Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Brian Roberts <formoria AT carolina.rr.com>]

On Sunday, June 6, 2004, at 09:52  PM, Schmuel wrote:

(snip)

> One vital point is that what is called the LXX is often diffuse and 
> diverse and rather
> dubious manuscripts from 350 AD and later.  A text that could have been 
> subject to
> lots of corrupt alexandrian "Christian" scribe "smoothing" to match the 
> NT, among other
> problems.  And yet these texts are discussed as if it they were used, 
> even in Israel,
> 300 years earlier !   This I believe is a primary presumption blunder 
> of much Scriptural
> scholarship.  Floyd Nolan Jones discusses it some in a book on the web.

I would remind you that the LXX is at least attested by Josephus in the 
1st century CE. This literary reference should not be underestimated 
(whether or not one sees fraud or deception in the account of Aristeas) 
because it demonstrates the existence of the tradition of LXX creation 
in the Ptolemaic period. So, even though we do not have an extant ms or 
fragment thereof from the 1st century CE, the onus is upon those who 
claim that the LXX must be a later development created to conflate the 
account of Aristeas and the Christian theology of the 4th century CE.


Best Salaams,

Brian Roberts