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represents the latest testimony to the state of the text, but even with this valuable work in
our possession much remains to be done. The editions of Eusebius, Lucian and
Hesychius need to be disengaged so that it may be possible to see what the LXX was like
at the end of the third century. Then we need to go further back still to the text which the
translators had before them, and finally to discover what light the original text of the
LXX can throw upon the Hebrew text from which it was translated.
We trust that this attempt to place before the reader something of the task that has
been shouldered by men of God, to provide, as far as possible, means to arrive at the
actual inspired text, will stimulate us all to more earnest effort to search the sacred pages,
knowing that therein we have the truth.
#17. The Septuagint.---
Classification of O.T. quotations in the New.
pp. 189 - 192
One of the most interesting and perhaps, to us, the most vital reason for the study of
the LXX, is the way in which it is quoted in the N.T., and the way its doctrinal
vocabulary must influence the interpretation of N.T. teaching. Before we can appreciate
the extent of the influence of the LXX it will be necessary to supply the reader with a list
of quotations found in the N.T., so that they can be examined to see whether they agree or
disagree with the LXX version or the Massoretic Hebrew, or are independent translations.
We shall be helped, moreover, if we distinguish between
(1) Direct quotations which are introduced by the words: "That it might be fulfilled";
"It is written", and the like, or where the context makes it evident that a quotation is
intended, and
(2) Allusions to the O.T. which can hardly be classified as definite quotations.
Men of God have at different times laboured in this field, and the result of their
labours is found in different forms. "The New Testament Quotations" by Henry Gough
are an example of thorough-going work. His system is to give the original Hebrew, the
LXX version and the Greek of the Received text of the N.T., together with the A.V. in
English. In his preface Gough says:--
"Large as this collection is, it must not for a moment be supposed that it comprehends
all the verbal similarities to the Old Testament, and especially to the Septuagint version
of it, which the New Testament contains. In truth (quoting Grinfield) `the version of the
LXX is not to be regarded merely as the first most important of all versions of the O.T.,
whether ancient or modern, but as constituting a great historical fact or epoch in the plan
of the Christian dispensation'. The whole New Testament is founded upon it: most, if
not all, of the doctrinal terms of the gospel are derived from it: and had not such a
translation been published and received a proper time before our Saviour's advent, the
composition of the New Testament in Greek would, humanly speaking, have been
impossible."