LXX Resources

I realize that the Septuagint isn't technically a "NT Resource," but I run across material regarding the LXX from time to time that I want to index. I'm not a specialist in that field, though I maintain a generalist's interest from the perspective of teaching Greek and NT--and I do teach a course in which we read a great deal from the LXX. At this point there aren't many items listed here.

• New 5/2/06, LXX Greek vocabulary list by frequency. One of the more frequent questions I've been asked over the past few years is, "Where can I find a vocabulary frequency list for the Septuagint?" I've not been able to point to any such tool, so eventually I got around to making a beginning attempt at offering such a tool. This one is by no means complete. It offers only the most frequent words from the LXX: all those which occur 100 or more times in the LXX--519 words, to be specific. My guess is that given the vocab size of the LXX, this may be roughly analogous to a first year Greek NT vocab list (which often gives words occurring 50+ times in the NT). Perhaps I will be able to extend it to include more words at a later time. I fully realize that some have hesitated to offer such a list until the Gottingen LXX is completed (and some folks are becoming cautiously optimistic that the Gottingen may actually be completed in our lifetime!), but so long as one realizes that this is a provisional list based on Rahlfs' text and the stats in Lust, Eynikel, and Hauspie's LXX lexicon, I think it will serve a useful, if limited, tool for those students who want to work on vocabulary beyond that of the NT for reading in the LXX. I also want to thank my wife for helping enter some of the LXX frequency data in my database.
  5/8/06, Thanks to a good suggestion from one of my former students, Rich Lucas, here's a subset list: all the words occurring in the LXX 100 or more times but less than 25 times in the NT--192 words.

• Reading notes for a number of LXX passages, some apostolic fathers, and the early Greek creeds (pdf files). These provide the full Greek text with translation, parsing, vocabulary, syntax notes. etc. for each. The notes are for one of my elective courses in which we read koine Greek outside the NT.
• The New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS), of which Psalms is in print (transl. Pietersma; Oxford, 2000), can be read in a provisional edition of the entire OT on the web.
• LXX texts online
  • Old Testament in Greek According to the Septuagint, ed. by H. B. Swete, v. 1, Genesis - 4 Kings; v. 2, 1 Chronicles - Tobit; v. 3, Hosea - 4 Maccabees (These are scanned images, not text. Follow the link "About this book" on the relevant Table of Contents page on the site linked here for the same in .rtf, .tiff, .png, and ThML formats.) This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library at Calvin College.
  • The Old Testament in Greek (A. E. Brooke, N. McLean, H. St-J. Thackeray, ed.; London : Cambridge University Press, 1906-) Complete, high-quality, scanned images of this classic critical edition of the LXX; includes Genesis-Ruth. Note: userID and password required--but the dialog box does provide public access info (read the first line carefully!).
  • TITUS (Thesaurus Indogermanischer Text-und Sprachmaterialien) searchable electronic edition (based on CCAT) using a Unicode font
  • MS Word zipped file of LXX text (Rahlfs) using Unicode font (from Ralph Hancock's site)
  • pdf files of LXX, book-by-book (also NT)
  • Origen's Hexapla, Field's edition, vol 1 (Gen-Esther), vol 2 (Job-Mal)
  • Brenton's parallel Greek-English edition of the LXX (image format), or just the English translation (text)
  • Rahlf's LXX with parallel translation (sometimes English, sometimes French!)
• Papyri images from LXX MSS (from Duke Papyrus Archive)
  • Prayer using LXX Psalms 26 and 41 in Greek (P.Duk.inv. 660)
  • LXX Psalm 50:17-20 in Greek (P.Duk.inv. 661 V)
  • LXX Psalm 88:4-8 and 15-18 in Greek (P.Duk.inv. 740)
  • LXX Psalm 90 in Greek (P.Duk.inv. 778)
  • Liturgical text with LXX Psalm 150 in Greek (P.Duk.inv. 668)
• Papyri images from LXX MSS, Univ. of Koln., P 967 Rahlfs (page text in German)
  • Books of Ezekiel, Daniel, Bel and the Dragon, Susanna, and Esther
• The Henry Barclay Swete site has a page with a number of Swete's LXX articles accessible (full text, a few of which I've linked just below), along with an extensive Swete bibliography. (Site is apparently "in transition" and there are some problems as of fall 2002.)
• Graetz's Theory of the LXX, The Expository Times 2 (1891) 209.
• The Old Testament in Greek. (H. B. Swete) Two Lectures given at the Cambridge Local Lectures Summer Meeting, July 1908: Origin, Contents, and Language of the Septuagint; other Greek versions of the Old Testament, The Interpreter 5 (1908/09) 17-33; and The Greek Old Testament in the Christian Church, The Interpreter 5 (1908/09) 129-146. [These links may or may not work; problems noted 11/02; try accessing them from the main "Swete site" listed above.]
• An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek by H. B. Swete (These are scanned images, not text. Follow the link "About this book" on the relevant Table of Contents page on the site linked here for the same in .rtf, .tiff, .png, and ThML formats.) This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library at Calvin College.
• An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek by H. B. Swete (Same book as above, but on the TC/RelTech site. These are scanned images, not text.)
• Grammar of Septuagint Greek by F. C. Conybeare (These are scanned images, not text. Follow the link "About this book" on the relevant Table of Contents page on the site linked here for the same in .rtf, .tiff, .png, and ThML formats.) This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library at Calvin College.
• Albert Pietersma's (editor/transl. of NETS) home page, includes links to a number of his own resources for both LXX and Greek NT
• Notes on the LXX (R. Grant Jones) Includes the history of the LXX and the New Testament authors' dependence on the Septuagint. Numerous lists and tables of data. Author states: "I am not an expert in either Greek or Hebrew. A physicist by education, I have no formal training in religion, theology or scripture studies."
• Septuagint Greek Compared to NT Greek, Lee Roy Martin (7/8/97)
• The 'Textual Mechanics' of Early Jewish LXX/OG Papyri and Fragments (Robert A. Kraft)
• Some Observations on Early Papyri and MSS for LXX/OG Study (Robert A. Kraft)
• The Transmission-History of the Septuagint (William W. Combs) < broken link; need new URL (if available)
• Review (by Gerard Norton) of Albert Pietersma, translator. A New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included under that Title: The Psalms. New York/Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000. pp. xxvii + 149. ISBN 0-19-529752-0 (cloth), 0-19-529753-9 (paper). US $29.99 (cloth), $12.99 (paper).
• Review (by James Barr) of Silva and Jobes, Invitation to the Septuagint (Baker, 2000).

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