The First Bible of the Church: A Plea for the Septuagint

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“Physically, the invention of the codex encouraged the formation of a canon, because it had to be decided which books should go inside the binding as well as the order in which they needed to be placed. While the Christian church ‘adopted’ the codex very early, Judaism adhered to scrolls.” (Page 32)

“In respect to the ‘original’ text of the Old Testament, already the use made of the Jewish Bible by New Testament authors poses an immediate problem. Apparently they use not only the Hebrew Bible text, but, to an even greater extent, the translation of it into Greek, which had been created in the third and second centuries bce.” (Page 19)

“In Philo, it is expressly stated that the project was in accordance with God’s will, and that the result was inspired. This means that the Greek Bible is not a daughter version, but a ‘sister’ enjoying equal rights.” (Page 63)

“Today it is an open question whether the Septuagint should be reinstalled as the Old Testament of the Church.” (Page 7)

“If, as stated above, canonization is defined not only as the recognition of a writing as sacred but also as the final fixing of its wording, it is then hardly possible to speak of a Jewish canon until the third or fourth century ce.” (Pages 31–32)