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→Objections to the Septuagint: St Jerome's use of the LXX
== Objections to the Septuagint ==
== Objections to the Septuagint ==
Any translation is automatically suspect, if only because of differences in grammar and idiom between the source and target languages. However, the later Jews, especially after the failure of the [[Simon bar Kochva]] rebellion, determined never to accept anything that had a non-Jewish influence. Therefore, since midway through the second century AD, Jews have used Hebrew texts. The [[Masoretic Text]], which was put together around 900 A.D., is based upon these earlier Hebrew translations and is the text that is used today both for those who read Hebrew, and for translating to other languages.
Any translation is automatically suspect, if only because of differences in grammar and idiom between the source and target languages. However, the later Jews, especially after the failure of the [[Simon bar Kochva]] rebellion, determined never to accept anything that had a non-Jewish influence. Therefore, since midway through the second century AD, Jews have used Hebrew texts. The [[Masoretic Text]], which was put together around 900 A.D., is based upon these earlier Hebrew translations and is the text that is used today both for those who read Hebrew, and for translating to other languages.
Saint Jerome used the Septuagint as the basis of the Gallican Psalter and the book of Job of the [[Latin Vulgate| Vulgate]]. After more than a decade he decided the Septuagint was too fraught with mistranslations to be acceptable; at the beginning of the fifth century AD Jerome used only copies of biblical books in Hebrew and in some places Aramaic.<ref>http://www.ntcanon.org/Vulgate.shtml</ref>
[[James Ussher]], who made himself an expert on [[Semitic]] languages, concluded that the Septuagint contained errors of translation, and even errors of fact, that he considered critical and fatal to his purpose of determining a unified chronology of the world. For that reason, he rejected the Septuagint in favor of the Masoretic Text.
[[James Ussher]], who made himself an expert on [[Semitic]] languages, concluded that the Septuagint contained errors of translation, and even errors of fact, that he considered critical and fatal to his purpose of determining a unified chronology of the world. For that reason, he rejected the Septuagint in favor of the Masoretic Text.