The Bible-Why So Many? - THE GREEK SEPTUAGINT

About 300 years ago before Jesus' day, Jewish scholars began to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into another language-Greek.  This translation became known as the Greek Septuagint.  Why was it made?  To help the many Jews who by then spoke Greek rather  than Hebrew to stay close to their "holy writings." -2 Timothy 3:15.

The Septuagint also helped millions of non-Jewish, Greek-speaking people to get to know what the Bible taught. How?  "From the middle of the first century," says Professor W.F. Howard,  "it became the Bible of the Christian Church, whose missionaries went to synagogue to synagogue 'proving from the scriptures that the Messiah was Jesus.' "  (Acts 17:3, 4; 20:20) That was one reason why many Jews soon lost interest in the Septuagint," according to Bible scholar F.F. Bruce.

As Jesus' disciples progressively received the books of the Christian Greek Scriptures, they put them together with the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, and that came to be the complete Bible we have today. 

Next time: The Bible-Why So Many? - THE LATIN VULGATE

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