Open Our Eyes, Lord!

Pre-Christian fragments of the LXX

Last month we announced a two-year safari, reading through the Septuagint version of the Scriptures, from cover to cover!

Our friend David Baer (PhD from Cambridge, specialist in the Septuagint of Isaiah) has decided to join the group. He wanted to say a few words!

Why read the Septuagint? The whole Septuagint??!! Over two years??!! Are you nuts?

It’s not hard to imagine how such a project would be abandoned alongside the highway of our lives, a good idea that could never earn a space for itself among the daily priorities of busy lives.

Nevertheless, I’m in. I’m in because the reading of the Septuagint promises several benefits.

First, the student who has decided to study New Testament Greek has in fact only prepared himself to read a thin slice of the Jewish and Christian literature that comes to us in Greek. Those of us who’ve learned to read the New Testament in Greek have done a very fine thing. But we can’t really claim that we read Greek. Not yet.

Septuagint reading, precisely because it places on the table before us texts that are not as well known to us as the New Testament, is the very best way actually to learn Greek.

In the second place, the Septuagint was the form of the Bible that was best known to the first generations of Christians. Although it’s true that the difference between the Masoretic Hebrew texts and those of the Septuagint are hardly massive, it should not be denied that those differences do exist. Reading the Septuagint puts us in the shoes of the earliest Christians, spiritual family members of ours who knew the Scripture principally in Greek dress.

Third, reading the Septuagint is an open door that welcomes us into first-hand contact with the challenges that keep textual critics busy. This kind of reading confronts us with difficult decisions about the complex relationship that exists between texts that share a common origin but have come to be different from each other through the reverent reading to which both Jews and Christians have subjected them.

Finally, reading the Septuagint is fun! It’s even more so when a cohort of friends—or perhaps readers who will over time become friends—take up together the intellectual challenge of reading ancient texts slowly, for this is the pace at which we will inevitably read.

So let’s read the Septuagint! Let’s bend our shoulders to the plough together with our spiritual ancestors, whose hands and eyes fell upon Greek texts that they fully considered to be the Word of God.

Our Goal: A two-year excursion through the Septuagint, including the Deuterocanonical books, from January 1, 2019 through the close of 2020.

For more information read the DESCRIPTION HERE

To Join, go to Facebook: our page is under the name Septuagint2years or Septuagint in 2019-2020, go to the page and click LIKE in order to join.

“Why read the Septuagint from cover to cover?,” by Gary S. Shogren and David Baer

Our Goal: A two-year excursion through the Septuagint, including the Deuterocanonical books, from January 1, 2019 through the close of 2020. We will offer weekly reading plans that will average about a chapter and a half per day; for example, the week of January 1-6 we will read Genesis 1-12 LXX. The Psalms will be interspersed throughout the year, and we will have regular “Catch-Up” times. While en route, we will also take side excursions: reading Sinaiticus on its website, some Septuagint texts from the DSS, the Hexapla, the Theodotion version of Daniel, and the Fayyum fragments.

Why? Two excellent reasons. The best way to expand one’s knowledge of biblical Greek is to read the Septuagint. And the Septuagint was the Bible of the apostolic church.

Why Now? This group was sparked by the publication in November 2018 of Septuaginta: A Reader’s Edition, by Lanier and Ross. (http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2018/08/new-readers-lxx-on-sale.html)

This edition of Rahlfs-Hanhart footnotes the lexemes which appear 100 times or less, beginning with ἀόρατος in Gen 1:2: the earth was “invisible, without form.” The list price is $109.95, but it is now discounted on Amazon for $87.96. it is highly recommended for participants in this group! (There is no Spanish equivalent edition).

How Much Greek Do I Need in order to Participate? The difficulty level of the LXX is not high, especially for people who have dominated the Greek of the New Testament. Nevertheless, the sheer quantity of text – over 1100 chapters! – means that we will be covering about a chapter and a half per every day. Even for the intermediate or advanced reader, that might require a half-hour daily. This is all to say that, reading the entire LXX and committing this much time for two entire years will be demanding. Let us count the cost!

To Join, go to Facebook: our page is under the name Septuagint2years or Septuagint in 2019-2020, go to the page and click LIKE in order to join.

Reading Plan – the Full Septuagint in 2 Years

“Facebook Reading Club! – the Septuagint over Two Years,” by Gary S. Shogren, Seminario ESEPA, San José, Costa Rica