Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 32:128 (Oct 1875)
Article: The Endorsement Of The Septuagint
Author: H. M. Dean

BSac 32:128 (Oct 1875) p. 624

The Endorsement Of The Septuagint

Rev. H. M. Dean

Did The Writers Of The New Testament Endorse The Septuagint Version?

This question is often answered, without hesitation, in the affirmative; and the reason commonly given is, that these writers have generally quoted the Septuagint translation, instead of the Hebrew original. There is not, however, perfect agreement among scholars upon this latter point.

One1 affirms that of three hundred and fifty quotations of the Old Testament in the New, there are not more than fifty which differ from the Sept.; while another2 reckons one hundred and thirty-six citations (or rather Old Test, passages cited), and says that of these there are seventy-two in which the New Test, exactly corresponds with the Hebrew, and but seventeen in which the Sept. is followed, though it diverges to some extent from the Hebrew. And yet another3 says that of two hundred and sixty-six citations there are but six passages which differ materially from the Hebrew.

Believing that these diverse statements are not necessarily contradictory, and wishing, for our own satisfaction, to ascertain the truth, and especially to determine the justice of Dr. Hessey’s claim, we have been led to attempt anew a comparison of the Hebrew and Sept., with the citations in the New Testament.

We were forewarned, indeed, by Ayre, in Horne,4 that “the uncertainty attending all such attempts [i.e. to construct tables representing this agreement] is too great to render a

BSac 32:128 (Oct 1875) p. 625

classification of the kind of practical use”; and by Thrupp, in Smith,5 that “It could only result in failure were we to attempt any merely mechanical account of variations from the Old Test, text, which are essentially not mechanical.”

But while we freely admitted that the tables formerly published in Home were far from satisfactory, inasmuch as the work was not very thoroughly done, and the New Test, text used was the Textus Receptus; and while we saw that many facts in the comparison could not be expressed mathematically, we did not see that these considerations should restrain us from reducing to mathematical form those facts which could be thus exhibited. We thought that it would be possible, on the basis of certain specified texts, to determine exactly how many distinct quotations in the New Test, agreed literally with the Sept., and approximately how many of ...