First, they were commissioned to translate the Scriptures into Greek by one of the Ptolemaic Pharoahs.
Second, Hebrew was, for most Jews in the centuries just before and after Christ's Incarnation at most a liturgical language only, like Latin for the Latin church, pre-Vatican II, or Church Slavonic for the Russian Church. It was not the native tongue: Jews either spoke Greek or Aramaic.
The word 'synagogue' for instance is Greek, while the noted Jewish historian and philosopher Philo of Alexandria wrote exclusively in Greek, and seems to have read the Scriptures in Greek translation.
It is not entirely clear from this that the Jewish custom of praying in Hebrew only is not itself an anti-Christian innovation.
I have always been under the impression that the original writer of the Torah and writers of the Tanakh wrote in Hebrew. Your saying from the beginning these writings were in Greek, or at a later time copies of the originals were made in Greek?
The Letter of Aristeas was a fraud. So the entire story of the 72 is probably fraudulent as well. Any translation of the OT that takes only 72 days would have been so hastily done that it would be riddled with errors. So just how good could it really have been, if at all???
Also for such a translation to take place, the translators would need to know both Hebrew and Greek but the Greek language was not well known within the Jewish scribal community at that time. So they could send all the Hebrew scribes in Jerusalem down to Alexandria they want, but if they didn't have a command of the Greek language, their translation would have been fatally flawed.
And finally, only the scribes of the Levitical priesthood were permitted to handle the Torah. So who in their right mind would request or send 6 elders from each of the twelve tribes down to Alexandria to translate their sacred writings that they were neither permitted nor qualified to do by virtue of the very Torah that they were going to translate??? Why would God bless a translation that was made in violation of his Law???
Nothing in that myth of the Septuagintal 72 elders in 72 days on survivor island in Alexandria makes much sense.
Second, Hebrew was, for most Jews in the centuries just before and after Christ's Incarnation at most a liturgical language only, like Latin for the Latin church, pre-Vatican II, or Church Slavonic for the Russian Church. It was not the native tongue: Jews either spoke Greek or Aramaic.
That is pure nonsense. The Jews of Judea, Galilee, and the cities of Israel all spoke Hebrew, as did Jesus. That's why the inscription on the cross was in Latin [for the Romans], HEBREW [for the Jews], and Greek [for everyone else].
The word 'synagogue' for instance is Greek, while the noted Jewish historian and philosopher Philo of Alexandria wrote exclusively in Greek, and seems to have read the Scriptures in Greek translation.
Philo was a fully Hellenized Jew living in Greek Alexandria and he was writing for a Greek audience. What would expect him to write in??? Swahili???
It is not entirely clear from this that the Jewish custom of praying in Hebrew only is not itself an anti-Christian innovation.
Jesus prayed and taught and read and wrote in Hebrew. So was He being anti-Christian then??? And when he spoke to Paul from heaven, it was in Hebrew. So I guess if you don't like the language, then you probably won't like heaven.