rts that it is not easy
to give its character as a whole. It is agreed among biblical scholars
that the translators of the Pentateuch excelled in ability and fidelity,
according to the well-known judgment of Jerome--"which [the books of
Moses] we also acknowledge to agree more than the others with the
Hebrew." Among the historical books the translations of Samuel and Kings
are the most faulty. Those of the prophets are in general poor,
especially that of Isaiah. That of Daniel was so faulty that the
Christians in later times substituted for it the translation of
Theodotion. See below, No. 10. Among the poetical books that of Proverbs
is the best. As a whole the Septuagint version cannot for a moment enter
into competition with the Hebrew original. Yet, as the most ancient of
versions and one which also represents a text much older than the
Masoretic, its use is indispensable to every scholar who would study the
Old Testament in the original language.

6. Independently of its critical value, the Septuagint must be regarded
with deep interest from its close connection with the New Testament. In
the days of Christ and his apostles it was known and read throughout the
whole Roman empire by the Hellenists; that is, by those Jews and Jewish
proselytes who had the Greek civilization and spoke the Greek language.
As the Alexandrine Greek, in which this version was made, was itself
pervaded throughout with the Hebrew spirit, and to a great extent also
with Hebrew idioms and forms of thought, so was the language of the New
Testament, in turn, moulded and shaped by the dialect of the Septuagint,
nor can the former be successfully studied except in connection with the
latter. Then again the greatest number of quotations in the New
Testament from the Old is made from the Septuagint. According to Mr.
Greenfield (quoted in Smith's Bible Dict., art. Septuagint) "the number
of direct quotations from the Old Testament in the Gospels, Acts, and
Epistles, may be estimated at three hundred and fifty, of which not more
than fifty materially differ from the seventy. But the indirect verbal
allusions would swell the number to a far greater amount." The
discussion of the principles upon which the writers of the New Testament
quote from the Old belongs to another part of this work. It may be
briefly remarked here that they quote in a free spirit, not in that of
servile adherence to the letter, aiming to give the substance of the
sacred writers'