The LXX

And as Paul was to be led into the castle, he said unto the chief captain, May I speak unto thee? Who said, Canst thou speak Greek? Acts. 21:17

Insiders like to refer to this classic Greek translation of the Old Testament as the Septuagint. This means the 70 (scholars) who made this amazing book. What it did was take the Hebrew texts, which can be hard for us to understand, and put them into Greek, which many consider the most precise language on Earth.

I mean, there are about 7 tenses to express things in. You can nail things down with Greek.

Now I am going to make a big jump here. But I recently watched one of my favorite movies again. It is "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". What possible connection can there be between this wonderful movie and the LXX?

Well, in the movie the father insists that every word can be traced back to a Greek origin. One of the kids tests him out with "kimono" and he even pulls that one off.

But we do owe a lot in our culture to this very precise language. Now I am not trying to be an expert, because I am not one. What I wish is that more Christians would avail themselves to classic language sources to find out what the Bible really says.

Am I urging anyone to buy some exotic book that only scholars have access to? Hardly. Try Amazon for around $30. Not to learn Greek, but to read in English one of the great sources of the Word. I bought an Interlinear, in paperback yet.

How I wish that the so-called "laity" would invade the elitest pretenders in churches and seize the high ground from them. "Look Ma, I can read!"

I heard a Baptist friend really railing over the translation of a word meaning "white of an egg" into "slime of the purslane". Hardly a big difference when translating the meaning of "bland or tasteless". No doctrinal conflicts there.

I can't imagine a church splitting up into an egg white group and a purslane group. But these--and truly great differences--can be resolved by looking at a good basic source like the LXX.

We should not be dominated and often mislead by those who claim superior knowledge. Were they born in Israel or Greece thousands of years ago. No? Then they got their information from books. We all can.

A young seminarian to be was advised by his old mentor, "Get a Septuagint." Good advice.