The Orthodox Study Bible, Hardcover: Ancient Christianity Speaks to Today's World

Product Information

That said, it was a rewarding experience. I’d read most of the Bible before, but never all of it in one shot. This reading has reaffirmed my love for the Old Testament in particular. Those pseudo-Marcionite Christians (and there are sadly many of them) who ignore the Old Testament, thinking it has somehow been made irrelevant by the New, are frankly practicing a faith with little substance. The Old Testament is the content of our faith; the New Testament—the firstfruits of Scripture—is the spiritual light by which that content is illuminated. The New Testament is entirely submerged in the symbolic economy of the Hebrew Scriptures; and we ought to be as well. Plus, the Old Testament is a fantastic read in its own right: patriarchs, prophets, priests, kings, warriors, mystics, poets, court historians; tales of alluring darkness, mystery, sensuality, and violence; cosmogony, national epic, prophetic lament, and sage advice. It is a literary treasure-house, a gift for the entire human race. This is the Bible English translation used by the Orthodox Church. As such, those from other branches of Christianity may find it different from other versions with which they are more familiar. Insightful commentary drawn from the Christian writers and teachers of the first ten centuries after Christ The KJV Septuagint - translated from the Septuagint edition published by the Orthodox Church of Greece's Apostoliki Diakonia, using the King James Version as a template. Scheduled to be published by St. Innocent Press in 2013, this will be the only English translation to date using an approved ecclesiastical text of the Septuagint.

Septuaginta. Id est Vetus Testamentum Graece iuxta LXX Interpretes. Stuttgart: Wurttembergische Bibelanstalt, 1935 In conclusion then, it is important that Orthodox assert the primacy of the Septuagint; that they recognise how intimately the Septuagint is bound up with the very life, theology and doctrine of the Orthodox Church; and that they recognise how important it is to know the Septuagint, to use it and to understand how it is used in the services of the Church and by the Church Fathers.First let me say that I'm writing this review to encourage Protestants to read the (deuterocanonical) books of the Bible which are typically only found in Catholic or Orthodox Bibles. I review the books for my reactions to them, which is irreverent in a sense, but I do hope my recommendations have a cumulative effect of drawing people to these wonderful narratives. The Septuagint was produced in the Helleno-Roman cultural world, that is the period roughly from Alexander the Great’s conquests (c325 B.C.) to the establishment of the Roman Empire. The lingua franca of that world was the κοινη διαλεκτος, (common) Greek. Then as now many more Jews lived outside the Holy Land than lived within it, and the great majority of them did not speak Hebrew. There arose, therefore, a need for a version of the Hebrew Bible in Greek. The Septuagint was that version. It was written by Greek-speaking Jews of the Judaeo-Greek Diaspora, employing, not, as has sometimes been said, a separate Semiticform ofGreek, but the common κοινη with a specialised vocabulary, including idioms, and a style that reflected its own distinctive interests. For an apt comparison one might perhaps think of the legal or journalistic English of our own day. What is the Septuagint? The Danish Biblical scholar Mogens Muller has noted that: ‘Historically the Septuagint should be endowed with special significance considered as a translation, because, to some circles of Greek-speaking Jewry, it replaced the Hebrew Bible, and thus became their Bible. Because it was accepted as conclusive evidence of the biblical revelation, it was used by the authors of the New Testament writings, and accordingly came to have a decisive impact on the theology of the New Testament. In an historical perspective, it became, to an even greater extent than the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament of the New Testament. This circumstance is fundamental insofar as this translation as a witness of the handing on of traditions represents a reappraisal of the basic content of the Old Testament.’ [3](The Biblical scholar Robert Hanhart even thinks that the Septuagint actually expresses a more profound appreciation of the Old Testament’s testimony of revelation than does the Hebrew.)

The content of the OSB–including annotations, introductions, and articles–is written at a vocabulary level of a high school graduate to communicate “the treasures of the Orthodox biblical tradition with clergy and laypeople desirous of understanding their Christian beliefs and making them accessible to others” ( Introduction). The notes and commentary emphasize the major themes of the Christian faith, giving special attention to the following: The Old and New Testaments edition, subtitled "Ancient Christianity Speaks to Today's World" came out in February of 2008. It includes a new translation of the Psalms by Dr. Donald Sheehan of Dartmouth College. Hast thou not sinned if thou hast brought it rightly, but not rightly divided it? Be still, to thee shall be his submission, and thou shalt rule over him. An “Overview of the Books of the Bible” presents introductory material about the various sections and kinds of biblical literature. “Introducing the Orthodox Church” will be especially helpful to non-Orthodox readers of the OSB. “How to Read the Bible” presents an Orthodox understanding of reading and interpreting the Bible. James I of England, who commissioned the Bible named after him.The most accurate translations availableKevin Mayhew Publishers has printed the translation by Peter King, SJ, in four volumes ( The Pentateuch 2010, The Historical Books 2012, The Wisdom Literature 2008, and The Prophets 2013), which are now available (along with King's translation of the New Testament) as The Bible. King's work, however, is difficult to obtain in the US. In addition, readers will find sections included, based upon rabbinical traditions used in the making of the Septuagint, such as Psalm 151 and Job 42:18-22, that are not in other translations. The addition in Job actually does seem to flesh out the book better in my opinion to a more complete ending. The Orthodox Study Bible, Ancient Faith Edition, Leathersoft: Ancient Christianity Speaks to Today’s World Orthodox Christianity is the face of ancient Christianity to the modern world and embraces the second largest body of Christians in the world. In this first-of-its-kind study Bible, the Bible is presented with commentary from the ancient Christian perspective that speaks to those Christians who seek a deeper experience of the roots of their faith.

We know now that some books in the Septuagint were translated from Hebrew texts that were radically different from those in modern editions of the Hebrew Bible and in English Bible translations. This has been brought to light through recent study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is now clear that the Septuagint sometimes reveals a version of the Old Testament books older than those that exist in the Hebrew Bible. The Septuagint gives us glimpses into earlier stages in the Bible’s development before the completion of the Hebrew Bible that is now the basis of modern translations. This fact is problematic for those western Christians who put their entire faith in the pursuit of what they call the “original, i.e Masoretic, text”. The medieval Hebrew text became the basis of virtually all vernacular Old Testament translation, especially in English, even though it distorted the relationship between the Old Testament and the New. Before his death in 1536, William Tyndale had translated about half of the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew Masoretic text rather than the Septuagint Greek or the Vulgate Latin of Christendom. In 1535 Miles Coverdale produced the first complete English Bible, also from the Hebrew. The books that did not form part of the Hebrew Bible were not at first excluded by the English Reformers from the canon, but they were placed together at the end of the Old Testament as the so-called Apocrypha. Finally they were dropped altogether, as one can see by inspecting many modern English Bibles that emanate from various Protestant sources. This development was unfortunate: it gravely weakened the early Church’s attitude of Vetus Testamentum in Novo Receptum, and led to the present anomaly of modern biblical criticism conducted outside of the Church. Holy Scripture cannot be independent of the Church that canonizes it and says what it is, and Orthodox Christians should read and study Scripture according to the mind and understanding of the Church. But if there is not very clear correspondence between the text of the Old Testament and those New Testament quotations from it made by our Saviour Himself, St Paul, the Evangelists and Apostles, the vital salvific link between the Old Testament and the New is fundamentally obscured. Departing Horeb: The Masoretic Hebrew vs the LXX Part 1 by Eric Jobe. A series of articles on the Masoretic Text and Septuagint from a scholarly perspective. Part 2, Part 3, A Clarification The differences with Rome are fairly small and have never been a subject of much contention between the Orthodox and that communion. The canonical lists are essentially the same in content (some of the names are different) but for the following items: The Latin canon does not include I Esdras (though it uses that name for what the Orthodox call II Esdras); there are only 150 Psalms in the Latin canon, while the LXX has 151 (and the Psalms are numbered and divided differently between the two canons, because the modern Latin canon is based on the Hebrew Masoretic Text, though the Vulgate used the Septuagintal Psalm numbering); the Epistle of Jeremiah is a separate book in the LXX, while it is included as part of Baruch for the Latins; and the Latins do not include either III or IV Maccabees. Traditionally, Roman Catholics used the numbering of the Latin Vulgate, which follows the Septuagint. However, since the Second Vatican Council, Roman Catholic publications, including Catholic Bibles and liturgical texts, have used the numbering found in the Masoretic Text.

Navigation menu

Prof. Dr. Tim McLay. The Use of the Septuagint in New Testament Research. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2003. 207 pp. ISBN 9780802860910 Interestingly, since the New Testament of the OSB is paired with an Old Testament based on the Septuagint—the Bible used by the writers of the New Testament—when the New Testament quotes the Old, the quotations are worded identically, unlike most Bibles with Old Testaments based on the Hebrew text. The Orthodox Study Bible is the fruit of over twenty years of labor by many of the best Orthodox Christian theologians of our time. Here, by the grace of God, you will find the living water of His Word with comprehensive study guides and teachings that bring to our modern world the mind of the ancient Christian Church. It is the first ever full-length (Old and New Testaments) Orthodox Study Bible in English.