Jeff LeJeune opened the door to this subject with his thoughtful essay on St Jerome, so we thought we’d step on through it and expand a bit on the theme of the history of the Bible.
As Jeff said, a correct translation of the Holy Scriptures isn’t an optional extra for Christians. Heretics have often twisted the meaning of Biblical passages to support their false teachings. They are still doing this today as it regards things like LGBT identity.
This really does have existential implications for man and his salvation. It is imperative to have a right translation of the Scriptures.
Jeff presents St Jerome’s Latin Vulgate translation (4th century A.D.) as the key moment in the history of Biblical translations, but it actually occurs much earlier and is more miraculous.
That moment takes us back to the 3rd century before Christ, to Alexandria in Egypt and the writing of the Septuagint:
‘The Septuagint derives its name from a document called the Letter of Aristeas that purports to relate how the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek. According to Aristeas, King Ptolemy II of Egypt wished to enlarge the famous library of Alexandria with a copy of the Hebrew Scripture, but translated into Greek so that it could be understood. Accordingly, seventy (or in some accounts seventy-two) learned translators were dispatched from Jerusalem to Alexandria circa 280 B.C. Working separately on the island of Pharos, the seventy were later astounded to find that their translations agreed word for word and believed that the Holy Spirit must have inspired them.
‘From then on the translation was known as the Septuagint from the Greek word for the "seventy" (i.e. the seventy-two translators). Hence, the Roman numeral LXX for seventy is often used as a modern shorthand way of referring to the Septuagint.’
The Holy Elder Simeon who held the Infant Christ in his arms was one of the 72 translators of the Septuagint, miraculously kept alive by the Lord, which would have made him over 200 years old (at the least) at that moment. This gives extra poignancy to the prayer he offered during that encounter, ‘Now, O Master, let your servant depart in peace’:
‘An interesting tradition exists in the Church that St. Simeon, who embraced the forty-day old Christ Child in the Temple (see Luke 2:25-35), was one of the original translators of the Septuagint. Accordingly, he wished to translate the Isaiah 7:14 passage as "young woman" rather than "virgin," disagreeing with all the other translators on the grounds that it was illogical for a virgin to be with child. As a result, the Lord told him that he would live to see the event come about, which inspires his famous prayer, "Now, O Master, let your servant depart in peace..." when he holds the infant Messiah. Seeing the prophecy of Isaiah fulfilled, he "departs in peace" at the age of 276.’
The Church Fathers hold that the Septuagint is divinely inspired:
‘The Church extremely reveres the translation of the 70 — the Septuagint. St. Irineus thinks that the holy interpreters were as much inspired by the Holy Spirit, as the prophets and apostles (Irineus 3, chap.11, 4). St. Justin the Philosopher in his "Addressing to the Greeks," Tertullian, St. Cyprian, blissful Augustine, Clement of Alexandria call the translation of the 70 as God-inspired. St. Basil the Great calls it the most famous in the Church.’
. . .
The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2025/10/garlington-the-history-of-the-bible/.
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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
