The Legend of the Septuagint

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Dan McClellan (1:02)

And then somebody else says, no, the angels transformed into flames of fire and had sex with the women.

Dan Beecher (1:08)

I don't know how flames having sex with women is any better than angels having sex with women.

Dan McClellan (1:12)

Have you read literature from the first century? No.

Dan Beecher (1:16)

I try not to.

Dan McClellan (1:23)

Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher (1:24)

And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan (1:26)

And this is Data Over Dogma, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation. About the same, how is your day going, Dan?

Dan Beecher (1:38)

Day's going good. It's a good day to be alive. Just being alive is probably preferable to an alternative.

Dan McClellan (1:47)

I feel the same.

Dan Beecher (1:48)

It's hard to know. It's frankly, I've never not been alive that I can remember, so it's hard to know, but things are going well. And I'm excited to talk about the things we're going to talk about. The first thing we're going to talk about, and you guys have to stick with us, even though this is going to be a lot of things that you might not instantly recognize, because it's really fun and it's really interesting. It's the letter of Aristeas.

And you know, I didn't know what that was. If you do know what it is, you are better educated about this than I am. And that's fine, good.

Dan McClellan (2:22)

But there are going to be connections, though, to things that you probably do know about. So you should be able to gain some purchase on this with a little trouble.

Dan Beecher (2:30)

Yeah, if you watch this show, the word Septuagint, or listen to this show, the word Septuagint is one that you'll understand, and we're gonna dive into that whole thing. Yeah. And apparently a bunch of lies about where it came from. Anyway, and then after that, in the second part of the show, we're gonna be talking about some passages from Exodus and how you're supposed to deal with it if somebody, if two people think they own the same thing.

Dan McClellan (3:04)

Yeah, if something gets lost or stolen or something and two people both claim it was theirs, what do you do? We got this one weird trick from Exodus 22 and I'm really interested in the way that people mistranslate what's going on there in order to try to make it sound a little less problematic from a theological point of view.

Dan Beecher (3:26)

Oh cool, we're gonna get problematic. That's gonna be fun. Yep. Okay, all right. Well, with that said, let's dive into our what is that?

So this week's what is that? I mean, we could call it the Septuagint, just what is that part? But we're starting with this letter of Aristeas. Yes. And it's a letter that you made me read and I resent you for that a little bit.

Dan McClellan (3:55)

Did you read the whole thing?

Dan Beecher (3:57)

Well, I skimmed a few parts, I'll be honest.

Dan McClellan (3:59)

So no, okay, yeah.

Dan Beecher (4:00)

No, no. That's fine, that's fine. Why would I do that? It's long.

Dan McClellan (4:02)

No, it was long. Yeah, it is. And there's a lot of stuff in there that you're like, why would anyone care about this?

Dan Beecher (4:10)

Right. And I'm not going to read the names of all the elders. I'm just not. I'm sorry.

Dan McClellan (4:13)

Yeah, no, no. There's no need for that. But if you haven't heard of the Letter of Aristeas, and for whatever reason you're listening to our show, you probably have heard the word Septuagint, which is a reference to the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. And some people might wonder, where does Septuagint come from? Well, it comes from a Greek word for 70 Sept might sound familiar. And the notion that the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible has something to do with the number 70 actually derives from the tradition that we find in the Letter of Aristeas.