Chapter 34

The Septuagint Priority Argument — Which Text Better Preserves the Original?

We have come a long way together. Over the course of this book, we have walked through the origins of the Septuagint, surveyed the deuterocanonical books, explored the Dead Sea Scrolls, catalogued the New Testament's overwhelming dependence on the Greek Old Testament, examined the evidence for deliberate alteration of the Masoretic Text, analyzed the corrupted chronologies of Genesis 5 and 11, and traced the late standardization of the Hebrew text we use today. Each of these chapters has made its own individual case. Now it is time to bring all the threads together into a single, cumulative argument.

This chapter is the synthesis. It is where we stand back, look at the full panorama of evidence, and ask the big question: Which text tradition better preserves the original Old Testament — the Greek Septuagint or the Hebrew Masoretic Text? I believe the answer, when we weigh all the evidence honestly, is clear. The Septuagint deserves a dramatically higher status than Protestants have traditionally given it. In many important cases — especially in Messianic prophecies and in the Genesis chronologies — the LXX preserves readings that are older, more original, and more theologically reliable than those found in the MT.

Let me be clear about what I am not saying. I am not saying the LXX is always right and the MT is always wrong. I am not saying the MT is worthless. The Masoretic Text is an ancient and venerable textual tradition, and in many places it preserves excellent readings. What I am saying is that the long-standing Protestant assumption — that the MT is "the original Hebrew" and the LXX is merely a secondary Greek translation to be corrected against it — is historically indefensible. The evidence points to a different conclusion: the LXX should be used alongside the MT as a primary witness to the Old Testament text. In many important passages, the LXX reading should be preferred.

Let me walk through the six pillars of this argument.

Pillar One: The Septuagint Was the Bible of the Apostles and the Early Church

The first and most foundational pillar of the Septuagint priority argument is this: the Septuagint was the Bible that Jesus's apostles used. It was the Bible they quoted. It was the Bible they preached from. It was the Bible they passed on to the church. This single fact should settle the question for any Christian who takes the authority of the New Testament seriously.

As we documented in detail in Chapter 6, the statistical evidence is overwhelming. There are approximately 300 or more direct Old Testament quotations in the New Testament.¹ Of these, the vast majority follow the Septuagint either exactly or closely. Many follow the LXX precisely where it differs from the MT. Only a small minority appear to follow the Hebrew against the LXX.² The exact numbers vary depending on which scholar you consult — Archer and Chirichigno, Jobes and Silva, Lanier and Ross — but the trend is undeniable. As Woodward puts it, "The New Testament undoubtedly uses the Septuagint for 80% of its Old Testament quotations."³

Think about what that means. When the apostle Paul quoted the Old Testament in his letters to the churches — letters that are themselves inspired Scripture — he was overwhelmingly quoting the Septuagint. When the author of Hebrews built his magnificent arguments about the superiority of Christ, he was building them on the LXX text. When Luke recorded Jesus's reading of Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth, and when he recorded Peter's sermon at Pentecost and Paul's preaching throughout the Mediterranean, the Old Testament texts he cited were almost always in their Greek Septuagint form.⁴

This is not merely a matter of convenience — as if the apostles used the LXX simply because their audiences happened to speak Greek and it was the available translation. In several critically important cases, the NT author's entire theological argument depends on a reading found only in the Septuagint and not in the Masoretic Text. We documented these cases in Chapters 8 through 10, but let me briefly recall the most striking examples.

First, consider Hebrews 10:5, where the author quotes Psalm 40:6 (39:7 in the LXX numbering). The LXX reads, "a body you have prepared for me" (sōma katērtisō moi, σῶμα κατηρτίσω μοι). The MT reads, "ears you have dug for me" (oznaim karita li, אָזְנַ֣יִם כָּרִ֣יתָ לִּ֑י). The entire argument of Hebrews 10:5–10 — one of the most important Christological passages in the New Testament — depends on the LXX reading. The author of Hebrews argues that the old sacrificial system was set aside because God prepared a body for the Messiah — the body of Jesus, offered once for all. If the MT reading is correct, the whole argument collapses. As Woodward observes, this is "one of the most obvious deviations from the original text" — and the NT author clearly regarded the LXX reading as the authoritative one.⁵

Second, consider Acts 15:16–17, where James quotes Amos 9:11–12 at the Jerusalem Council. The LXX reads, "that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord" (hopōs an ekzētēsōsin hoi kataloipoi tōn anthrōpōn ton kyrion, ὅπως ἂν ἐκζητήσωσιν οἱ κατάλοιποι τῶν ἀνθρώπων τὸν κύριον). The MT reads, "that they may possess the remnant of Edom" (lmaan yirshu et she'erit edom, לְמַ֨עַן יִֽירְשׁ֜וּ אֶת־שְׁאֵרִ֤ית אֱדוֹם). James's entire argument for the inclusion of Gentiles in the church depends on the LXX reading. The MT replaces "mankind seeking God" with "Israel possessing Edom" — eliminating the universal salvation theme entirely. Woodward rightly calls this "one of the most blatant alterations."⁶

Third, consider Hebrews 1:6, where the author cites Deuteronomy 32:43 in the LXX: "Let all God's angels worship him" (proskynesatōsan autō pantes angeloi theou, προσκυνησάτωσαν αὐτῷ πάντες ἄγγελοι θεοῦ). This phrase is entirely absent from the Masoretic Text. It simply is not there. Yet the author of Hebrews uses it to make a crucial argument about the Son's superiority to the angels — an argument that forms part of the theological foundation of the entire letter. Where did this reading come from? It came from the LXX. And as we will see shortly, a Dead Sea Scroll manuscript (4QDeuteronomy-q) confirms that the reading once existed in the Hebrew tradition — it was not a Septuagintal invention.⁷

These are not minor or marginal examples. They go to the heart of New Testament theology — the incarnation of Christ, the inclusion of the Gentiles, the superiority of the Son to the angels. If we take the New Testament seriously as inspired Scripture, we must also take seriously the Old Testament text that the NT authors actually used. And the text they used was the Septuagint.

As Lanier and Ross observe, the close correspondence in wording between New Testament quotations and the Greek Old Testament is remarkable. Even Luke and the author of Hebrews make "near exclusive use of the Greek Old Testament."⁸ Karen Jobes has noted that the Greek Old Testament "forms a bridge that mediates the literary and theological concepts between the Hebrew Bible and the Greek NT."⁹ This bridge is not incidental — it is part of God's providential plan for communicating His word to the nations.

But the apostles were not the only ones who used the Septuagint as their authoritative Scripture. As we documented in Chapter 11, the entire early church — from the Apostolic Fathers through the great theologians of the fourth and fifth centuries — regarded the Septuagint as the authoritative Old Testament of the Christian church. Clement of Rome used the LXX throughout 1 Clement. Justin Martyr explicitly accused the Jewish establishment of altering their Hebrew Scriptures. Irenaeus defended the LXX's inspiration. Origen, despite his complex relationship with the Hebrew text, devoted enormous labor to preserving and studying the LXX in his Hexapla. And Augustine — arguably the greatest theologian of the Western church after the apostle Paul — explicitly argued that the Septuagint was an inspired translation, that its translators were guided by the Holy Spirit.¹⁰

The patristic consensus was overwhelming. As Timothy Law observes, the New Testament authors' use of the Greek rather than the Hebrew "cannot be overstated." And Augustine knew this: "equally aware of how important this point was for Christians, he rightly insisted on the New Testament authors' use of the Septuagint."¹¹

Pillar Two: The Dead Sea Scrolls Independently Support Many LXX Readings

The second pillar of our argument comes from one of the most dramatic archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century: the Dead Sea Scrolls. As we discussed in detail in Chapter 4, the scrolls discovered at Qumran beginning in 1947 fundamentally changed the landscape of Old Testament textual criticism. And the picture they revealed overwhelmingly supports the Septuagint's value as a witness to the original text.

Before the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, defenders of the MT could argue that the LXX's divergent readings were simply mistakes — translational errors or deliberate changes introduced by Greek-speaking Jews in Alexandria. The Septuagint, they could say, was just a loose translation of the "real" Hebrew text. The Dead Sea Scrolls demolished that argument.

Among the Hebrew manuscripts found at Qumran were what scholars call "proto-Septuagintal" manuscripts — that is, Hebrew texts that match the readings of the LXX rather than the MT. As Martin Abegg, Peter Flint, and Eugene Ulrich explain in their landmark study, "these Hebrew manuscripts are the base texts that were ultimately translated into the Greek Septuagint." They continue: "What we learn by comparing the Hebrew base text to the Greek version of the Septuagint is that the translators were very good and faithfully translated the Hebrew text." The differences between the LXX and the MT exist not because the LXX translators were careless, but "because the Septuagint is a translation of a slightly different Hebrew text than the Masoretic Text."¹²

This is a crucial finding. The LXX translators were not making things up. They were faithfully translating Hebrew source texts — called Vorlagen (German for "templates") — that were different from the Hebrew texts that later became the Masoretic Text. The scrolls proved this beyond any reasonable doubt.

Emanuel Tov's classification of the Qumran biblical manuscripts tells an important story about the textual landscape of Second Temple Judaism. According to Tov's analysis, approximately 40 percent of the Qumran manuscripts align with the proto-Masoretic tradition. Approximately 5 percent align with the proto-Septuagintal tradition. Approximately 5 percent align with the Samaritan Pentateuch. And approximately 50 percent are "non-aligned" — they do not clearly fit any of the major textual families.¹³ What does this mean? It means that in the time of Jesus, there was not one single, universally accepted Hebrew text. There were multiple textual traditions existing side by side. The proto-Masoretic text was just one among several — and it was not even the majority tradition at Qumran.

As Law summarizes the impact of these discoveries, "the Dead Sea Scrolls, along with a renewed appreciation of the Septuagint, force us to adopt a new perspective: while the medieval Masoretic scribes preserved an ancient tradition, they transmitted only one scriptural tradition out of a number of divergent possibilities that existed before the second century CE."¹⁴

Let me briefly recall the most important specific examples where Qumran manuscripts support LXX readings against the MT (these were discussed at length in Chapter 4).

Deuteronomy 32:8. The MT reads "sons of Israel" (benei yisra'el, בני ישראל), but a Qumran manuscript (4QDeuteronomy-j) reads "sons of God" (benei elohim, בני אלהים) — matching the LXX's "angels of God" (angelōn theou, ἀγγέλων θεοῦ). The MT's "sons of Israel" makes little sense in context — the passage is about God dividing the nations, which happened before Israel even existed. The LXX's reading, referring to the divine council, is clearly more original. Today, even the ESV includes the Qumran reading in its footnotes, and the NRSV adopts it in the main text.¹⁵

Deuteronomy 32:43. The MT version of this verse is significantly shorter than both the LXX and the Qumran manuscript (4QDeuteronomy-q). The phrases "Let all God's angels worship him" and "Let all the sons of God strengthen themselves in him" — phrases found in the LXX — are entirely absent from the MT but are present in the Qumran Hebrew text. This is the text cited in Hebrews 1:6. The Qumran manuscript proves that the author of Hebrews was not quoting a Septuagintal invention — he was quoting from a Hebrew textual tradition that the MT later dropped.¹⁶

The books of Samuel. The 4QSamuel manuscripts (4QSam-a, 4QSam-b, 4QSam-c) frequently agree with the LXX against the MT. The Masoretic text of Samuel is widely recognized as one of the most poorly preserved books in the entire Hebrew Bible. Frank Moore Cross's groundbreaking work on the Samuel scrolls at Qumran demonstrated that the LXX translators of Samuel had access to a Hebrew text that was in many ways superior to the text that became the MT. As Hershel Shanks reported, Cross concluded that "we could scarcely hope to find closer agreement between the Old Greek tradition and 4QSam-a than actually is found in our fragments."¹⁷

Jeremiah. The MT version of Jeremiah is approximately one-eighth longer than the LXX version, and the arrangement of chapters differs dramatically. Qumran manuscripts of Jeremiah (4QJeremiah-b) support the shorter LXX form, proving that both text types coexisted in the Second Temple period. Many scholars now believe the shorter LXX version represents the more original form of the book, with the MT reflecting a later expanded edition.¹⁸

The Samaritan Pentateuch provides yet another independent witness. In the chronologies of Genesis 5 and 11, the Samaritan Pentateuch sometimes agrees with the LXX against the MT, providing additional evidence that the MT's numbers were altered. The Samaritan tradition diverged from the proto-MT very early — and where it agrees with the LXX against the MT, this constitutes independent attestation of the LXX reading.¹⁹ The New Testament itself furnishes proof of the antiquity of some Samaritan readings. In Acts 7:4, Stephen says Abraham left Haran for Canaan after his father died — agreeing with the Samaritan Pentateuch. The MT, by contrast, claims Abraham's father died sixty years after Abraham had left (Genesis 11:32).²⁰

Put it all together and the picture is unmistakable. The LXX was not a careless or unreliable translation. It was a faithful rendering of genuine Hebrew source texts — texts that were in many cases older than the Hebrew texts that eventually became the MT. The Dead Sea Scrolls have proven this beyond any reasonable doubt.

Pillar Three: There Is Strong Evidence of Deliberate Masoretic Alteration

The third pillar of our argument is the most controversial, but also one of the most important. In Chapters 12 through 15, we presented extensive evidence that second-century rabbis — particularly Rabbi Akiba and his circle — deliberately altered the Hebrew text to distance it from Christian interpretation. This was not random scribal corruption. It was a targeted campaign to weaken Messianic prophecies, invalidate the Septuagint, and compress the biblical chronology.

Let me be careful about how I frame this. I am not claiming that every single difference between the LXX and the MT is the result of deliberate tampering. Many differences are the natural result of centuries of textual transmission — copying errors, editorial glosses, harmonizations, and other normal scribal phenomena. Some differences may even reflect cases where the MT preserves a reading that is better than the LXX. I acknowledge all of this freely.

But when we examine the pattern of differences — when we step back and look at which readings changed and in what direction — the evidence for intentionality becomes very strong. The alterations consistently work in one direction: weakening or removing Christological and Messianic readings. Random scribal errors show no such directional pattern. Deliberate alteration does.²¹

The case for deliberate alteration rests on several converging lines of evidence, all of which were developed in Chapters 12 through 15. Let me briefly recall them here.

The testimony of the early church fathers. The accusation that the rabbis altered their Hebrew Scriptures is not a modern invention. It goes back to the earliest centuries of the church. Justin Martyr, writing around 150 AD — within living memory of Akiba's generation — explicitly accused the Jewish establishment of removing passages from the Scriptures. In his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin tells his Jewish interlocutor: "From the statements, then, which I have made, I do not ask you to permit me to go away without a scrutiny; but do you scrutinize the very Scriptures... from which, or rather I should say from which yet you have not removed, many things." Justin also accused the Jews of removing passages that identified Jesus as God.²² While some of Justin's specific claims are debatable, his general accusation — that the Jewish establishment altered their Scriptures to combat Christian claims — is remarkably consistent with the pattern of LXX-MT differences we can observe today.

Irenaeus likewise defended the LXX against the Jewish replacement translations and specifically challenged the rabbinic decision to replace parthenos (παρθένος, "virgin") with neanis (νεᾶνις, "young woman") in Isaiah 7:14 — a change made by Aquila, who was a student of Rabbi Akiba.²³

The role of Akiba. As we discussed in Chapter 12, Akiba ben Joseph (c. 50–135 AD) was arguably the most important figure in the formation of Rabbinic Judaism. He developed the hermeneutical methods that would define rabbinic interpretation for centuries. He wielded enormous authority over the text. Louis Ginzberg wrote in The Jewish Encyclopedia that "Akiba was the one who definitely fixed the canon of the Old Testament books."²⁴ And crucially, Akiba declared Simon Bar Kokhba to be the Messiah — applying Numbers 24:17 to Bar Kokhba — a catastrophic theological error that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews after the failed revolt of 132–135 AD. After that disaster, the rabbinic establishment had powerful motivation to distance the Hebrew text from both Christianity and from Akiba's own messianic error.²⁵

Jewish scholar Harry Orlinsky observed that "the rabbinic literature itself, in quotations from the Bible, exhibits more frequently than is generally realized, readings that differ from those preserved in our so-called 'Masoretic' texts, readings that are not due to faulty memory." And he added pointedly: "The standardization of the text, to whatever extent that occurred, offered an opportunity for those doing the 'standardizing' to choose those variations which were most in accord with their own beliefs."²⁶

The replacement translations. One of the most telling pieces of evidence is the production of entirely new Greek translations in the second century — Aquila's translation (c. 130 AD), Symmachus's (late second century), and Theodotion's revision (also second century). As we documented in Chapter 13, these translations were specifically designed to replace the Septuagint, which had become identified as the Christian Bible. Aquila's translation was "slavishly literal" to the revised Hebrew text of Akiba — it was, in effect, Akiba's Hebrew text rendered into Greek.²⁷ The very fact that the rabbis felt the need to produce replacement translations tells us something important. They were not content with the LXX because the LXX preserved readings they found theologically objectionable.

The unidirectional pattern of changes. When we line up the textual differences catalogued in Chapters 14 and 15 (and summarized in Appendix B), the direction of change is overwhelmingly consistent. The LXX preserves stronger Messianic readings; the MT weakens or eliminates them. The LXX preserves references to the divine council, to angelic worship, to the universal scope of salvation, to the virgin birth. The MT softens or removes these readings. This unidirectional pattern is powerful evidence for intentional alteration. As Woodward calls it, this is "the elephant in the room": once you see the pattern, it cannot be unseen.²⁸

The motivation was threefold, as we documented in Chapter 12. First, the LXX had become identified as the Christian Bible — the rabbis needed to delegitimize it to delegitimize Christianity. Second, the LXX's Messianic readings supported Christian claims about Jesus — weakening these readings weakened the Christian case. Third, the LXX's longer chronology conflicted with the rabbinic calendrical system and the Seder Olam's compressed timeline.²⁹

This brings us directly to the next pillar of our argument.

Pillar Four: The Genesis Chronologies in the MT Have Been Corrupted

The fourth pillar of the Septuagint priority argument focuses on what may be the most dramatic and far-reaching difference between the LXX and the MT: the chronologies of Genesis 5 and 11. As we documented in Chapters 16 and 17, the MT systematically reduces the ages of the patriarchs at the birth of their sons, compressing biblical history by over 1,300 years compared to the LXX's figures.

In the LXX, the period from Adam to the Flood covers approximately 2,242 years. In the MT, the same period covers only approximately 1,656 years — a difference of about 586 years. In the LXX, the period from the Flood to Abraham covers approximately 1,172 years. In the MT, it covers only approximately 352 years — a difference of roughly 820 years. When you add it all up, the LXX's chronology places the creation of Adam approximately 1,386 years earlier than the MT does.³⁰

This is not a minor scribal variant. This is a massive, systematic difference that affects hundreds of years of biblical history. And the pattern of changes is remarkably consistent. In Genesis 5, the MT has reduced the begetting ages of six out of ten patriarchs by exactly 100 years each, with additional reductions to Lamech and Methuselah. In Genesis 11, the same pattern appears. This mathematical consistency is itself powerful evidence against accidental corruption. Random scribal errors do not produce 100-year reductions in six out of ten entries.³¹

The question is: which chronology is more original? The weight of the evidence points strongly to the LXX. The Samaritan Pentateuch provides independent support for the LXX's longer chronology in Genesis 11, and Josephus (writing in the first century, before the rabbinic standardization of the MT) used chronological figures that align more closely with the LXX than with the MT. The Book of Jubilees, found in multiple copies at Qumran, also reflects a chronological tradition closer to the LXX than to the MT.³²

Why would the rabbis have compressed the chronology? As we discussed in Chapter 16, the most plausible explanation is connected to the Seder Olam — the Jewish chronological work attributed to Rabbi Yose ben Halafta, a student of Akiba, in the second century AD. The Seder Olam compressed the biblical timeline in a way that made Jesus's arrival "too early" to qualify as the Messiah under the popular "sabbath week" scheme, which expected the Messiah to arrive around 5,500 years after Adam. By reducing the chronology, the rabbis could argue that the Messiah had not yet come — and thus that Jesus of Nazareth could not have been the Christ.³³

This was not a new insight when Woodward wrote about it. The church father Ephrem of Syria (306–373 AD) was the first known ancient source to explicitly argue that the Jewish rabbis of the second century deflated the primeval chronology for the purpose of discrediting Jesus. Ephrem wrote: "The Jews have subtracted 600 years from the generations of Adam, Seth, etc., in order that their own books might not convict them concerning the coming of Christ."³⁴ Henry B. Smith Jr. has identified five other early church scholars who made similar arguments. This conversation about the corruption of the Genesis chronology has been going on for seventeen centuries.³⁵

Pillar Five: The Masoretic Text Was Not Standardized Until Nearly a Thousand Years After Christ

The fifth pillar of the Septuagint priority argument concerns a fact that most Protestants simply do not know: the Masoretic Text as we have it was not standardized until centuries after the birth of Christianity. The two earliest complete manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible — the Aleppo Codex (c. 930 AD) and the Leningrad Codex (1008 AD) — postdate the earliest complete manuscripts of the Septuagint by over five hundred years.³⁶

Let me spell out the timeline, because it is genuinely eye-opening.

The oldest complete Septuagint manuscripts — Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus — date to the fourth century AD, roughly the 300s. They are among the oldest complete Christian Bibles in existence. They include the Old Testament in Greek, including the deuterocanonical books.

The oldest complete Hebrew Bible — the Leningrad Codex — dates to 1008 AD. That is over six hundred years after Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. The Aleppo Codex, dating to approximately 930 AD, is a few decades older than the Leningrad Codex, but it is only partially preserved today. These are the manuscripts that modern critical editions of the Hebrew Bible are based on — including the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, which underlies virtually every modern Protestant Old Testament translation (ESV, NIV, NASB, etc.).³⁷

As Woodward argues, "if proximity to the source proves to be superior (which typically is the case regarding the study of old manuscripts), the Greek codices likely provide a more accurate rendering of the original Hebrew than the Masoretic Text."³⁸

Now, I want to be fair here. The consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible was largely stabilized by the second century AD. The Dead Sea Scrolls confirm that the proto-Masoretic text type existed as one tradition among several during the Second Temple period. And the Masoretes who worked between the sixth and tenth centuries AD did remarkably careful work in preserving and transmitting the text they received. Lanier and Ross rightly point out that "the Masoretic tradition is the endpoint of a process of preserving the normative text that started centuries earlier."³⁹

But there is a crucial caveat. As we documented in Chapter 18, the process of standardization involved several layers of editorial activity that Christians have no obligation to accept as authoritative.

First, the consonantal text was stabilized through a choice — the rabbinic decision, in the second century AD, to adopt a single text type out of the multiple text types that had coexisted during the Second Temple period. This was a deliberate editorial decision, not a neutral act of preservation. And as we have argued, there is strong evidence that this decision was influenced by anti-Christian motivations.

Second, the vowel pointing was added by the Masoretes between the sixth and tenth centuries AD. The original Hebrew text had no vowels. Hebrew is a consonantal language, and the same consonants can be read as different words depending on which vowels you supply. The Masoretes' choice of vowels was an interpretive decision — it reflected their theological and exegetical tradition. In some cases, the Masoretic vowel pointing may obscure an older reading that the LXX translators preserved.

Third, the Masoretes themselves acknowledged textual instability through their system of Kethiv (what is written) and Qere (what is read) — marginal notes indicating that the text should be read differently from how it was written. This system is itself evidence that even the Masoretes recognized problems in the text they received.⁴⁰

Woodward makes the point powerfully: "What the Masoretes preserved is how the text stood after it had already been altered at Jamnia by Akiba. By the time of the Masoretes, the damage had been done."⁴¹

The practical implication is this: Protestants have traditionally assumed that the MT is "the original Hebrew text" and have built their Old Testament translations on it without serious reference to the LXX. But the MT is not the original text. It is the product of centuries of transmission, editorial activity, and interpretive decisions by the rabbinic and Masoretic tradition — a tradition that, as we have documented, had specific theological motivations for distancing the text from Christian readings. The LXX, despite being a translation, may in many cases preserve readings that are closer to the original than the MT.

Pillar Six: The Patristic Consensus Favored the Septuagint

The sixth and final pillar brings us back to the church's own testimony about its Bible. As we documented in Chapter 11, the overwhelming consensus of the church fathers — from the first century through the fifth century and beyond — was that the Septuagint was the authoritative Old Testament of the church.

This is not a minor historical curiosity. For Protestants who affirm (as I do) that the Holy Spirit has guided the church through its history, the patristic consensus on the Septuagint should carry significant weight. These were not ignorant or careless men. They were the pastors, theologians, and scholars who preserved, defended, and transmitted the Christian faith through centuries of persecution and theological controversy. And they overwhelmingly regarded the LXX — not the Hebrew text — as their authoritative Old Testament.

Consider the key voices. Clement of Rome (c. 96 AD), writing within the lifetime of the apostles, used the LXX throughout. Justin Martyr (c. 150 AD) not only used the LXX but explicitly accused the Jews of altering their Hebrew Scriptures to eliminate Christological passages. Irenaeus (c. 180 AD) defended the LXX's inspiration, including its rendering of parthenos in Isaiah 7:14. Even Origen (c. 185–254 AD), who valued the Hebrew text and produced the monumental Hexapla, clearly prized the LXX as the church's Scripture. Athanasius used the LXX. The Cappadocian Fathers used the LXX. John Chrysostom used the LXX.⁴²

And then there is Augustine. The bishop of Hippo was the most important patristic defender of the LXX's authority. He explicitly argued that the LXX was an inspired translation — that where the LXX differed from the Hebrew, the difference might itself be divinely intended to reveal deeper truth. In his City of God (Book 18), Augustine devoted sustained attention to the relationship between the LXX and the Hebrew text, arguing that both texts possessed prophetic authority. He even went so far as to plead with Jerome to stop translating from the Hebrew, lest the church lose its connection to the apostolic Bible.⁴³

As Edmon Gallagher describes it, "the greatest theologian after the apostles" took a strong stand against Jerome's project precisely because he understood how much was at stake. Jerome's hebraica veritas principle — the idea that the Hebrew text should always take precedence because it is the original language — was "reasonable on its face," but Augustine saw that it was problematic in practice. If the "Hebrew" text in question had been altered, then appealing to its authority was not a neutral act but a capitulation to the rabbinic revision.⁴⁴

To be fair, Augustine eventually moved somewhat in Jerome's direction, acknowledging that the apostles sometimes quoted from the Hebrew text. But he never abandoned his commitment to the authority of the LXX. As he wrote in the City of God, the apostles "quoted prophetic testimonies from both texts — that is, from both the Hebrew and the Septuagint."⁴⁵ His position was not LXX-only, but it was emphatically not Hebrew-only either.

The dissenting voice was primarily Jerome, who championed the hebraica veritas and translated his Latin Vulgate from the Hebrew rather than the Greek. Jerome's position eventually won out in the Western church — and through the Vulgate's dominance in the Middle Ages and the Reformers' adoption of the Hebrew canon, it shaped the Protestant tradition's default assumption that the MT is the primary authority. But it is worth noting that Jerome's position was the minority view in his own time. The church as a whole sided with Augustine.⁴⁶

Addressing the Strongest Counterarguments

I believe in making the best possible case for my position — but I also believe in honestly engaging the strongest arguments against it. Intellectual honesty demands nothing less. So let me address the three most important counterarguments to the Septuagint priority position.

Counterargument One: "The MT Is More Original Because It Is in Hebrew"

This is probably the most common objection. The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew (and some portions in Aramaic). The MT preserves the Hebrew text. The LXX is "just a translation." Therefore — so the argument goes — the MT must be more original and more authoritative.

On the surface, this sounds reasonable. All else being equal, we would indeed prefer to read an ancient text in its original language rather than in translation. Jerome's hebraica veritas principle was built on this logic.

But all else is not equal. The argument assumes that the Hebrew text we have today (the MT) is the same Hebrew text that was originally written. It is not. As we have documented extensively, the MT is the product of centuries of transmission that included deliberate editorial changes. The Hebrew text was altered — in Messianic passages, in chronological data, and in other theologically significant readings. The MT is in Hebrew, yes — but it is not the original Hebrew.

Meanwhile, the LXX — though it is in Greek — was translated from Hebrew Vorlagen that may have been older and more reliable than the proto-Masoretic texts. The Dead Sea Scrolls have proven this. The LXX gives us a window into what the Hebrew text looked like before the rabbinic standardization of the second century AD. In a real sense, reading the LXX takes us closer to the original Hebrew than reading the MT does, precisely because the LXX's Hebrew source texts were older.⁴⁷

As Woodward puts it, "one fortunate value of the Septuagint is it takes us back in time to discover the wording of the oldest Hebrew version — in some cases perhaps only a figurative stone's throw in time from the original compositions — despite being a Greek translation and not the Hebrew Vorlage itself."⁴⁸

So the "but it's in Hebrew" argument proves less than it seems. Having the text in Hebrew is valuable — but only if it is the right Hebrew text. If the Hebrew has been altered, then a faithful translation of an earlier Hebrew text may actually be more reliable than the altered Hebrew itself.

Counterargument Two: "The LXX Translators Made Mistakes"

This is certainly true. The Septuagint is a translation, and like all translations, it contains errors. Some books of the LXX were translated more skillfully than others. The Pentateuch is generally quite literal and carefully rendered. Some of the later books are more paraphrastic. There are places where the LXX translators misunderstood the Hebrew, mistranslated unusual vocabulary, or rendered the text in ways that are less precise than the original.⁴⁹

I freely acknowledge all of this. The claim I am making is not that the LXX is a perfect translation. It is not. The claim is that, in cases where the LXX and the MT differ significantly — especially in Messianic prophecies, in the Genesis chronologies, and in other theologically significant passages — the LXX more often preserves the earlier reading and the MT more often reflects later alteration.

There is a crucial distinction between translational errors and deliberate alteration. A translational error is an honest mistake — the translator misread a word, chose an imprecise equivalent, or failed to understand an obscure idiom. These kinds of errors can be identified and corrected through careful textual analysis. Deliberate alteration is something very different — it is a conscious decision to change the meaning of the text for theological or ideological reasons. The evidence we have presented suggests that the MT's most significant differences from the LXX are not the result of translational errors in the LXX but of deliberate changes in the Hebrew tradition.

Lanier and Ross, who are careful evangelical scholars, acknowledge that even conservative translations like the ESV regularly adopt LXX readings over the MT. They note that the ESV's footnotes "acknowledge wording variants in the Septuagint that 'shed possible light on the text.'" In some cases, the ESV adopts the LXX reading "as the main text, placing the Masoretic Hebrew wording in the footnotes."⁵⁰ This is a remarkable admission from a translation that is otherwise very conservative in its approach to the Hebrew text. It shows that even within the mainstream of evangelical scholarship, the superiority of the MT is not assumed in every case.

Counterargument Three: "The MT's Shorter Readings Are More Likely Original (Lectio Brevior)"

This objection appeals to a well-known principle of textual criticism: lectio brevior potior — "the shorter reading is to be preferred." The logic is simple: scribes were more likely to add material to a text (explanatory glosses, harmonizations, theological expansions) than to remove it. So when two manuscripts differ in length, the shorter one is usually considered more original.

This is a genuine principle of textual criticism, and it has real validity in many contexts. But it does not apply in cases where the shorter reading can be explained by deliberate excision rather than scribal expansion. If a scribe intentionally removed material from the text — whether for theological, polemical, or ideological reasons — then the shorter reading is not more original but more corrupt.

And that is precisely what the evidence suggests happened in many of the cases we have examined. The MT's shorter readings in passages like Deuteronomy 32:43 are not the result of the LXX translators adding material. They are the result of the Hebrew tradition dropping material. We know this because the Qumran manuscripts independently attest to the longer readings — proving that they existed in the Hebrew textual tradition before the rabbinic standardization. The lectio brevior principle simply does not apply when the evidence shows that material was removed rather than added.⁵¹

Similarly, the MT's 100-year reductions in the begetting ages of the patriarchs in Genesis 5 and 11 cannot be explained by the lectio brevior principle. These are not cases of a scribe accidentally duplicating material. They are cases of systematically lowered numbers — the kind of change that requires intentional editorial activity.

Additional Counterarguments and Fair Considerations

In the interest of fairness, let me address several additional objections that thoughtful readers may raise.

"Didn't Jesus Use the Hebrew Bible?"

This objection takes various forms: "Jesus was Jewish; He would have read Hebrew in the synagogue. The Hebrew Bible was His Bible." There is some truth to this. Jesus almost certainly knew Hebrew — He grew up in a Jewish context and participated in synagogue worship. He may well have read from Hebrew scrolls on occasion. Lanier and Ross note that "Jesus most likely reads from a Hebrew scroll of Isaiah in Nazareth" (Luke 4:17–20).⁵²

But several qualifications are necessary. First, Jesus lived in multilingual Galilee and almost certainly knew Greek as well as Aramaic and Hebrew. Second, even if Jesus sometimes quoted from Hebrew texts, the Gospel writers — writing in Greek for Greek-speaking audiences — consistently rendered His Old Testament quotations in the form of the LXX. Third, the NT as we have it is a Greek document, and its OT quotations follow the Greek OT. The church received the NT in Greek, and the OT that stands behind the NT is primarily the Greek OT. Fourth — and most importantly — the Hebrew text that Jesus may have read was not the same as the Masoretic Text. It was a first-century Hebrew text that existed before the rabbinic standardization. The Dead Sea Scrolls show us that first-century Hebrew texts were textually diverse — and some of them aligned more closely with the LXX than with the later MT.

"The NT Authors Were Just Using the Translation Their Audience Recognized"

This objection suggests that the apostles quoted the LXX merely for convenience — because their Greek-speaking audiences would recognize it — not because they considered it theologically superior. But as we documented in Chapters 8 through 10, this explanation fails to account for the cases where the NT author's entire theological argument depends on a reading found in the LXX but not in the MT. If the LXX reading is merely a convenient approximation — rather than a theologically reliable text — then arguments like Hebrews 10:5 and Acts 15:16–17 lose their foundation. The NT's dependence on the LXX implies that the apostles regarded the LXX readings as authoritative, not merely convenient.⁵³

"The LXX Tradition Itself Is Not Uniform"

This is a fair and important point. The "Septuagint" is not a single, monolithic text. Different books were translated at different times by different translators of varying skill. The LXX manuscripts themselves show variation — there are the Old Greek readings, the Hexaplaric recension, the Lucianic recension, and others. When we speak of "the LXX," we are really speaking of a complex textual tradition.⁵⁴

I acknowledge this complexity fully. The claim I am making is not that every reading in every LXX manuscript is superior to every reading in every MT manuscript. That would be a gross oversimplification. The claim is that the textual tradition represented by the Septuagint — the broad stream of Greek translations and the Hebrew Vorlagen that lie behind them — deserves far more weight than Protestants have traditionally given it. When the Old Greek reading is supported by the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Samaritan Pentateuch, or other independent witnesses — and when it differs from the MT in a theologically significant direction — the LXX reading should be given strong consideration as the more original.

"Even Evangelical Scholars Urge Caution"

Lanier and Ross, while clearly valuing the Septuagint highly, urge caution against an uncritical elevation of the LXX above the MT. They argue that "the sheer fact that the 'Septuagint' is a collection of translations of the Hebrew source text points to the primacy of that source." They note that "the subsequent editorial work on the Greek translations — the Kaige movement as well as the recensions by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion — all tend to revise toward the Hebrew. It was the norm by which the Greek traditions were modified, not the other way around."⁵⁵

This is a legitimate point. The Hebrew text is, in a theoretical sense, the "source" and the Greek is the "translation." And the historical tendency was to revise the Greek toward the Hebrew, not vice versa. But this point, while true in a general sense, does not settle the question in specific cases where the LXX preserves a reading that the Hebrew tradition has subsequently altered. The "primacy" of the Hebrew as a source language does not mean that every reading in the extant Hebrew manuscripts is superior to every reading in the Greek. As even Lanier and Ross acknowledge, the Septuagint possesses genuine "critical authority" — "inasmuch as it shows us the original text." They write: "If one is looking for the original text with the highest authority, there is little virtue in defaulting to Hebrew words if they are the wrong words."⁵⁶

That last sentence is worth reading twice. There is little virtue in defaulting to Hebrew words if they are the wrong words. This is precisely the point. The question is not "which language?" but "which text?" And on that question, the evidence we have assembled in this book points consistently toward the LXX preserving earlier and more reliable readings in many significant passages.

Three Kinds of Septuagint Authority

One helpful framework for thinking about the Septuagint's authority comes from a recent essay in The Authority of the Septuagint, which distinguishes three aspects of authority that the LXX possesses for the church: critical authority, functional authority, and interpretive authority.⁵⁷

Critical authority refers to the LXX's value as a witness to the original text of the Old Testament. When the LXX preserves a reading that is older or better attested than the MT — especially when it is supported by the Dead Sea Scrolls or other independent witnesses — the LXX functions as a critical authority for reconstructing what the original text said. This is the most commonly recognized form of LXX authority, and even scholars who are skeptical of broader claims about the LXX acknowledge this much. Modern critical editions of the Hebrew Bible (like the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia) regularly note LXX readings in their critical apparatus, and translation committees routinely consult the LXX when the MT appears corrupt.

Functional authority refers to the role the LXX played — and continues to play — in the life of the church. The LXX was the Bible the apostles used. It was the Bible the church fathers used. It was the basis for the Old Latin translations and, indirectly, for much of the Vulgate. Its distinctive vocabulary and theological language shaped the articulation of essential Christian doctrines. In this functional sense, the LXX has been an authoritative Scripture for the church from the very beginning.

Interpretive authority refers to the LXX's capacity to reveal theological meanings that may be obscured or absent in the MT. The LXX translators were not merely producing a word-for-word correspondence — they were interpreting the text, and in some cases their interpretations captured theological truths that the later Hebrew tradition obscured. The LXX's parthenos in Isaiah 7:14, for example, was a theologically perceptive translation that correctly interpreted the passage as a prophecy of the virgin birth — a meaning that the MT's more ambiguous almah leaves less clear.

These three forms of authority — critical, functional, and interpretive — are not mutually exclusive. They complement and reinforce each other. Together, they make a powerful case for giving the Septuagint a much higher status than it currently enjoys in most Protestant churches.

What Does "Septuagint Priority" Actually Mean in Practice?

I want to be very clear about what I am and am not advocating. "Septuagint priority" is a position with specific, practical implications. Let me spell them out.

First, I am advocating that the LXX should be used alongside the MT as a primary witness to the Old Testament text. It should not be treated as a mere translation to be corrected against the MT whenever they disagree. In textual criticism, both the LXX and the MT should be evaluated on their merits — passage by passage, reading by reading — with due attention to the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and other ancient witnesses.

Second, I am advocating that modern Protestant Old Testament translations should give significantly more weight to LXX readings — especially in Messianic passages and in Genesis 5 and 11. When the LXX preserves a reading that is supported by the Dead Sea Scrolls, that reading should receive serious consideration for inclusion in the main text of our English Bibles — not just in a footnote.

Third, I am advocating that individual Christians should become aware of the LXX-MT differences when they read the Old Testament or hear sermons. A Protestant who has never heard of the Septuagint — who assumes that the ESV or NIV or NASB is simply "what the Old Testament says" — is reading a text filtered through the Masoretic tradition without knowing it. Greater awareness of the LXX tradition would deepen and enrich the church's understanding of the Old Testament.

Fourth, I am advocating for a shift in mindset. Most Protestants have been taught — explicitly or implicitly — that the Hebrew text is always superior to the Greek. This is Jerome's hebraica veritas principle, and it has shaped Protestant biblical scholarship for five hundred years. I believe this principle, while containing a kernel of truth (the OT was indeed originally written in Hebrew), has been applied too rigidly and without sufficient attention to the evidence for MT alteration. The mindset I am advocating is one that holds both texts in high regard, evaluates them critically, and is willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

The Cumulative Force of the Argument

I want to step back now and emphasize something important about the nature of this argument. Each of the six pillars I have presented has its own strength. But the real force of the Septuagint priority argument lies not in any single pillar taken alone, but in the cumulative weight of all six taken together.

Consider: if the only evidence we had was the NT's dependence on the LXX, a skeptic could argue that the apostles simply used whatever translation was available and that this tells us nothing about textual priority. But we also have the Dead Sea Scrolls independently confirming LXX readings. If the only evidence we had was the Dead Sea Scrolls, a skeptic could argue that the scrolls show textual diversity but do not prove deliberate MT alteration. But we also have the testimony of early church fathers like Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, who explicitly accused the rabbis of altering their texts. If the only evidence we had was the patristic testimony, a skeptic could dismiss it as Christian polemic. But we also have the systematic pattern of changes in the Genesis chronologies — changes that cannot be explained by random scribal error. If the only evidence we had was the chronological data, a skeptic could look for alternative explanations. But we also have the late standardization of the MT, which demonstrates that the "Hebrew original" is not as pristine as Protestants have assumed.

No single piece of evidence is conclusive on its own. But when you bring all six pillars together — the apostolic usage, the Qumran evidence, the deliberate alteration evidence, the chronological corruption, the late standardization, and the patristic consensus — the cumulative force is very strong. Each pillar corroborates and reinforces the others. Together, they build a case that is, I believe, compelling.

Think of it like a trial in a court of law. No single piece of evidence convicts the defendant. But when the eyewitness testimony aligns with the forensic evidence, and the forensic evidence aligns with the documentary record, and the documentary record aligns with the defendant's established motive and opportunity — then the jury can reach a confident verdict. That is the nature of the case we are making here.

How This Shapes Our Reading of the Old Testament

Before I close this chapter, I want to talk briefly about what all of this means for ordinary Christians who want to read their Old Testament faithfully.

If you are a Protestant who reads an English Bible — whether the ESV, NIV, NASB, KJV, or any other standard translation — you are reading an Old Testament that is based almost entirely on the Masoretic Text. This means you are reading a text that, in certain places, reflects rabbinic editorial decisions rather than the original inspired words of the prophets. In most cases, the differences are minor and do not affect core doctrine. But in some important cases — the Messianic prophecies, the Genesis chronologies, and other passages we have documented — the differences are significant.

What should you do about this? Several things.

First, be aware of the issue. Simply knowing that LXX-MT differences exist, and that the LXX sometimes preserves earlier readings, is a significant step forward. Most Protestants have no idea that their Old Testament is built on a Hebrew text that was not finalized until nearly a thousand years after Christ. Awareness is the first step toward a more informed and faithful reading of Scripture.

Second, use study tools that include LXX readings. Several modern study Bibles note significant LXX readings in their footnotes. The NET Bible (New English Translation) is particularly good at this. The ESV itself occasionally includes LXX readings in footnotes and even adopts some in the main text. The New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS) provides an accessible English translation of the entire Septuagint for those who want to explore it further.

Third, read the deuterocanonical books. The deuterocanonical books are part of the Septuagint — the Bible the apostles used. They are available in Catholic Bibles, Orthodox Bibles, and in standalone editions. Reading them is not an act of "becoming Catholic." It is an act of reading the Scripture that the early church received.

Fourth, approach the question of text with humility. The relationship between the LXX and the MT is complex, and no scholar has all the answers. There are passages where the MT is clearly superior and passages where the LXX is clearly superior. There are many passages where it is genuinely difficult to determine which reading is more original. The goal is not to replace one rigid orthodoxy (MT-only) with another (LXX-only), but to read the Old Testament with full awareness of its textual richness and to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

Conclusion: Recovering the Church's Bible

We began this chapter by asking which text tradition better preserves the original Old Testament. I believe the evidence is clear: the Septuagint, in many important cases, preserves readings that are older, more original, and more theologically reliable than those found in the Masoretic Text. This does not mean the LXX is always superior. It means the LXX deserves a dramatically higher status than Protestants have traditionally given it.

The six pillars of the argument converge on a single conclusion:

1. The LXX was the Bible of the apostles and the early church — the church should honor their witness.

2. The Dead Sea Scrolls independently confirm LXX readings — the LXX was not inventing readings but translating genuine Hebrew Vorlagen.

3. There is strong evidence that the MT was deliberately altered — especially in Messianic prophecies and chronological data.

4. The Genesis chronologies in the MT have been corrupted — compressing biblical history by over 1,300 years.

5. The MT was not standardized until nearly a thousand years after Christ — and the standardization process involved editorial decisions shaped by anti-Christian theological motivations.

6. The patristic consensus favored the LXX — the church's oldest and most universal tradition points to the Septuagint, not the MT, as the church's authoritative Old Testament.

I close with a word from Abegg, Flint, and Ulrich — three scholars who spent their careers working with the Dead Sea Scrolls. They identified five primary reasons why the Septuagint is essential. The LXX was translated from an earlier Hebrew form than the MT. The LXX sometimes preserves strikingly different ancient forms of biblical books. The LXX gives us insight into how the Greek-speaking Jewish world understood Scripture. The LXX was the Bible of the early Christians. And the LXX set the template for the arrangement of the books in the modern Bible.⁵⁸

All of this is true. And all of it points in the same direction: toward recovering the Bible that built the church — the Septuagint. For too long, Protestants have treated the Greek Old Testament as a mere translation, a secondary source to be consulted only when the Hebrew is unclear. The evidence demands a different approach. The Septuagint is a primary witness to the Old Testament text — and in many cases, it is the best witness we have.

In the next chapter, we will turn to the second major thesis of this book — the case for the inspiration of the deuterocanonical books — and examine the prophetic and Messianic texts that bear the marks of divine inspiration. But first, let us recognize what we have established here: the Bible that the apostles used, the Bible that the church fathers defended, the Bible that the Dead Sea Scrolls have vindicated — that Bible is the Septuagint. And it is time for the Protestant church to recover it.