighth day of Thebeth,
because on that day the law was translated into the Greek under the second Ptolemy, king of Egypt, and darkness
covered the earth for three days.’’”—(“ Greek Versions o f the Biple—the passages extracted from Landau’s
onoortzum Aruch”—The Asmonean; New York, 5 Aug. 1853.) Little historical criticism is’ required to perceive
that the writers of these Talmudic legends, several centuries after Josephus, had merely given another
ape to the same baseless tradition of the false Aristeas: and we may class J u s t in M a rtyr’s evidence (Àdmoni-
l0ne Gh'tecos) that “he saw the 72 cells inttfwhich the translators were locked up”; and E p ip h a n iu s ’s (De
inensui is et ponderibus) that these cells were 36, each for two translators ; with St. A u g u st in e ’s, where he
says ‘ Vidimus—we have seen ” men with an eye in the pit of their stomachs-.
(163) According to Philo, the Jews exceeded a million at Alexandria alone (Rapaport’s Ereeh Hilin; quoted
11 Tlle Armonean ; New York, July 20,1853).