There are those who claim that the Greek Septuagint (LXX)--but which critical (eclectic) edition is supposed to most reliably embody it?--is generally more reliable than the Masoretic Text (MT). They hold that the LXX gradually came into existence beginning first with translation of the Pentateuch, which supposedly is translation from the hands of 70 (or 72) Jews commissioned by the Jewish high priest, and who worked 72 days in translating the Hebrew Pentateuch while together in Alexandria, Egypt in the third century B.C.E. More translational product followed in the second century BCE and beyond. That part of Christendom that is the Eastern Orthodox tradition holds with the Letter of Aristeas that the Septuagint was miraculously translated from Hebrew into Greek by 70 or 72 Jewish scholars (six from each one of the 12 tribes) working separately--each translator-editor alone in his opwn cell--in Alexandria. They hold that where it can be shown that the original Greek translations differed in substance from the Hebrew Vorlagen of their day, then God inspired those translators at work in Alexandria for poduction of the LXX that would show corrections for a reading that was also tantamount to a retroversion in Hebrew, a recovery--a re-creating--of all that part of God's Word as it should have continued to perfectly exist in a Hebrew text up to the day when commenced the formation of the LXX.
Actually, however, the LXX, compiled in the pre-Christian era from Greek translations of Hebrew texts, was not an inspired translation of Hebrew texts. No part of the LXX--not even that part of the Tanakh admitted by all to be the first part of it translated, namely the Pentateuch, which of course is accepted by the Eastern Orthodox Church along with all the rest of the LXX--is translation from a single, fixed, priest-approved corpus of Hebrew sacred texts (the Tanakh) archived in antiquity in some synagogue and/or in the Temple. The LXX was translation of a pluriform body of pre-Masoretic Hebrew texts (Vorlagen), reflecting textual diversity in late Second Temple Judaism, with different books often translated separately, leading to textual variations later seen in the Great Isaiah Scroll and proto-Masoretic texts. The LXX shows no internal evidence that it is a Greek translational corpus (Torah, Prophets, and the Writings) all of it produced within a certain (relatively short) time frame under the auspices of an editor/editorial committee charged with keeping all the translators working in harmony with the same appreciation for the tenets of a Judaism free of sectarian influences, and who then and there gave the “miraculously perfect” product of that translation enterprise its name, “Septuagint." And yet there soon enough became identifiable a translational corpus of the Tanakh accessible to Jews and proselytes in Judea, Egypt, and in all the diaspora, all of them able or potentially able, of course, for communication with each other via the lingua franca Koine Greek. But no part of the enterprise of translating the Tanakh was either perfect or even known to have been overseen by religious authority in accordance with a nonsectarian body of editor-translators working in close proximity. But there are other facts that contravene the tale that the LXX is inspired by God. For a fact the LXX embraced scientific, historical, and spiritual error, as may be seen in its adoption from pagan Greek writers of, among other things, the concept that re’em was a singly-horned creature, and thus translatable as monokeros (Greek), or unicornis (Latin). More of the LXX's translational failed efforts will follow so that this post will accordingly expand its content in days ahead.
There is no empirical evidence which might dispose us to believe that there was in existence a perfect copying of the Scriptures. Indeed, all the Scriptural texts extant in manuscripts known to us are none of them an autograph, an original and perfect text from the hand of a God-inspired writer. Therefore, neither (a) the originally penned Greek-translations of the Hebrew Scriptures based on any Hebrew texts that had come into the hands of the translators--even if any or all of those Hebrew or Aramaic texts were, in the most unlikely of events, themselves the very autographs written by God-inspired Jews--, nor (b) any of those original translations into Greek (which may well have been for a period of time a collection of scrolls placed together in some Alexandrian library and/or in the Temple in Jerusalem, and serving as templates for subsequent copies of those Greek translations, and which Augustine of Hippo called “libris septuaginta” = “the books of the seventy”) gives us any reasonable basis for holding that those translational texts maintained the perfection of the autographs, likely a perfection lost centuries before the commencement of the LXX's production. So, we may hold that Josephus, Philo, Justin Martyr, and Augustine were unreasonably optimistic and certainly in error when asserting that the original Greek translational works of the Tanakh were divinely inspired. Neither as respects the original Jew-copied productions of the “Septuagint” (so made from the third-century BCE onward into the second century CE), the Latin Vulgate, nor the KJV English translation can any of them reasonably be viewed as embodiments of a perfect translational reflection of any of the Hebrew texts that had come into existence as copies of works that were originally penned at the hands of God-inspired writers, whether those writers be (a) the more than 39 writers of the perfect Hebrew autographs of the Tanakh or (b) the 8 writers of the 27 perfect autographs that closed out the Biblical canon in the first century as typically confessed—atypical confessions exist, too—by all traditions that lay claim to being true Christianity.
Scholars tell us that there were revisions of the “LXX” that contained extra-canonical but nonetheless highly esteemed Jewish writings. An example of such a revision is kaige-Theodotion (a revision style for improving the received Greek translation texts of the Hebrew Vorlagen) that, if not begun by Theodotion, was continued or standardized by Theodotion and included at least Baruch and the expanded version of Daniel, while Origen’s and Lucian’s revisions included most of the Apocrypha. For most LXX revisions, however, we do not know vis-à-vis manuscript evidence how many of even the biblical (canonical) books were included in those revisions for the earliest copies of the LXX. Some of the revisions, such as the kaige-Theodotion and Aquila’s, were widely circulated among Jews, but even so, the pre-70 C.E. Pharisees held to a canon of the Scriptures that did not admit acceptance of the deuterocanonical books. Such books were accepted by Hellenistic Jews for a broader collection of manuscripts comprising some versions of the LXX.
We have extant first-century fragments of deuterocanonical books, yes, but not a first-century canonical collection that proves that the deuterocanonical books were ever universally recognized as part of a fixed Greek Bible whether before, in, or after the first century. No, we have no basis for conclusion that apostolic-era Christians used a version of the LXX that had deuterocanonical scrolls mixed in among the canonical scrolls. The 22-book count, as given by Josephus, was an early Jewish marker for the authoritative canon, corresponding to the number of Hebrew letters, and was influential in early Christian discussions about the Old Testament, even as variations in counting (like the 24-book count) also existed. Josephus's testimony is a significant piece of evidence that many, perhaps most, first-century Jews excluded the Apocrypha from their strictest, most sacred category of Scripture, supporting the premise that the Hebrew canon was largely established by that time.
2 Maccabees with its account of some Jew(s)’ ‘prayer for the dead,’ probably found acceptance among Hellenized Jews, but the prayer apparently needed some apologetic expressed for it in 2 Maccabees for making the idea for such prayers as widely palatable as possible, metaphorically speaking, because even among the Pharisees (who accepted the pagan, unscriptural doctrine of a person's continuous existence beyond biological death), the deuterocanonical collection of books was not a thing agreed upon by Pharisees as comprising a corpus of inspired Scriptures, with possible exception to Sirach. However, beyond that single, high-profile scroll’s having been found at Masada and quotation of it (Sirach) being cited sometimes in the Talmud, we do well to remind ourselves that certain other sites (namely, Qumran, Masada, Nahal Hever caves, Nahal Darga/aka Wadi Murabba’at, Wadi Daliyeh, Ketef Jericho) were not repositories for biblical writings only. That is to say, one did not find in those places only the writings such as one might have expected to find in sites should they have been administered by those like the Pharisees, for their repositories would have contained only canonical books that you would expect to find in a synagogue's library in first-century Galilee or Judea. The Pharisees generally held to a narrower canon, while other groups, including Hellenistic Jews, used a broader collection. It is a matter of debate as to how much of the Tanakh was accepted by the Sadducees as canonical, inspired Scripture; good argument can be made that they accepted more than the Torah as divinely inspired Scripture, but elevated only the written Law of Moses and not the alleged existence of an oral Law supposedly in existence ever since Sinai as respects what can authoritatively ground legal interpretation, ancient Israel's "constitution." And the Sadducees rejected resurrection doctrine found in Daniel and in other canonical books of the Tanakh, and found also in later "intertestamental" books of the Maccabees, inter alia. That does not mean that apostolic Christians did not find historical worth in 1 Maccabees, nor did they condemn Hanukkah, which is a feast detailed in 1 and 2 Maccabees.
I will begin with the next sentence an excursus that will continue through three paragraphs, this one and the two following it. True, we have no Scriptural account showing us that God commanded Hanukkah celebrations; however, inasmuch as it was some centuries after the first century that it came to have paganish trappings that emulated Saturnalia’s displays of lights and gift-giving, then we accordingly have no misgiving about Jesus’ presence in Jerusalem during a Hanukkah celebration, which was long before paganish elements were allowed in.
Hanukkah begins on Khislev 25, and for the year that John 10:22 references, it was on Tuesday, December 15, 32 C.E. Gregorian calendar. (It was four months prior to Jesus' death in Jerusalem during the daylight hours of Nisan 14, 33 C.E.) It was an 8-day wintertime festival but absent, as we have said above, those pagan customs that were later adopted, particular reference being made here to those customs typical of the pagan Romans’ celebration of Saturnalia. (As to why John mentions that the altercation recorded in John 10 was in winter when it was known among Jews, of course, that Hanukkah was a wintertime festival, John may have found it advisable to include specific mention of the winter season. This would serve as an explanation for why Jesus was walking in a sheltered place, the Colonnade of Solomon, because there is where he would have found some protection against the strong East winds of winter. Incidentally, that detail rules against any likelihood that shepherds were in open fields keeping watch over their flocks during wintertime.)
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