What is "septuagint"

Septuagint \Sep"tu*a*gint\, n. [From L. septuaginta seventy.] A Greek version of the Old Testament; -- so called because it was believed to be the work of seventy (or rather of seventy-two) translators.

Note: The causes which produced it [the Septuagint], the number and names of the translators, the times at which different portions were translated, are all uncertain. The only point in which all agree is that Alexandria was the birthplace of the version. On one other point there is a near agreement, namely, as to time, that the version was made, or at least commenced, in the time of the early Ptolemies, in the first half of the third century b.c.
--Dr. W. Smith (Bib. Dict.)

Septuagint chronology, the chronology founded upon the dates of the Septuagint, which makes 1500 years more from the creation to Abraham than the Hebrew Bible.

"Greek version of the Old Testament," 1630s, earlier as the word for the translators collectively (1570s), from Late Latin septuaginta (interpretes) "seventy (interpreters)," from Latin septuaginta "seventy," from septem "seven" (see seven) + -ginta "tens, ten times," from PIE *dkm-ta-, from *dekm- "ten" (see ten).\n

\nSo called in reference to the (incorrect) tradition that the translation was done 3c. B.C.E. by 70 or 72 Jewish scholars (in Middle English, the Seuenty turneres) from Palestine and completed in 70 or 72 days. The translation is believed now to have been carried out at different times by an undetermined number of Egyptian Jews. Often denoted by Roman numerals, LXX. Related: Septuagintal.

The Septuagint (from the Latin , "seventy") is a translation of the Hebrew Bible and some related texts into Koine Greek. As the primary Greek translation of the Old Testament, it is also called the Greek Old Testament. This translation is quoted a number of times in the New Testament, particularly in Pauline epistles, and also by the Apostolic Fathers and later Greek Church Fathers.

The title ( Greek: Ἡ μετάφρασις τῶν Ἑβδομήκοντα, lit. "The Translation of the Seventy") and its Roman numeral acronym LXX refer to the legendary seventy Jewish scholars who solely translated the Five Books of Moses into Koine Greek as early as the 3rd century BCE. Separated from the Hebrew canon of the Jewish Bible in Rabbinic Judaism, translations of the Torah into Koine Greek by early Jewish Rabbis have survived as rare fragments only.

The traditional story is that Ptolemy II sponsored the translation of the Torah ( Pentateuch, Five Books of Moses). Subsequently, the Greek translation was in circulation among the Alexandrian Jews who were fluent in Koine Greek but not in Hebrew, the former being the lingua franca of Alexandria, Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean at the time.

The Septuagint should not be confused with the seven or more other Greek versions of the Old Testament, most of which did not survive except as fragments (some parts of these being known from Origen's Hexapla, a comparison of six translations in adjacent columns, now almost wholly lost). Of these, the most important are those by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion.

Septuagint may refer to:

• Septuagint, a translation of the Hebrew Bible and Deuterocanonical books into Koine Greek.
• Septuagint manuscripts, the Library of Alexandria translation of Jewish scriptures into Koine Greek as it exists in various manuscript versions.