:: St. Stephen's Musings ::

:: Wednesday, September 22, 2004 ::

Do You Have St. Paul's Bible?

While reading through the Greek Psalter and King James Version side-by-side, I noticed something you can mention to the next Protestant who asks you why the Orthodox Church uses the LXX:

In Romans 3:10ff St Paul quotes from Psalm 13 (14 MT):

"As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes." `

In the Septuagint Psalter we can see where St Paul is quoting from:

"...The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men: to see if there were any that would understand, and seek after God. But they are all gone out of the way, they are altogether become abominable: there is none that doeth good, no not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre, with their tongues have they deceived: the poison of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and unhappiness is in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known; there is no fear of God before their eyes. Have they no knowledge..."

But in the Psalms of the KJV most of St Paul's quote is missing:

"...The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did [understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.] Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge..."

The extra material that St Paul quotes from the Septuagint Psalter is missing from the Hebrew Masoretic Text - that's why the King James and many other Bibles are missing those verses. But they weren't missing from Saint Paul's Bible - because the Hebrew or Greek text he used was from the LXX text tradition.

* Props to Silouan from the Orthodox Convert Discussion Group for this.

:: Karl :: 8:01:00 AM [Link] ::