Two thousand, three hundred years after its appearance, the Septuagint is still the most unbiased record of God’s revelation to His people. And that is why we, the new Israel, the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostle Church, still cherish it.
10 – The Books Of The Old Testament
The text that follows has been prepared by Father Arsenius, monk, of Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Brookline, MA.
If you are Orthodox you need more than a mere list of books. The translation of the books in question must be made from the authentic text of those books. The translations “made from the original Hebrew” which Protestant preachers are always waving about in the air and thumping, are, alas! not what they claim to be. When the last Jewish editors of the present Hebrew text finished revising it, (which was over 1000 years after Christ) they demanded that all copies of Hebrew scripture which varied from their own be completely destroyed on pain of death if the owner of any such copies failed to comply. This demand was carried out so faithfully from Toledo in Spain to Babylon in Mesopotamia (an enormous area, if you look at your map) that until the finding of the so-called “Dead Sea Scrolls” only one earlier copy of the older Hebrew text had ever been recovered (the celebrated “Cairo Genizeh” copy.)
To put it simply: The original Hebrew of the sacred text no longer exists as a whole in any available form. Perhaps it is buried, one way or another, part here, part there, among the mass of fragmentary materials we call the Dead Sea Scrolls, or in other archaeological finds still to be made, but capable editors have not yet sorted out all this material. And capable editors are hard to find.
But all is not lost. God never leaves His people unprovided for. In the famous Greek translation made for the great Library of Alexandria by command of the king of Egypt about 290 B.C. (we call this translation the Septuagint for “the Seventy” –actually, 72– learned Jewish scholars who did the work, they being specially chosen for their spiritual wisdom and for their linguistic skills by the High Priest at Jerusalem) we find the original text fully preserved and faithfully rendered into a language at once more exact and intelligible, as the ancient Jews themselves were delighted to recognize, than is the Ancient Hebrew. Indeed, God Himself prophesies, and therefore has Himself overseen the making of, the Septuagint translation. In the Book of the Prophet Sophonias (3.9; Zephaniah 3:9), He explicitly says, “For then will I change for the peoples my language for their generations, that they may all call upon the Name of the Lord, to serve him under one yoke.” The one yoke, of course, is Christ’s (see Matt. 11.29.)
Look this up in your trusty King James or Revised Standard (or whatever) version (Zephaniah 3.9). There, you will find something quite different. But then, ALL modern English versions have been made on the basis of the latest Masoretic revision of the Hebrew, a text which dates, as we have said, over 1000 years AFTER the Crucifixion of Our Divine Saviour.
But here is the list:
The Pentateuch or Five Books of Moses:
Genesis: the Birth of the World
Exodus: the Way out of Egypt
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy: a Recapitulation of the Law
Jesus the son of Navê
Judges
Ruth
Of the Kingdoms, four books
Paralipómena, two books
The Twelve Prophets
Osêe
Amos
Michæas
Joel
Abdias
Jonas
Nahum
Abbacum
Sophonias
Aggæas
Zacharias
Malachias
The Four Prophets
Esaïas
Jeremias
Baruch
Lamentations
The Epistle of Jeremy
Ezechiel
Daniel
Esther
Tobit
Judith
Of Esdras the Priest, two books
Of the Maccabees, four books
The Psalter (plus the additional early psalm of David, not numbered with the 150)
Job
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
The Song of Songs
The Wisdom of Solomon
The Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach
The Psalms of Solomon
11 – God’s Language
