[Titanites]

This is an excerpt from a lengthy presentation made at a Dean Burgon Society Meeting in 2005. I posted this as a separate thread because it has appeared on another thread as evidence that the Septuagint is a fraud. The original poster, Uncle Chip, has made the accusation a couple of times on various threads that the Septuagint is a fraud, and I suspect his main evidence is this one article.

I thought it would be fruitful to discuss the accusations made in the article, primarily that:

The other known fact about the misnomer, Septuagint, is that it is a non-entity. The name is adapted from a fraudulent document, Letter of Aristeas. The only extant Letter is an eleventh century document.

Today, the manuscript that is generally called the Septuagint is the Old Testament Greek translation constructed by Origin Adamantius, called Codex B (c.245 A.D.). This is the real recension as opposed to the theoretical recensions of the Received Greek and Hebrew Texts. Codex B is the 5th (fifth) column of Origin’s Hexapla, a six column parallel Bible. Origen labeled the 5th (fifth) column the LXX.

[Titanites]

The Header at the Dean Burgon Society webpage:

The Authorized King James Bible has been, and continues to be, the God honored, most accurate, and best English translation of the inspired, inerrant, infallible, and preserved original language words of God.

[Titanites]

About the author:

Dr. H. D. Williams was born in Ft. Pierce, FL where he was "born again" at the age of 14 at a conservative Baptist church. He was active in his youth group and was licensed to preach the gospel at the age of 16. After graduating from Dan McCarty High School with honors, he attended Stetson University in DeLand, FL, where he was a member of the Ministerial Association, preached in several local Baptist churches, and led several preaching revivals. He met his helpmeet of 43 years at Stetson University where they were married in 1961. After they graduated from Stetson with honors, Dr. Williams attended the University of Miami Medical School where he was inducted into Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honorary in his Junior year. After finishing his medical training, Dr. Williams and his wife, Patricia, settled in New Port Richey, FL, where he practiced as a board certified family practitioner. He and his wife were active in their community. He served on the board of Community Hospital for 20 years as the Vice-Chairman, and he was Chief of Staff for a few years as well as President of his medical society. Mrs Williams’ degree in music education enabled her to serve as chairman of the county’s Arts Council and she was assistant director of a woman’s community chorus. She also served as executive secretary of several medical facilities. Becoming active in their local Baptist church, Dr. Williams served as a teacher of middle aged men and his wife was a teacher of young women. They attended Moody Bible Institute (MBI) evening school for many years and were President and Secretary of the MBI Florida Advisory Board. They have two sons and five grandchildren.

[Titanites]

I’d appreciate you doing your Catholic ping thing. Thanks!

[tacticalogic]

The Ten Commandments are from the hand of God. The rest, divinely inspired or not, is from the hand of man.

[SuzyQue]

So, is Williams' point that Catholics use the Septuagint, the Septuagint is suspect, and therefore, Catholicism is suspect? Is that the crux of his argument?

Fascinating topic. I'm really uninformed here and appreciate any enlightenment you might offer.

[trisham]

Dr. DiVietro says: "Scholars lie. In the case of the Septuagint, the lie is not as overt as usual…

***************

How are Protestants and Catholics to discuss this issue without rancour, when those who consider themselves to be scholars speak with such hostility?

[A.A. Cunningham]

What timing. Just when I need to change the lining on the bottom of the bird cage, this tripe gets posted. Thank you.

[syriacus]

At Regensburg, Pope Benedict spoke a little about the Septuagint

Today we know that the Greek translation of the Old Testament produced at Alexandria-- the Septuagint -- is more than a simple (and in that sense perhaps less than satisfactory) translation of the Hebrew text: it is an independent textual witness and a distinct and important step in the history of revelation, one which brought about this encounter in a way that was decisive for the birth and spread of Christianity. A profound encounter of faith and reason is taking place here, an encounter between genuine enlightenment and religion. From the very heart of Christian faith and, at the same time, the heart of Greek thought now joined to faith, Manuel II was able to say: Not to act "with logos" is contrary to God's nature.

[BelegStrongbow]

"In addition, we must remember Jerome was opposed to the independence of local churches from Rome represented by the Waldensians."

from Wikipedia: The Waldensians or Vaudois are a Protestant Christian denomination believing in poverty and austerity, founded around 1173, promoting true poverty, public preaching and the literal interpretation of the scriptures. Declared heretical, the movement was brutally persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church during the 12th and 13th centuries and nearly totally destroyed, but the Waldensian Church survives to this day.

There appears to be an apocryphal allegation that the Waldensians are simply the medieval version of certain antinomialists dating back to at least apostolic times. That would be tendentious, I think, but to include this comment as if Jerome personally knew Waldensians, well, that's plain wrong.

[syriacus]

A comparison is to imagine a student in 2005 trying to reconstruct a particular history in 1850 in America without the aid of computers, phones, extensive libraries, airplane travel, and other modern conveniences.

Could be done without too much difficulty if large chunks of the story were handed down carefully from generation to generation. What is that term they use on Antiques' Roadshow?

Oh, yes!! Provenance.

[Macoraba]

If the KJV was good enough for the Apostle Paul that should be proof enough! Afterall when Jesus gave the great commission he handed his disciples the KJV to go and preach the word with!

;-)))

[dangus]

>> "After all, if Christ did not care about the specific words of Scripture, why should we?...If Christ used the Septuagint then you can put the Bible in your own words in either a paraphrase or your own translation." <<

The problem with this reasoning is that the Septuagint is 90% closer to the New Testament wordings than any reasonable thranslation of the Hebrew into Greek. It's not the Septuagint that is the messy translation, it's the Masoretic text which is!

[narses]

+

If you want on (or off) this Catholic and Pro-Life ping list, let me know!

[NYer]

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[AlaninSA]

Nothing written by this group of crackpots can be considered accurate.

[aruanan]

They skirt the issue by glancing comments about recensions, but never, ever discuss the possible implications of thousands of texts from many authors and countries in many languages attesting to the preservation of the Received Text.

Received Text. Ha ha ha. Get ready for the "If the KJV was good enough for the Apostle Paul, it's good enough for me" crowd who will splutter about the "authorized version" or the "textus receptus." It doesn't seem to make any difference to these people that the term "textus receptus" or "Received Text" was an advertising blurb for a version of the Greek New Testament that at the time and ever since was known to be defective--late manuscripts, minuscule manuscripts, Latin interpolations, invented words.

Another post back in 2000 claimed this:

USE THE BIBLE GOD USES
King James A.V. 1611

I can't believe that there are people with so little understanding of Biblical literature and language in general that they could say the above and not experience shame. They may as well be Jehovah's Witnesses for what they do to Scripture.

I once had a college president of a very conservative Christian college in Clearwater, Florida, tell me that he had received complaints following my talk at a particular church on a choir tour. I had read the verse (I Corinthians 1:18): "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." He said, "We are not being saved, we have been saved." I told him that the Greek was a present plural passive participle. He couldn't pull that doctrine out of this verse. He said, well, he'd have to check that out. Okay, I said and brought my Greek New Testament back up to the front of the bus and showed him. "Well...." he said. "Still, you should stick to the KJV." I asked him what he had against translations into the modern English. He said, "They don't promote study of The Word."* The same things were being said by the Vulgate is God's Bible crowd who resisted its translation into the vernacular.

I gave up on him. No, it's not that modern English versions don't promote study of The Word. People just don't have to struggle to understand 389 year old English and then believe they've had some big breakthrough on Biblical understanding when they finally realize (under the best of circumstances) or believe they realize what the ancient English is actually saying. Never mind that the state of Greek scholarship then was inferior to what is available today. The same is true for the number and quality of manuscripts available then versus now.

But even in this school (a close friend of Bob Jones University), they were careful to say that the doctrine of plenary inspiration applied only to the original manuscripts and not to copies and certainly not to translations. What people are doing to the Textus Receptus and the KJV is nothing short of bibliolatry.

*And he also didn't like footnotes showing variant readings from different manuscripts or the probable reading depending upon different ideas of how the word was to be translated or that the meaning of a word in Hebrew was unknown and was being supplied by the Septuagint or that the oldest and best manuscripts left out certain portions (such as the end of Mark). To be opposed to such on the basis that such footnotes could "hurt people's faith" is to be intellectually dishonest and to show a very low opinion about the grace of God.

[SuzyQue]

Fascinating discussion. I had no idea what I was stepping into.

My observation: the respondents fall into two categories, those who have long ago decided exactly what they believe and are unwilling or unable to engage in conversation with anyone coming from a different perspective or background. Because this kind of faith is closed, unchangeable and unresponsive to others, it becomes rigid and impermeable, and because it is based on the process rather than goals, it can be a fairly shallow faith, and therefore in order to maintain it, its owner must steadfastly refuse to consider any other point of view.

Those in the second group may be more focused on the eventual outcome. That kind of focus demands a certain openness to additional input along the path to that eventual goal. This is the kind of faith that is continually tested and refined by the world, and is much more difficult to maintain, and requires much more of those on this path.

So you all go ahead and argue about which version of which book should or shouldn't be included in our search for God, and which version of worship is legitimate and which aren't, and based on your judgement, who is "really" God's child and who not.

But - I think there may be much wisdom in these posts and I will continue to read them. I have a lot to learn. May we all find God.

[A. Pole]

Bump for later reading

[A. Pole]

Have a look