Editing Bible (section)

=== Septuagint ===
{{Main|Septuagint|Jewish apocrypha}}{{See also|Deuterocanonical books|Biblical apocrypha}}
[[File:Codex Vaticanus (1 Esdras 1-55 to 2-5) (The S.S. Teacher's Edition-The Holy Bible).jpg|thumb|A fragment of a Septuagint: A column of [[uncial]] book from [[1 Esdras]] in the ''[[Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209|Codex Vaticanus]]'' c. 325–350&nbsp;CE, the basis of Sir [[Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton]]'s [[Greek language|Greek]] edition and [[Brenton's English Translation of the Septuagint|English translation]]]]
[[File:KJV 1769 Oxford Edition, vol. 1.djvu|page=21|thumb|The contents page in a complete 80 book [[King James Bible]], listing "The Books of the Old Testament", "The Books called Apocrypha", and "The Books of the New Testament".|link=File:KJV_1769_Oxford_Edition,_vol._1.djvu%3Fpage=21]]
The Septuagint ("the Translation of the Seventy", also called "the LXX"), is a Koine Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible begun in the late third century BCE.

As the work of translation progressed, the Septuagint expanded: the collection of prophetic writings had various [[hagiographa|hagiographical]] works incorporated into it. In addition, some newer books such as the [[Books of the Maccabees]] and the [[Sirach|Wisdom of Sirach]] were added. These are among the "apocryphal" books, (books whose authenticity is doubted). The inclusion of these texts, and the claim of some mistranslations, contributed to the Septuagint being seen as a "careless" translation and its eventual rejection as a valid Jewish scriptural text.{{sfn|Fitzmeyer|1992|p=41}}{{sfn|Marcos|2000|p=21}}{{efn| According to the Jewish Encyclopedia: "The translation, which shows at times a peculiar ignorance of Hebrew usage, was evidently made from a codex which differed widely in places from the text crystallized by the Masorah."<ref name="JewishEncyclopedia.com">{{cite web |title=Bible Translations – The Septuagint |url=http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3269-bible-translations |publisher=JewishEncyclopedia.com |access-date=10 February 2012 |archive-date=15 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120315222428/http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3269-bible-translations |url-status=live}}</ref>}}

The apocrypha are Jewish literature, mostly of the Second Temple period (c. 550 BCE – 70 CE); they originated in Israel, Syria, Egypt or Persia; were originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, and attempt to tell of biblical characters and themes.{{sfn|Pace|2016|pp=349–350}} Their provenance is obscure. One older theory of where they came from asserted that an "Alexandrian" canon had been accepted among the Greek-speaking Jews living there, but that theory has since been abandoned.{{sfn|Blocher|2004|p=82}} Indications are that they were not accepted when the rest of the Hebrew canon was.{{sfn|Blocher|2004|p=82}} It is clear the Apocrypha were used in New Testament times, but "they are never quoted as Scripture."{{sfn|Blocher|2004|p=86}} In modern Judaism, none of the apocryphal books are accepted as authentic and are therefore excluded from the canon. However, "the Ethiopian Jews, who are sometimes called Falashas, have an expanded canon, which includes some Apocryphal books".{{sfn|Gerber|1994|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=DygOmktEvFMC&pg=PA43 43–46]}}

The rabbis also wanted to distinguish their tradition from the newly emerging tradition of Christianity.{{efn|name="ndq"|"[...] die griechische Bibelübersetzung, die einem innerjüdischen Bedürfnis entsprang [...] [von den] Rabbinen zuerst gerühmt (.) Später jedoch, als manche ungenaue Übertragung des hebräischen Textes in der Septuaginta und Übersetzungsfehler die Grundlage für hellenistische Irrlehren abgaben, lehte man die Septuaginta ab." {{harvnb|Homolka|Jacob|Chorin|1999|loc=Bd.3|pp=43ff}}}}{{efn|"Two things, however, rendered the Septuagint unwelcome in the long run to the Jews. Its divergence from the accepted text (afterward called the Masoretic) was too evident; and it therefore could not serve as a basis for theological discussion or for homiletic interpretation. This distrust was accentuated by the fact that it had been adopted as Sacred Scripture by the new faith [Christianity] [...] In course of time it came to be the canonical Greek Bible [...] It became part of the Bible of the Christian Church."<ref name="JewishEncyclopedia.com"/>}} Finally, the [[rabbi]]s claimed a divine authority for the Hebrew language, in contrast to Aramaic or Greek – even though these languages were the ''[[lingua franca]]'' of Jews during this period (and Aramaic would eventually be given the status of a [[sacred language]] comparable to Hebrew).{{efn|Mishnah Sotah (7:2–4 and 8:1), among many others, discusses the sacredness of Hebrew, as opposed to Aramaic or Greek. This is comparable to the authority claimed for the original Arabic Koran according to Islamic teaching. As a result of this teaching, translations of the Torah into Koine Greek by early Jewish Rabbis have survived as rare fragments only.}}

==== Incorporations from Theodotion ====
The Book of Daniel is preserved in the 12-chapter Masoretic Text and in two longer Greek versions, the original Septuagint version, {{circa|100&nbsp;BCE}}, and the later [[Theodotion]] version from {{circa|second century CE}}. Both Greek texts contain three [[additions to Daniel]]: The [[Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children]]; the story of [[Susanna (Book of Daniel)|Susannah and the Elders]]; and the story of [[Bel and the Dragon]]. Theodotion's translation was so widely copied in the [[Early Christian]] church that its version of the [[Book of Daniel]] virtually superseded the Septuagint's. The priest [[Jerome]], in his preface to Daniel (407 CE), records the rejection of the Septuagint version of that book in Christian usage: "I ... wish to emphasize to the reader the fact that it was not according to the Septuagint version but according to the version of Theodotion himself that the churches publicly read Daniel."<ref>{{cite web |title=St. Jerome, Commentary on Daniel (1958) pp. 15–157 |url=http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/jerome_daniel_02_text.htm |website=www.tertullian.org |access-date=2 February 2022 |archive-date=26 May 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100526033151/http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/jerome_daniel_02_text.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> Jerome's preface also mentions that the ''[[Hexapla]]'' had notations in it, indicating several major differences in content between the Theodotion Daniel and the earlier versions in Greek and Hebrew.

Theodotion's Daniel is closer to the surviving Hebrew Masoretic Text version, the text which is the basis for most modern translations. Theodotion's Daniel is also the one embodied in the authorized edition of the Septuagint published by [[Sixtus V]] in 1587.<ref>[[s:Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Book of Daniel|Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)]]</ref>

==== Final form ====
{{Further|Deuterocanonical books|Biblical apocrypha}}
Textual critics are now debating how to reconcile the earlier view of the Septuagint as 'careless' with content from the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran, scrolls discovered at Wadi Murabba'at, Nahal Hever, and those discovered at Masada. These scrolls are 1000–1300 years older than the Leningrad text, dated to 1008 CE, which forms the basis of the Masoretic text.{{sfn|Fitzmeyer|1992|p=40}} The scrolls have confirmed much of the Masoretic text, but they have also differed from it, and many of those differences agree with the Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch or the Greek Old Testament instead.{{sfn|Fitzmeyer|1992|p=41}}

Copies of some texts later declared apocryphal are also among the Qumran texts.{{sfn|Blocher|2004|p=82}} Ancient manuscripts of the book of Sirach, the "Psalms of Joshua", Tobit, and the Epistle of Jeremiah are now known to have existed in a Hebrew version.{{sfn|Fitzmeyer|1992|pp=14, 52}} The Septuagint version of some biblical books, such as the Book of Daniel and Book of Esther, are longer than those in the Jewish canon. In the Septuagint, Jeremiah is shorter than in the Masoretic text, but a shortened Hebrew Jeremiah has been found at Qumran in cave 4.{{sfn|Fitzmeyer|1992|p=41}} The scrolls of Isaiah, Exodus, Jeremiah, Daniel and Samuel exhibit striking and important textual variants from the Masoretic text.{{sfn|Fitzmeyer|1992|p=41}} The Septuagint is now seen as a careful translation of a different Hebrew form or recension (revised addition of the text) of certain books, but debate on how best to characterize these varied texts is ongoing.{{sfn|Fitzmeyer|1992|p=41}}