When God Spoke Greek

Abstract

"The Septuagint was the OT of the Christian church for centuries because it was the Scripture of Israel in its Greek form that was used extensively by the NT writers and the early Church fathers. From the time of the Reformation, the Hebrew Masoretic Text has eclipsed the place of the Septuagint in Protestant scholarship. This article, originally delivered as a plenary lecture at the IBR meeting in 2004, argues for a place for the Septuagint in evangelical scholarship that moves beyond textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible and the discussion of canon. New Testament exegesis that refers to the Hebrew text where the NT authors were in fact using the Greek OT is methodologically flawed, as is biblical theology that fails to give the Septuagint its historical due as a literary and theological background of the NT. Moreover, much fresh opportunity for scholarship awaits those who study the ancient Greek versions of the OT in their own right"