Septuagint (Sep´too-uh-jint)

The Greek translation of the Hebrew OT that began in the third century BCE in Alexandria, Egypt. The name Septuagint comes from the Greek word for “seventy” (hence the symbol LXX, 70 in Roman numerals) and refers to the seventy (or seventy-two) Jewish translators who, according to legend, were brought to Egypt to translate the Pentateuch and independently produced identical manuscripts. The Septuagint often witnesses to a manuscript tradition different from and earlier than that preserved in any extant Hebrew manuscripts and so is valuable in solving textual difficulties.

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