CHAPTER II - Later Greek Versions

Summary

1. At Alexandria and in Egypt generally the Alexandrian version was regarded, as Philo plainly says, with a reverence scarcely less than that which belonged to the original. It was the Bible of the Egyptian Jews, even of those who belonged to the educated and literary class. This feeling was shared by the rest of the Hellenistic world. In Palestine indeed the version seems to have been received with less enthusiasm, and whether it was used in the synagogues is still uncertain. But elsewhere its acceptance by Greek-speaking Jews was universal during the Apostolic age and in the next generation.

On the question of the use of the LXX. in the synagogues see Hody iii. I. I, Frankel, Vorstudien, p. 56 ff., König, Einleitung, p. 105 ff.; the negative is stoutly maintained by J. Lightfoot, hor. Hebr. (add. to 1 Cor. xiv.). If the Ep. to the Hebrews was addressed to the Church of Jerusalem, the preponderating use of the LXX. in its quotations from the O. T. is strong evidence, so far as it goes, for the acceptance of the LXX. by Palestinian Hellenists. Its use by St Paul vouches for the practice of the Hellenists of Asia Minor and Europe; no rival version had gained circulation at Antioch, Ephesus, or Rome. […]