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  • From: Harold Holmyard <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Septuagint vs Hebrew, effect on Christianity
  • Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2006 19:55:30 -0500

K Randolph wrote:

First of all, look at those who wrote the New Testament. Only one
wrote in really educated Greek literary style, namely Luke.

HH: The Book of Hebrews is also in good, literate Greek, as are other books. This claim that the NT is all pedestrian Greek is way overdrawn.

The Gospel
of Matthew that we have is actually a translation of his original into
Greek.

HH: This may or may not be true.


More than once Greek scholars have told me that John is the
most difficult of the authors to read, because his Greek was so bad.

HH: That's not a necessary conclusion.


To a large extent, it is Greek words on a Hebrew / Aramaic grammar,
which makes him the easiest for me to read. Even Paul, even though he
was well educated and was from a Greek city, most of his education was
in Hebrew so his use of Greek was middling at best. So the claim that
the LXX was the basis of their knowledge of Tanakh just does not wash
with this crowd.

HH: The LXX was not necessarily the basis of their knowledge of the Tanakh, but they used the LXX when they wrote the NT.

Moreover, discoveries among the DSS show that many places where the
LXX and NT agree are based on Hebrew texts that were extant during NT
times, that sometimes are not reflected in MT. Secondly I have heard
the claim that some verses of LXX were "corrected" to be more like
their citations in NT from other people besides Steven Avery.


The bottom line is that it is very doubtful that the LXX had any
meaningful effect on the development of the New Testament.

HH: The bottom line is that the LXX was quite significant in the composition of the NT.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard




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