This new book narrates in a fresh and exciting way the story of the Septuagint, the Greek Scriptures of the ancient Jewish Diaspora that became the first the Christian Old Testament. Consisting both of translations of the Hebrew Scriptures and further original Greek compositions produced between the third century BCE and the second CE, the Septuagint is a window into a critical stage of the Bible's history, during its final formation and its developing authoritative status. Throughout this period, the Jewish Scriptures existed in a plurality of forms, still growing and being subjected to conti ... More

This new book narrates in a fresh and exciting way the story of the Septuagint, the Greek Scriptures of the ancient Jewish Diaspora that became the first the Christian Old Testament. Consisting both of translations of the Hebrew Scriptures and further original Greek compositions produced between the third century BCE and the second CE, the Septuagint is a window into a critical stage of the Bible's history, during its final formation and its developing authoritative status. Throughout this period, the Jewish Scriptures existed in a plurality of forms, still growing and being subjected to continual editorial modification, and the Septuagint is often our only surviving witness to this phase of the Bible's history. The Septuagint also became the first Christian Old Testament, being used by the New Testament and early Christian writers. This book illustrates the character of the Greek Septuagint, and the significance of its use by the New Testament writers and early Christian thinkers in the construction of early Christian belief. Providing the Jewish Scriptures which Christians read as preliminary to their story to a Greek-speaking Mediterranean world, the Septuagint helped to transform the early Christian movement from a small, insignificant stream of Judaism, to a tide that would quickly rush over the inhabited world. But what happened to the first Christian Old Testament? Slowly at first but then entirely the Western Church abandoned its first Bible and embraced the Hebrew Bible of the early rabbinic movement. When did the shift to the Hebrew begin, and why?