Text, Numbering, and the Masoretic Question

The concrete differences between the Septuagint (LXX) and the Masoretic Hebrew Text (MT): the Psalm numbering that runs “one behind” through most of the Psalter, the longer and shorter book-forms, and key readings such as Isaiah 7:14. The file then treats, from both sides and without polemic, the vexed question of textual priority — which text is “more original,” and what that even means.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

Two Standardized Texts, Both Ancient

The Old Testament reaches the modern reader in two great standardized forms. The Masoretic Text (MT) is the Hebrew text fixed and vocalized by the Masoretes, Jewish scholars working principally between the seventh and tenth centuries AD, whose consonantal base is considerably older; it is the Hebrew Bible of Judaism and the source-text of most Protestant Old Testaments. The Septuagint (LXX) is the ancient Greek translation (and, for some books, Greek composition) of the third to first centuries BC, the Old Testament of the Orthodox Church (see The Septuagint as the Church’s Old Testament). The two agree in the vast majority of their substance — they are recognizably the same Scriptures — but they differ in numbering, in the length of certain books, and in a scattering of individual readings. Naming these differences plainly, without alarm, is the honest way to handle them (Pentiuc, The Old Testament in Eastern Orthodox Tradition, Oxford, 2014; Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 3rd ed., Fortress, 2012).

The Psalm Numbering

The most familiar practical difference is the numbering of the Psalms, which matters to every Orthodox Christian because the LXX numbering is the one used in Orthodox worship and the Slavonic and Greek Psalters. The two systems diverge because they divide and join certain psalms differently:

  • The LXX (and Vulgate) combine Hebrew Psalms 9 and 10 into a single Psalm 9, and likewise combine Hebrew Psalms 114 and 115 into Psalm 113.
  • The LXX splits Hebrew Psalm 116 into Psalms 114 and 115, and Hebrew Psalm 147 into Psalms 146 and 147.

The net effect is that through most of the Psalter — from Psalm 10 to Psalm 147 — the LXX number is one lower than the Hebrew number. Thus the “Lord is my shepherd” psalm is Psalm 22 in the LXX/Orthodox reckoning and Psalm 23 in Hebrew/Protestant Bibles; the Miserere is Psalm 50 (LXX) / Psalm 51 (MT). The two systems coincide again for Psalms 1–8 and 148–150, and the LXX contains an additional Psalm 151 at the end, present in the Greek and Slavonic Psalters and marked as “outside the number” (Pentiuc, The Old Testament in Eastern Orthodox Tradition, 2014; the numbering data is standard and is reflected in the LXX/Slavonic Psalter). Orthodox writers customarily give both numbers to avoid confusion — e.g., “Psalm 50 (51).”

Longer, Shorter, and Differently Ordered Books

Beyond the Psalms, several books differ in length or arrangement between the two texts:

  • Jeremiah is about one-eighth shorter in the LXX than in the MT, and the oracles against the nations stand in a different place and order. The Qumran Hebrew manuscripts include a short Hebrew form close to the LXX’s, indicating that the LXX here translates a genuinely older and shorter Hebrew edition, not a Greek abridgement (Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 2012, on Jeremiah as a classic case of two Hebrew editions).
  • Daniel and Esther are longer in the LXX, which includes the additions (the Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Youths, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon; the Greek additions to Esther) received in the Orthodox and Roman canons (see The Wider Old Testament and the Anagignoskomena).
  • Job is significantly shorter in the oldest LXX form; the order and numbering of chapters differs in Exodus (the tabernacle account), Proverbs, and elsewhere.
  • The LXX of Samuel–Kings (the “books of Reigns”) and Chronicles differs from the MT in numerous details, again with Qumran Hebrew support for some LXX readings.

These are not, for the most part, “errors” in either direction; they reflect the fact that the Hebrew Scriptures existed in more than one edition during the Second Temple period, and the LXX and MT often descend from different ancient Hebrew forms.

Key Christological Readings

A small number of individual readings carry outsized theological weight because the New Testament and the Fathers depend on the LXX form. The premier example is Isaiah 7:14: the LXX renders the Hebrew ʿalmāh (a young woman of marriageable age) by the Greek parthenos (virgin), and Matthew cites the verse in the Greek form as fulfilled in the virginal conception of Christ (Matthew 1:23). Protestant and Jewish translations from the Hebrew render “young woman,” and the difference has been a locus of controversy since antiquity — the second-century Jewish translators Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion produced Greek versions using neanis (“young woman”) rather than parthenos, and Justin Martyr already debated the point with Trypho (Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 43, 66–67). Other examples where the LXX supports a reading dear to the Church include Psalm 39:6 LXX (“a body you have prepared for me,” cited at Hebrews 10:5, where the MT reads “ears you have dug for me”) and Amos 9:11–12 LXX (cited at Acts 15:16–17). For Orthodoxy, these are places where the Church’s own Bible carries the reading her faith confesses (Pentiuc, The Old Testament in Eastern Orthodox Tradition, 2014; Jobes and Silva, Invitation to the Septuagint, Baker, 2000).

The Masoretic Question, from Both Sides

Which text is “the original,” and which should govern? Here the tradition and the scholarship require care, and the honest answer is that the question is more complicated than the old polemics assumed.

The Protestant / Hebraica veritas position. Classical Protestant (and Jerome’s earlier Latin) scholarship holds that the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, that the Masoretic Text is the best-preserved witness to that Hebrew, and that translations should therefore be made from the Hebrew, treating the LXX as a valuable but secondary version. Modern text-critical practice in most Western Bibles follows the MT as the base text, emending from the LXX and Qumran where the MT is judged corrupt. Proponents: Jerome (Hebraica veritas); the Reformers; the mainstream of modern critical Old Testament textual scholarship.

The Orthodox / LXX position. Orthodoxy receives the LXX as the Old Testament of the Church and does not grant the MT automatic priority. It notes that the MT was standardized by rabbinic scholars after the parting of Church and Synagogue, that the LXX often preserves older Hebrew readings (now confirmed by Qumran), and that the Church’s Scriptures are the ones her Apostles and Fathers used and her liturgy chants. This is not a claim that the MT is corrupt or worthless — Orthodox scholars use it freely — but that the LXX is the Church’s canonical form and, in disputed places, is not to be silently “corrected” by the Hebrew (Breck, Scripture in Tradition, SVS Press, 2001, Part I; Pentiuc, The Old Testament in Eastern Orthodox Tradition, 2014). Proponents: Augustine (inspiration of the LXX); the Orthodox liturgical and patristic tradition; modern Orthodox biblical scholars.

The current text-critical picture, which reframes the dispute. The Dead Sea Scrolls showed that in the Second Temple period the Hebrew Scriptures circulated in plural forms — some close to the later MT, some close to the LXX’s Hebrew source, some close to the Samaritan Pentateuch. There was no single “original Hebrew” text sitting behind both; there were several Hebrew editions, and the LXX and MT each descend from real ancient forms (Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 2012; Fernández Marcos, The Septuagint in Context, Brill, 2000). This dissolves the simplest version of the old question: one cannot straightforwardly ask “which is more original” as if there were one original to be more or less faithful to. In many books both the LXX and the MT are faithful witnesses to different ancient editions.

[Disputed: the relative priority of the LXX and the Masoretic Text. (a) The *Hebraica veritas* view (Jerome; classical Protestant and most modern critical scholarship) makes the Hebrew/MT the base text and the LXX a secondary version. (b) The Orthodox view (Augustine on the LXX's inspiration; Breck 2001; Pentiuc 2014) receives the LXX as the Church's canonical Old Testament and denies the MT automatic priority. (c) The current consensus of textual scholarship (Tov 2012; Fernández Marcos 2000), on the evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls, holds that the Hebrew text was pluriform in the Second Temple period, that the LXX and MT often descend from *different* genuine ancient Hebrew editions, and that neither is simply "the original." This compendium presents all three positions and adjudicates none.]

Difference Without Polemic

The Orthodox handling of these differences is deliberately non-polemical, and for a reason rooted in the doctrine of Scripture itself. Because the Bible is the Church’s book, read within Tradition and oriented to Christ, the Orthodox reader is not driven to defend a single perfect autograph or to disparage the Hebrew text of the Synagogue. Orthodoxy can hold, calmly and together, that the LXX is the Church’s Old Testament and carries the readings her faith confesses; that the MT is an ancient and valuable witness whose Hebrew the Church honors; and that the text-critical facts — plural editions, real differences — pose no threat, because the authority of Scripture rests not on a reconstructed original but on the living Word heard in the Church (Breck, Scripture in Tradition, 2001; Pentiuc, The Old Testament in Eastern Orthodox Tradition, 2014; and see Scripture within Holy Tradition). The differences are data to be understood, not weapons to be wielded.

See Also

References

  • Tov, Emanuel. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. 3rd ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012. (The pluriform Second Temple text; Jeremiah’s two editions; the LXX and MT as witnesses to different Hebrew forms.)
  • Fernández Marcos, Natalio. The Septuagint in Context: Introduction to the Greek Version of the Bible. Trans. Wilfred G. E. Watson. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
  • Jobes, Karen H., and Moisés Silva. Invitation to the Septuagint. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2000. (Textual differences; New Testament use; Isaiah 7:14.)
  • Pentiuc, Eugen J. The Old Testament in Eastern Orthodox Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. (The LXX/MT relationship; the numbering; the Orthodox reception.)
  • Breck, John. Scripture in Tradition: The Bible and Its Interpretation in the Orthodox Church. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001. (Part I, the LXX and the MT.)
  • Justin Martyr. Dialogue with Trypho 43, 66–67 — the ancient dispute over Isaiah 7:14 (parthenos vs neanis).
  • Scripture: Isaiah 7:14 / Matthew 1:23; Psalm 39:6 LXX / Hebrews 10:5; the Psalm numbering (LXX/Slavonic Psalter).