“So, put one and two together, you’ve managed to toss the entire LXX in the rubbish bin. Never mind that the absolute oldest biblical manuscripts that we do possess are those of the LXX.”
Your position is that the LXX proves that the Jews considered the apocrypha canon, despite its mistranslations of the original Hebrew and the position of Josephus. You claimed that the Jews translated the LXX as an official Greek version of their work. My response is that there is no evidence that there was any official Jewish backing for the entire translation, or that there was even one standard edition, since there were various versions of the same works. The only thing we have is the legend of the 72 translators and the Books of Moses, but not for the rest of it. Not that the LXX doesn’t exist at all, which is your usual silliness.
“We know they were Jews and we know that the book was finished by 150 BC according to the testimony of Jews.”
The LXX isn’t just one book. It’s a Greek version of all the books of the Old Testament, and later, eventually, the apocrypha. They were not translated or written all at one time, or even only once. If you have testimony from Jews that the apocrypha was translated by 72 translators going into separate cells and coming out, through divine inspiration, with the same translation independently, you’re more than welcome to provide it, or even anything that supports your assertion. This will be my third time asking you to provide evidence.
“Ergo as the Septuagint is older we should go with the text of the Septuagint,”
That’s like saying a copy that denies important Messianic prophecies is superior to the Hebrew we have inherited. The Old Testament dates back to ancient antiquity, and just because the remaining text, as found in the Dead Sea Scrolls isn’t in the best of shape, doesn’t mean there was no Hebrew text at all.
“Your position is that the LXX proves that the Jews considered the apocrypha canon”
My position is that the LXX proves that many Jews in the period from 150 BC to 70 AD considered the previous list of OT books to be their canon.
My position is that this list changed after the destruction of the temple, where the Jews rewrote their own books. We can prove this today as we have evidence of what the books read prior to the destruction of the temple, and it confirms what Ireneus wrote many years ago.
This renders future recensions (including the Masoretic text) suspect where it disagrees with the LXX.
“You claim that the Jews translated the LXX as an official Greek version of their work.”
Absolutely they did. The book was in wide use around the time of Christ.
“My response is that there is no evidence that there was any official Jewish backing for the entire translation”
That the book was widely used and the fact that there are 4 separate versions published in Greek to ‘correct it’, is indications that the LXX, at least in Greek was the official version. That they attempted to rewrite it after is further evidence that they did consider the LXX authoritative.
If they didn’t consider the books authoritative then they would not have bothered to revise them. They would simply have said that the Christians were not using the actual ‘Jewish scriptures’. Which was never their argument.
“The only thing we have is the legend of the 72 translators”
Nonsense. We have textual evidence prior to the time of Christ indicating that the LXX existed then. This, not surprisingly is also the oldest textual evidence of the existence of the bible.
But go ahead. Tear it all down.
“The LXX isn’t just one book. It’s a Greek version of all the books of the Old Testament, and later, eventually, the apocrypha.”
And? The versions circulating at the time of Christ make no distinction. They have all the books, and not some of them. We can prove this now.
“This will be my third time asking you to provide evidence.”
Provide evidence in support of your position that the LXX was not complete by 150 BC. You said this was a ‘historical fact’, yet provided no historical testimony from Jews asserting this fact.
I can only conclude that you’re simply making things up.
As for my position - LXX texts were found in Qumrun.
“That’s like saying a copy that denies important Messianic prophecies is superior to the Hebrew we have inherited.”
That’s what the Masoretic text does, btw. That’s what you’re doing.
“The Old Testament dates back to ancient antiquity, and just because the remaining text, as found in the Dead Sea Scrolls isn’t in the best of shape, doesn’t mean there was no Hebrew text at all.”
I’m not saying that. I’m saying that the texts that we do have show that the Greek texts are older than the extant hebrew texts. I’m not even saying that the Hebrew texts are wrong. I’m saying that the hebrew texts we do have are very much newer than even the Latin versions that we possess, and are thus, unreliable, where they differ from the LXX.