Let’s look at two examples of how the Septuagint differed from the original Hebrew Scriptures it claims to have been translating, and how one of those peculiar translations ultimately led to new interpretations of Hebrew Scripture that Christians used to make a fascinating new claim about Jesus.
THE “RED” SEA
One well-known questionable translation in the Septuagint that has led to much confusion in the Bible comes from the story of the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt in Exodus 13–15. Although many believe the Hebrews crossed the Red Sea, the large seawater inlet separating Africa from the Arabian Peninsula, the Hebrew name for the body of water that was crossed is yam suf (), or “Sea of Reeds,” as suf in Hebrew means “reed” (cf. Exod. 2:3), not “red.”
So why do most people call it the Red Sea? The problem stems from the Septuagint’s translation of yam suf as erythran thalassan (Gk. ἐρυθρὰν θάλασσαν), or “Red Sea,” in Exodus 13:18 and multiple other locations.20 This translation is not due to ignorance on the translator’s part; when the Septuagint translates the word for actual reeds on the bank of the river in another passage in Exodus (2:3), the Septuagint satisfactorily translates the Hebrew word suf as helos (ἕλος), the Greek word for “marsh” or “backwater,” where one would find reeds. Likewise, when Isaiah asks, “Why are your robes red?” (63:2), using the Hebrew word ’adom () for the color red, the Septuagint employs an appropriate Greek word for the color red (erythros). So the Septuagint translators know that suf means something related to “reeds” and knows the difference between reeds and the color red. So why does the Septuagint constantly refer to the Sea of Reeds as the Red Sea?
The Septuagint translators employ the phrase erythran thalassan, or “Red Sea,” because by the time of the creation of the Septuagint (ca. 250 BCE) the Red Sea was already well known as the body of water separating Egypt from the Sinai Peninsula. For example, in his play The Birds (414 BCE), Greek poet Aristophanes (446– 386 BCE) refers to the name of this body of water as the “Red Sea.”21 Furthermore, the fact that Josephus (37–100 CE) claims in Antiquities (1.1.3 [1:39]) that the Tigris and Euphrates flow into the Erythran thalassan (“Red Sea”) does not necessarily mean that he was mistaken, but may indicate that he understood the entire Arabian Sea, including the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea and its two gulfs (the Gulf of Suez to the west and the Gulf of ‘Aqaba to the east) all to be the Red Sea according to the nomenclature of the time. As early as the fifth century BCE, Herodotus (484–425 BCE) refers to the Persian Gulf as the Erythrēs thalassēs (’Eρυθρης θαλάσση̑ς), or “Red Sea,” twice in his Histories (1.1.1; 1.180.1), indicating that all of the waters south and southeast of western Asia may have been known as the Red Sea.
The Septuagint’s translation of the Bible, therefore, gave us the legendary “crossing of the Red Sea.” But why did the translators of the Septuagint say the Israelites crossed the Red Sea if they knew the Hebrew Bible clearly said Reed Sea? By associating the exodus with the Red Sea as opposed to the Reed Sea, the miracle became a far more impressive feat, as crossing a well-known massive body of water is far more remarkable than crossing a marshy, shallow swamp fed by the waters of the eastern Nile Delta, somewhere between the northern end of the Gulf of Suez and the Mediterranean coast. It is also quite possible that the translators of the Septuagint simply did not know what or where the “Sea of Reeds” was and therefore chose the nearest identifiable body of water, which just so happened to provide the additional benefit of aggrandizing the miracle into what we see in the movies today.
THE VIRGIN BIRTH
Of course, one of the most famous examples of a biblical tradition that may have been created by a (mis)translation in the Septuagint is the story of the virgin birth of Jesus by his mother, Mary.22 Most Christians are familiar with the story of the virgin birth, how Jesus was said in the Gospels of Matthew (1:23) and Luke (1:27, 34) to have been born to Mary, a “virgin” (Gk. παρθένος). But many scholars point out that the entire story of the virgin birth may have been the result of the Septuagint’s mistranslation of a single word in Isaiah 7. Regardless of whether that is true, we can say for certain that the citation of the prophecy of Isaiah 7 in Matthew 1:23 is the result of the Septuagint’s translation of Isaiah 7:14.
Recall that the Gospel of Mark does not mention the birth of Jesus and that the Gospel of John begins not with Jesus’s physical birth, but with a beautiful philosophical introduction stating that Jesus existed as the logos (Gk. λόγος), or “word,” which Greek philosophers like the Stoics traditionally used to describe “divine reason.” Matthew and Luke desired to remedy the problem of Jesus’s absent childhood by including birth narratives that would demonstrate Jesus’s divine origin and support claims that he was the Jewish messiah and the Son of God. (We’ll look at the birth narratives more closely, including their differences, in Chapter 10, where we discuss Bethleḥem and Nazareth.)
Matthew 1:22–23 appeals specifically to a prophecy from Isaiah 7 to portray Jesus as a fulfillment of prophecy. However, because both Matthew and Luke tell stories of the divinely facilitated impregnation of Jesus’s mother, Mary, it is evident that both relied on the Septuagint’s version of Isaiah 7 and not on the original Hebrew version. This is because both authors not only describe Mary as the “young woman” Mary (as in the Hebrew version), but also use a word that specifically describes a woman who has not yet had sex (as in the Greek version) and who therefore must have been miraculously impregnated by God, making the birth of Jesus all the more auspicious. However, the tradition of the virgin birth is the result of not only a questionable translation on the part of the Septuagint, but also the recycling of an expired prophecy that initially involved another king of the Jews: Ḥezekiah.
Context is important. The context of the prophecy in Isaiah 7:14–16 is actually the threats against Jerusalem coming from the north in the late eighth century BCE. King ’Aḥaz, Ḥezekiah’s father, feared Jerusalem would be lost to an alliance between King Peqaḥ of Israel and King Reṣin of Aram-Damascus around 732 BCE (2 Kings 16:5). Although Jerusalem was ultimately spared during the time of Ḥezekiah’s father, Jerusalem again came under threat around 701 BCE during the reign of King Ḥezekiah of Judah, who had rebelled against Assyria. Not liking that Ḥezekiah broke the terms of their deal, the Assyrian king Sennacherib laid siege to Jerusalem (see Chapter 3). When things looked bad, Isaiah was called in to advise.23
This is the original context of the prophecies in Isaiah 7:14–16 and 37:30–32. They deal specifically with threats against Jerusalem in the late eighth century BCE. These prophecies offer reassurance to the residents of Jerusalem that the city would survive, as it would be of little consolation for Isaiah to have prophesied, “I know that we are under threat of annihilation by our enemies and you are scared, but fear not, in 730 years it will all be made better.” Isaiah’s prophecy wasn’t about something that would happen seven centuries later; it was made as reassurance that Israel would survive the immediate threat of destruction.
First, the prophet Isaiah goes to speak to King ’Aḥaz (7:1–6) and delivers the following words (7:14–16) on behalf of God regarding the threat from the alliance between the Northern Kingdom, Israel, and Aram-Damascus:
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman (Heb. , ‘almah) is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel (, ‘Immanu ’El). He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.
This prophecy is explicit, as it provides the unmistakable context and interpretation of the comment about the young woman. In response to the threat from the northern coalition and questions about whether YHWH will deliver the people from annihilation, Isaiah says that a young woman is pregnant with a son who will be named “Immanuel,” or “God is with us,” answering the question about w
hether God would be handing Judah over to Israel and Aram-Damascus or saving it. Isaiah continues by essentially saying, “A young woman is with child now, and by the time he knows good from evil (i.e., reaches adulthood), life will be good for him, and he will be eating curds and honey from our own land.”
Isaiah’s prophecy is a poetic way to communicate to the king that Judah will survive this present threat and that a child born this year will soon enjoy not just the fruits of his homeland, but an agricultural bounty, as honey requires bees, which require established orchards full of flowering plants, and curds require dairy animals, which require pasturelands. Milk and honey are symbols of long-term agricultural prosperity. The prophecy is explicit: Isaiah is claiming that Jerusalem will not be conquered and will be prosperous in about twelve years (the period between birth and adulthood for Jewish males).
And if that is not explicit enough, Isaiah explains his own prophecy in vv. 16–17: “Before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.” The prophecy explicitly mentions the two kings—King Reṣin of Aram-Damascus and Peqaḥ son of Remaliah in Samaria, the capital of the Northern Kingdom (cf. 7:4–9)—who had joined forces to assail Judah. Isaiah’s prophecy was not about some event that would take place seven centuries later; it was about the present threat from Israel and Aram-Damascus—Isaiah says so himself!
Some scholars have even suggested that the child referred to in the prophecy is none other than the messianic king from the line of David who would deliver his people from a later threat—that’s right, Ḥezekiah! This is because Isaiah uses another agricultural metaphor in a prophecy to Ḥezekiah when the Assyrian army besieged Jerusalem around 701 BCE, essentially saying that Judah will eat the produce of its own lands because Assyria will not defeat it (37:30–32). Of course, both predictions came to pass, and Jerusalem was spared from both threats in the late eighth century BCE.
Thus, not only are Isaiah’s prophecies about Jerusalem’s immediate salvation from the immediate threats from foreign kingdoms to the north, but the child, whose name means “God is with us,” appears to be Ḥezekiah, the king of Judah, to whom God listened
when he prayed and delivered Jerusalem from King Sennacherib of Assyria (Isa. 37:21). However, during the first centuries BCE and CE, many Jews were living in a Jerusalem that was occupied by oppressive Greek and later Roman forces. They began to look back to the books of the prophets to see if any word of consolation or deliverance could be found regarding their present situation. They reread some of their prophets’ expired prophecies, that is, prophecies that had predicted an outcome in the past that had already come to pass (like the deliverance of Jerusalem in the late eighth century BCE), and began to reinterpret them as speaking to their time and struggle.
This is precisely what happened to Isaiah’s prophecy in Isaiah 7. Isaiah 7:14–16 began to be read not as something that foretold Jerusalem’s deliverance seven hundred years earlier, but as an ancient prediction that another messianic deliverer of the line of David would come again to deliver the Jews. And because at this time Jews and Christians were reading the Septuagint, a new tradition would be made possible by Isaiah 7:14–16.
Once again, the Hebrew version of Isaiah 7:14 reads: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman (Heb. , ‘almah) is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.” However, in the Septuagint, the Hebrew word ‘almah (), meaning “young woman” or “marriageable girl,” was translated as the Greek word parthenos (παρθένος), which means “young woman” or “maiden,” but also a woman who has not yet had sex, that is, a “virgin.”
The choice of the word parthenos in Isaiah 7:14 was peculiar to say the least. Had the Hebrew word been betulah (), meaning explicitly “virgin,”24 then parthenos would have been the correct and expected translation. However, since the Hebrew word was ‘almah, which is simply one synonym for “young woman of marriageable age,” parthenos is unexpected, especially since the Septuagint translates other instances of the word ‘almah, with a different synonym for “young woman” like neanis (Gk. νεα̑νις) in Exodus 2:8 or neotēti (Gk. νεότητι) in Proverbs 30:19.25
However, since parthenos can mean “virgin,” and is translated as such by the Septuagint in Isaiah 7:14, Matthew interpreted the text in that fashion, understanding and implying a miraculous conception without conventional sex—an interpretation only made possible by the Septuagint’s translation. Thus, the author of Matthew used the verse from the Septuagint’s version of Isaiah 7:14 to describe Mary, whom he believed had miraculously conceived and was giving birth to Immanuel, “God is with us,” or the incarnation of God.
Objections to the virgin birth appear in literature relatively early on in Christian history. In his Dialogue with Trypho, the second-century Christian apologist Justin Martyr records a supposed conversation with a Jew named Trypho, who objects to the Christian story of the virgin birth:
And Trypho answered, “The Scripture has not, ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,’ but, ‘Behold, the young woman shall conceive, and bear a son,’ and so on, as you quoted. But the whole prophecy refers to Hezekiah, and it is proved that it was fulfilled in him, according to the terms of this prophecy. Moreover, in the fables of those who are called Greeks, it is written that Perseus was begotten of Danae, who was a virgin; he who was called among them Zeus having descended on her in the form of a golden shower. And you ought to feel ashamed when you make assertions similar to theirs, and rather [should] say that this Jesus was born man of men. And if you prove from the Scriptures that He is the Christ, and that on account of having led a life conformed to the law, and perfect, He deserved
the honor of being elected to be Christ, [it is well]; but do not venture to tell monstrous phenomena, lest you be convicted of talking foolishly like the Greeks.”26
Despite the fact that Justin rejects Trypho’s skepticism concerning the virgin birth, the fact that Justin’s Dialogue appears in the middle of the second century CE demonstrates that the objection to the Christian reinterpretation of Isaiah’s prophecies, which were used to support the Christian claim of Jesus’s virgin birth, was well known in early Christianity.27
So we see that the translations made by the Septuagint were not always perfect and led to some major changes in the way the Hebrew Scriptures were interpreted. There are literally hundreds of differences between the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Septuagint, including additions, omissions, theological alterations, and poor translations—all of which affected the way the Hellenistic Jews and Christians interpreted the Bible.
But it was not just the canonical Hebrew books that were translated into Greek in Alexandria. The Septuagint also included a number of texts that were ultimately excluded from the canon of the Hebrew Bible. This assortment of books omitted from the canon is collectively called the Apocrypha.
THE APOCRYPHA
The Apocrypha is the common term for the books that are present in the Septuagint, but were left out of the canonical Hebrew Bible for reasons that are debated to this day. These books include Tobit, Judith, the Additions to Esther, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (also called Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, as well as Ecclesiasticus), Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah, the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Jews, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, the Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm 151, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, and 1 Esdras.
Some readers may recognize some of these books, while others may suspect I made a bunch of them up. But rest assured, each of the above books was preserved in the Septuagint. What’s more, many of the books of the Apocrypha echo themes that are consistent with stories that were written later in the Hebrew Bible, like Daniel and Esther. This is significant because it reveals to us some of the specific issues Jews were dealing with in the late Second Temple period, like resistance against foreign occupation and avoiding idolatry. Let’s take a quick survey of the ap
ocryphal books.
TOBIT
Tobit is a lengthy tale of characters similar to those found, for instance, in the biblical book of Esther, the stories of Samson and Deborah in the book of Judges, or the stories of the prophets ’Eliyahu (Elijah) and ’Elisha‘ (Elisha) in the books of Kings. Tobit is a righteous Israelite who became blind and prayed to God for a death that would come soon. He sent his son, Tobias, to complete an errand. Along the way, Tobias runs into Sarah, who was also praying for death out of her grief because she had lost seven different husbands on her seven respective wedding nights; the demon Asmodeus would kill each new husband before the marriage could be consummated.
If this sounds a lot like the plot of Mike Myers’s So I Married an Axe Murderer (one of my all-time favorites!), keep in mind that Tobit 3:8 (and 6:14) is also the likely source for the challenge to Jesus brought by the Sadducees who questioned Jesus’s teaching about the afterlife. Matthew 22:25–2828 reads:
Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died childless, leaving the widow to his brother. The second did the same, so also the third, down to the seventh. Last of all, the woman herself died. In the resurrection, then, whose wife of the seven will she be? For all of them had married her.
This question may not be the absurdly hypothetical impossibility it seems to be at first. The Sadducees may have been appealing to the well-known Jewish story of Sarah in the book of Tobit.
God ultimately had mercy on both Tobit and Sarah, and the story concludes with a happy ending when Tobias and Sarah finally marry. The story of Tobit was popular in the Second Temple period, because it provided hope and joy for Jews suffering under foreign (Seleucid) occupation.
The Cities That Built the Bible Page 15
