Jan Joosten

The Origin of the Septuagint Canon

The earliest Christian Bibles, of the fourth and fifth century onward, con-
tain in their Old Testament part several books that are absent from the He-
brew canon.1 The additional books are not in all codices exactly the same
ones, but there is an irreducible core: Ben Sira, Wisdom of Solomon, To-
bit, Judith.2 The outlines of a distinct Septuagint canon are recognized also
in Patristic and synodic lists of the early Christian centuries.3 The lists pre-
sent a complex image, however: clearly the early Church knows of the He-
brew canon with its 22 or 24 books, and several prominent figures, from
Origen onwards, argue for the need to adhere to it.4 At the same time, the
larger canon of the great codices is also widely known.5

1
See HENRY B ARCLAY S WETE, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, Cam-
bridge: CUP, 1914, 197–230; GILLES DORIVAL, MARGUERITE HARL, OLIVIER MUNNICH,
La bible grecque des Septante, Paris: Cerf, 1988, 112–119; MARTIN HENGEL, The Septu-
agint as Christian Scripture. Its Prehistory and the Problem of Its Canon, Edinburgh:
T&T Clark, 2002, 57–74. See also, in a wider perspective, LOREN T. STUCKENBRUCK,
Apocrypha and Septuagint: Exploring the Christian Canon, in Thomas S. Caulley, Her-
mann Lichtenberger (eds.), The Septuagint and Christian Origins (WUNT 277),
Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010, 177–201.
2
In addition to these four, any or all of the four books of Maccabees are sometimes
included. Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah are to be viewed as belonging to the core
group, but they are generally regarded as belonging to the book of Jeremiah, in the way
Susanna and Bel and the Dragon are considered to be part of Daniel. 1 Esdras is a special
case: most likely it should not be regarded as an additional book but as the Old Greek
equivalent of Ezra-Nehemiah. For all these issues, see the very precise indications in
SWETE, Introduction, 265–288.
3
See SWETE (n. 1) and P IERRE-MAURICE B OGAERT, Aux origines de la fixation du
Canon : Scriptoria, listes et titres. Le Vaticanus et la Stichométrie de Mommsen, in Jean-
Marie Auwers, Henk Jan de Jonge (eds.), The Biblical Canons (Bibliotheca Ephemeri-
dum theologicarum Lovaniensium 163), Leuven: Peeters, 2003, 153–176.
4
On tensions in Origen’s views on the canon of the Old Testament, see the brief
statement of J AMES N. B. CARLETON P AGET, The Christian Exegesis of the Old Testa-
ment in the Alexandrian Tradition, in Magne Saebø (ed.), Hebrew Bible/Old Testament.
The History of Its Interpretation, vol. I/1 Antiquity, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht,1996, 478–542, in particular 502–503.
5
Bogaert has convincingly argued that the distinction of two categories within the
larger canon – books that are also in the Hebrew canon and books that are not – is sec-
ondary and reflects an attempt to reconcile the two canons. See P IERRE-MAURICE B O-
 The Origin of the Septuagint Canon 689

How to explain the existence of a distinct Septuagint canon is a long-

standing problem. The more extensive list is hardly of Christian origin.6
Although the additional books came in time to be cherished by the Church,
and impacted its doctrine significantly, they are undoubtedly Jewish writ-
ings going back to pre-Christian times.7 They are never quoted as scripture
in the New Testament.8 It is hard to see why Christian groups would have
selected them and added them to an existing canon. Most scholars accept
therefore that Christianity inherited the Septuagint canon from some form
of Judaism. Since the eighteenth century, the most common approach to
the Septuagint canon held that it was inherited from Egyptian Judaism.9
This is the hypothesis of an “Alexandrian canon” transmitted from a Jew-
ish group in the western diaspora to early Christianity. A very sober de-
fense of the view can be found in Henry Swete’s Introduction to the Old
Testament in Greek.10 It was widely admitted until the middle of the twen-
tieth century. In more recent times it has almost universally been aban-
doned.11

GAERT, Les frontières du canon de l’Ancien Testament dans l’Occident latin, in Rémi
Gounelle, Jan Joosten (eds.), La Bible juive dans l’Antiquité (Histoire du Texte Biblique
9), Prahins: Zèbre, 2014, 41–95.
6
Admittedly, this statement is true only in regard to the historical origins of the Sep-
tuagint canon, not to its explicit definition as a rule of the faith. The official publication
of the Septuagint canon as an exclusive list of works regarded as authoritative for faith
and practice happened only in the Christian era (see HENGEL, Septuagint as Scripture).
But the collection as such can hardly have been drawn up first in the Christian church.
See ALISON S ALVESEN’s perceptive remarks on this point in her review of HENGEL, Sep-
tuagint as Scripture, in JThS 54 (2003), 631–634, in particular 631.
7
See for instance J AN W ILLEM VAN HENTEN, The Christianization of the Maccabean
Martyrs: the Case of Origen, in Johann Leemans (ed.), Martyrdom and Persecution in
Late Ancient Christianity: Festschrift Boudewijn Dehandschutter (BEThL 241), Leuven:
Peeters, 2010, 333–352.
8
A small number of passages quoted as scripture are not from what would later
emerge as the rabbinic-masoretic canon, but they are not found in the Septuagint canon
either, e.g. Jude 14–15. Allusions and assonances of the additional books of the Septua-
gint exist but they are never explicitly presented as scripture. See e.g. MARC P HILONEN-
KO, De l'intérêt des deutérocanoniques pour l'interprétation du Nouveau Testament :
l’exemple de Luc 16, 9, Revue des Sciences Religieuses 280 (1999), 177–183.
9
The hypothesis is usually attributed to J OHANN SALOMO SEMLER (1771), but
Sundberg indicates a number of forerunners in Antiquity and in the early eighteenth cen-
tury, see ALBERT CARL SUNDBERG, The Old Testament of the Early Church Revisited, in
Thomas J. Sienkewicz and James E. Betts, eds., Festschrift in Honor of Charles Speel,
Monmouth IL: Monmouth College, 1997, 88–110, in particular note 24.
10
See above, note 1.
11
Armin Lange signals a recent revival of the hypothesis in various quarters, see AR-
MIN LANGE , The Canonical History of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament
in Light of Egyptian Judaism, in Wolfgang Kraus, Siegfried Kreuzer, eds., Die Septua-
ginta – Text, Wirkung, Rezeption (WUNT 325), Tübingen, Mohr-Siebeck, 2014,
690 Jan Joosten

The turning point was a monograph of Albert Sundberg, who argued

that the Septuagint canon reflects the canon of a Jewish group in Pales-
tine.12 Sundberg points out that the writings retrieved from the Qumran
caves are not limited to the Rabbinic canon. This indicates that, before the
Jewish wars, different groups may have accepted different collections of
writings. Copies of some of the additional books of the Septuagint, notably
Tobit and Ben Sira, were found in Qumran. The fact that the Septuagint
collection is attested only in Greek (and in translation from Greek) is not
felt to be an obstacle: Greek was not used only by diaspora Jews, it was
pervasive also in the home country. The Greek version of the Hebrew
Scriptures was read and used in Palestine, as proven by finds in Qumran
and in Nahal Hever.
Some of Sundberg’s points are open to debate. Nevertheless, one argu-
ment is absolutely on target: the hypothesis of an Alexandrian canon lacks
proof.13 There is very little evidence indicating that Jews from Alexandria
during the Hellenistic period recognized anything like the canon known
from the fourth- and fifth-century codices. The extensive writings of Philo
attest exclusively the use of books from the Hebrew canon as Scripture.14
At the Wuppertal conference of 2012, Armin Lange demonstrated that oth-
er Egyptian-Jewish literature shows a similar picture.15 Following
Sundberg, absence of proof was interpreted as proof of absence: since the
Septuagint canon could not be demonstrated to have been known to Alex-
andrian Jews, the hypothesis was rejected.16
To my mind, the hypothesis of an “Alexandrian canon” – the adjective
“Alexandrian” is not to be pressed here, what is at issue is its background
in the western diaspora, in Egypt – has been abandoned over-hastily. The
hypothesis cannot be established on external grounds. The mere presence
of the additional books in later Christian codices cannot prove that the

660–680, in particular 661–662. The most significant recent advocate of the hypothesis is
ROBERT HANHART (Introduction in HENGEL, Septuagint as Scripture, 1–17, in particular
2–5; but see above note 5).
12
ALBERT CARL SUNDBERG, The Old Testament of the Early Church (HTS 20), Cam-
bridge: Harvard University, 1964.
13
See e.g. HENGEL, Septuagint as Scripture.
14
There may be some echoes of Ben Sira and Wisdom, as suggested in J EAN ALLEN-
BACH ET AL., Biblia Patristica. Supplément: Philon d’Alexandrie, Paris: CNRS, 1982, 90–
91. All of them may reflect commonality of thought and milieu rather than real contact.
Certainly none of them is introduced formally as a quotation.
15
LANGE, Canonical History.
16
HARL, DORIVAL, MUNNICH, La bible grecque, 112–119; HENGEL, Septuagint as
Scripture; J. LUST, Septuagint and Canon, in Auwers, de Jonge (eds.), The Biblical Ca-
nons, 39–55; GILLES DORIVAL, La formation du canon des Écritures juives. Histoire de la
recherche et perspectives nouvelles, in R. Gounelle, J. Joosten (eds.), La Bible juive dans
l’Antiquité (Histoire du Texte Biblique 9), Prahins: Zèbre, 2014, 9–40.
 The Origin of the Septuagint Canon 691

Greek-speaking church picked up on an Hellenistic-Jewish tradition going

back to pre-Christian times. The hypothesis is favored by internal data,
however. The Septuagint canon is a Greek canon that could not possibly
have existed in a Semitic version. It possesses a degree of coherence that
characterizes it as a corpus. Various indications suggest an Egyptian back-
ground. Moreover, the postulate of a distinct Alexandrian canon fits in
with other recent insights on the Septuagint. It would seem worthwhile,
then, to revisit the question of the Alexandrian canon. Against the flow of
research over the last fifty years or so, I would like in this paper to present
some arguments for the older approach.

Prolegomena

In regard to the canon, or canons, of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament,

many questions continue to be intensely debated.17 Indeed, the notion of
canon itself is slippery and hard to define. It would not be fruitful to at-
tempt even a quick overview of the problems it raises. But two points de-
serve to be mentioned briefly.
To begin with, there are two sides to a canon. A canon implies a limited
list of writings, but also a definite status, or function, within a given com-
munity. While the list is usually clearly circumscribed, explicit statements
on the status of the writings are not always forthcoming. The writings may
be regarded as genuine, authoritative, sacred, inspired, or revealed, or they
may be the ones that are read in the liturgy. The canonical status may be
stipulated expressly by some authorized body, but that is not always the
case. Canonicity may also be achieved de facto without public notice. The
status may be complex, or debated, or it may evolve over time, even within
one and the same community. In the present paper, the term “canon” will
be used in reference to the collection as such, while wider religious or the-
ological implications will play a subordinate role only.
Secondly, a canon involves not only the number of books belonging to
it, but also other features such as the sequence of the books,18 the inner

17
See the essays in Auwers, de Jonge (eds.), The Biblical Canons. Menahem Haran
has published three volumes in Hebrew on the emergence of the canon: MENAHEM
HARAN, The Biblical Collection. Its Consolidation to the End of the Second Temple
Times and Changes of Form to the End of the Middle Ages, vol. 1–3, Jerusalem: Magnes
1996, 2003, 2008.
18
An extensive, and somewhat idiosyncratic, exploration of the different sequences of
books found in the early codices is presented in HEINZ-J OSEF FABRY, The Biblical Canon
and Beyond: Theological and Historical Context of the Codices of Alexandria, in Johann
Cook, Herman-Josef Stipp (eds.), Text-Critical and Hermeneutical Studies in the Septua-
gint (SVT 157), Leiden: Brill, 2012, 21–34.
692 Jan Joosten

organization of the corpus, and the names of the single writings. To name
only one example, a striking difference between the Septuagint canon and
the Hebrew canon is that Daniel is numbered with the prophetic books in
the former but among the “writings” in the latter. Such other features are
important, but they will not be the focus of the present article. They must
be left for future investigation and discussion.19

The Septuagint canon and the Greek language

A first observation that needs to be made with regard to the Septuagint

canon – even if it may appear to be overly obvious – is that it exists only in
Greek, and could exist only in Greek. The linguistic difference between the
Hebrew and Greek canons is at times treated as incidental. However, in
regard to the Septuagint canon, the question of language is in fact crucial.
The Greek Old Testament is made up, roughly, of three categories of
Greek compositions:
• Greek translations of Hebrew or Aramaic writings, including of course
all the books that are in the Hebrew canon, but also Tobit and Ben Sira.20
• Greek additions to some of the translated books, for instance, addi-
tions B and D in Esther, and the prayer of Azariah in Daniel.21
• Books written directly in Greek, such as Wisdom and, according to
several recent studies, Judith.22

19
In other regards too I will at times present a simplified picture, while complicating
factors will be merely indicated in the notes.
20
Special mention should be made of 1 Esdras, translated from a Semitic original ra-
ther different from, yet still in some way equivalent to, the Masoretic book of Ezra-
Nehemiah.
21
For the Greek origin of the prayer of Azariah, see J AN J OOSTEN, La Prière
d’Azarias (Daniel LXX 3,26–45). Première partie : la question de la langue originale, in
Daniel Gerber, Pierre Keith (eds.), Les hymnes du Nouveau Testament et leurs fonctions.
XXIIe congrès de l’ACFEB (Strasbourg 2007) (Lectio Divina 225), Paris: Cerf, 2009,
373–384. The Semitic or Greek origin of many additions in the Septuagint (e.g. Baruch,
Letter of Jeremiah, Bel and the Dragon, Susanna) is debated. This issue cannot be exten-
sively rehearsed in this paper. Note also the unique case of the Greek prologue to Ben
Sira (cf. the epilogue to Greek Esther).
22
For the Greek origin of Judith, see J AN J OOSTEN, The Original Language and His-
torical Milieu of the Book of Judith, Meghillot 5–6: A Festschrift for Devorah Dimant
(2007), *159–*176 (with references to earlier literature); J EREMY CORLEY, Septuagintal-
ism, Semitic Interference, and the Original Language of the Book of Judith, in Jeremy
Corley, Vincent Skemp (eds.), Studies in the Greek Bible. Essays in Honor of Francis T.
Gignac (CBQMS 44), Washington: CBA, 2008, 65–96. B ARBARA SCHMITZ, HELMUT
ENGEL, Judit (Herders theologischer Kommentar), Freiburg: Herder, 2014. Also original-
ly Greek are 2 and 3 Macc.
 The Origin of the Septuagint Canon 693

While the Greek dress might be considered accidental in regard to the

first category, the second and third categories could only be present in a
Greek canon. At a pinch, one might argue that the Greek additions in Es-
ther and Daniel are the by-product of a very free translation technique and
do not change the basic character of the books. The books of Wisdom and
Judith, however, could never have been part of a Semitic canon.
The full shape of the Septuagint canon must therefore go back to a
Greek-speaking group. Whether this group was Jewish or Christian, and
where it was located, cannot be decided on the basis of this observation
alone.

The Septuagint canon as a coherent corpus

In recent writing on the canon one sometimes gets the impression that ca-
nonical books were selected more or less randomly from a much larger
array of “scriptural” books.23 The Rabbinic and Septuagintal canons are
viewed as alternative end results of this random process. Whatever the
merit of this approach in regard to the Hebrew canon, it runs the risk of
ignoring an important characteristic of the Septuagint canon. When one
envisages the Greek “Old Testament” as a whole, one can only be struck
by the way linguistic and intertextual links tie together its various parts.
Signs of coherence are observed already in the Pentateuch. Although
each book of the Greek Pentateuch is probably the work of a different per-
son or team, there is a strong family relationship among the five books.
Several striking renderings – διαθήκη for berît “covenant”, θυσιαστήριον for
mizbeaḥ “altar”, and many others – are used throughout. These Greek
words are not the obvious equivalents of their Hebrew counterpart. On the
supposition that the books were translated in sequence, one may imagine
that the translators of Genesis first selected or coined these words and that
their colleagues working on the other books followed in their footsteps.24
Of course, this continuity is not without exceptions. Some translation
equivalents vary from book to book. So does the translation technique:
Leviticus and Deuteronomy are more literal than Genesis or Exodus, while
Numbers goes its own peculiar ways. Nevertheless, the Greek Pentateuch
as a whole clearly coheres as a corpus. Because some of the vocabulary is

23
Incisive criticism of this approach is presented in Haran’s magnum opus referred to
above in note 16.
24
Some of these words may have existed in the Jewish sociolect even before the
translation of the Pentateuch.
694 Jan Joosten

uncommon in Greek, it is probably correct to say that the coherence is

greater in the version than in the source text.25
This continuity stretches out beyond the Pentateuch. The special reli-
gious vocabulary devised in the Pentateuch continues in use in the other
translated books.26 Some books even seem to employ the Pentateuch as a
kind of dictionary for rare or difficult Hebrew words.27 Another striking
characteristic of the later translated books is the creation of intertextual
references to the Pentateuch (occasionally also to other Septuagint books),
sometimes against the Hebrew text.28 One example may illustrate this phe-
nomenon. In Ben Sira 7:31, the sage advises to honor God and the priest
by giving diverse types of holy offerings. The Greek version corresponds
closely to the Hebrew text transmitted in manuscripts A and D from the
Geniza. In one detail, however, there is a divergence: the Hebrew expres-
sion trwmt yd “offering of the hand” is rendered as δόσιν βραχιόνων “a gift
of arms”. The rendering remains mysterious until one realizes that the
priestly portion given from sacrifices is defined as the “arm” (βραχίων) in
thirteen passages in the Pentateuch. In all but one of these passages, the
Hebrew text does not specify the arm, but the “hind leg” (‫ )שוק‬as the
priestly portion. The translator of Ben Sira interpreted trwmt yd as “offer-
ing of arms” in reference to the Greek Pentateuch.29
Some of the Greek additions to Septuagint books also link up with the
Pentateuch and other translated books. As in the post-Pentateuchal transla-
tions, the religious vocabulary of the Greek Pentateuch is adopted in these
texts. But some of the additions go well beyond the adoption of religious

25
In other words, the Septuagint stands out against other Greek texts of the same pe-
riod in a way the Hebrew Bible does not against contemporary Hebrew texts (as far as we
know).
26
EMANUEL T OV, The Impact of the Septuagint Translation of the Torah on the Trans-
lation of the Other Books, in Emanuel Tov, The Greek and Hebrew Bible: Collected
Essays on the Septuagint (SVT 72), Leiden: Brill, 1999, 183–194.
27
For Psalms, see J AN J OOSTEN, The Impact of the Septuagint Pentateuch on the
Greek Psalms, in Melvin K. H. Peters (ed.), XIII Congress of the International Organiza-
tion for Septuagint and Cognate Studies. Ljubljana 2007 (Septuagint and Cognate Studies
55), Atlanta: SBL, 2008, 197–205.
28
For Psalms, see my article quoted in the preceding footnote. For the Twelve Minor
Prophets, see MYRTO T HEOCHAROUS, Lexical Dependence and Intertextual Allusion in
the Septuagint of the Twelve Prophets. Studies in Hosea, Amos and Micah (LHBOTS
570), New York: T & T Clark, 2012.
29
In more detail, see J AN JOOSTEN, “A Gift of Arms.” The Greek Translation of Sir
7:31 and the Interpretive Process Underlying the Septuagint, forthcoming in a Festschrift.
For another examples, Lev 26:5 LXX referred to in Amos 9:13 LXX, see ROBERT HAN-
HART, The Translation of the Septuagint, in George J. Brooke, Barnabas Lindars (eds.),
Septuagint, Scrolls and Cognate Writings (SCS 33), Atlanta: Scholars, 1992, 339–379, in
part 360–361.
 The Origin of the Septuagint Canon 695

vocabulary. To take only one striking example, the Prayer of Azariah in

Dan 3 is made up of a dense web of allusions and references to earlier
texts: Exodus, Deuteronomy, 2 Samuel, Ezekiel, Micah, Psalms.30 Interest-
ingly, the wording of the allusions is in every case that of the Septuagint.
Moreover, in at least one instance, the allusion exploits peculiar features of
the Septuagint absent from the attested Hebrew text. This suggests, as I
have argued extensively in an earlier publication, that the prayer was com-
posed in Greek.31 More precisely, the prayer was composed from the start
in “Septuagint Greek”.
Something similar, finally, can be said for the Septuagint books written
in Greek. Wisdom has a nice Greek style, and contains many references to
Greek literature. Nevertheless, it also takes up religious terms typical of
the Septuagint. And some poetic passages exhibit parallelism in imitation
of Septuagint models.32 A much more striking example is the book of Ju-
dith. Until recently, most scholars held that it was translated from Hebrew
or Aramaic: it is full of apparent Hebraisms, and eschews many typical
features of Greek style. Recent research has shown, however, that its os-
tensible Hebraisms are in reality Septuagintisms. Quotations and allusions
to the Pentateuch and many other biblical books are to the Greek text of
the Septuagint. As in the Prayer of Azariah, some of the intertextual refer-
ences rest on features found only in the Septuagint.33
The phenomena surveyed in this section indicate that the entire Septua-
gint canon, including the extra books, stems from a milieu where biblical
books were studied intensely in their Greek translation. The scriptures of
the translators, supplementers, and authors were the “rolling corpus” of the
Greek Bible. The literary coherence makes it unlikely that the Septuagint
canon came about by random selection. It seems, rather, that the books
making up the canon of the Greek Bible always belonged together. The
Greek form of the books was produced – whether translated, supplemented
or composed – in a process of conscious amplification. Perhaps it is even
possible to speak of a form of canonical awareness: the post-Pentateuchal
translators, supplementers and authors may have used the vocabulary and
style of the earlier books in order to lend their writings an aura of “scrip-
turality”.

30
See the study referred to above in note 20.
31
See also J AN J OOSTEN, The Prayer of Azariah (DanLXX 3): Sources and Origin, in
Johann Cook (ed.), Septuagint and Reception (SVT 127), Leiden: Brill, 2009, 5–16.
32
See ALEXIS LÉONAS, The Poetics of Wisdom: Language and Style in the Wisdom of
Solomon, in Eberhard Bons, Thomas J. Kraus, eds., Et sapienter et eloquenter. Studies on
Rhetorical and Stylistic Features of the Septuagint (FRLANT 241), Göttingen: Vanden-
hoeck & Ruprecht, 2011, 99–126.
33
See the studies quoted above in note 21.
696 Jan Joosten

The Egyptian background of the Septuagint

The Septuagint canon is a Greek canon, constituted by intentional amplifi-

cation. Ultimately the canon is the product of the Septuagint translators,
supplementers and authors themselves. The Septuagint canon was con-
sciously elaborated as its various components came into being. One more
step is needed now to complete the argument for an “Alexandrian canon”,
namely a demonstration that the books were produced in Egypt.
In Hellenistic times, koine Greek was written – and no doubt spoken –
rather uniformly throughout the Mediterranean world. It is difficult, there-
fore, to locate a text written in Hellenistic Greek geographically. Even so,
the Egyptian origin of the Greek Pentateuch is indicated by a wealth of
data, and accepted by most knowledgeable scholars.34 No comparable con-
sensus exists in regard to the other translated books, although a good case
for Egyptian origin has been made for several of them.35 The least that can
be said is that the available evidence allows for the creation of the other
books, in their Greek form, in Egypt. The only books for which an Egyp-
tian origin has cogently been refuted in favor of a Palestinian background
are those whose translation technique is close to that of Theodotion or Aq-
uila: Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Ruth, Second Esdras.
The book of Ben Sira is of Palestinian origin, but in the Greek prologue
the translation is explicitly situated in an Egyptian context. Wisdom of
Solomon almost certainly reflects an Alexandrian milieu. I have argued
that Judith too is of Egyptian origin, but it is too early to tell whether this
view will be generally accepted.36
Although external testimonies are almost wholly lacking, the available
evidence points to Egypt as the place where the Septuagint canon would
most probably have been constituted. The fixed points – the Greek Penta-
teuch and the book of Wisdom, both of which were almost certainly pro-
duced in Egypt – are situated at the beginning and end of the process as we
have tentatively retraced it. It is unlikely that intervening steps in the pro-
cess would have happened elsewhere. Only the books attested exclusively
in a very late Greek translation are problematic in this regard.37

34
For a defense of this traditional view against some recent proposals, see J AN
J OOSTEN, The Aramaic Background of the Seventy: Language, Culture and History,
BIOSCS 43 (2010), 53–72.
35
See e.g. EMANUEL T OV, Reflections on the Septuagint with Special Attention Paid
to the Post-Pentateuchal Translations, in Wolfgang Kraus, Martin Karrer, Martin Meiser,
eds., Die Septuaginta – Texte, Theologien, Einflüsse (WUNT 252), Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2010, 377–390.
36
See the study quoted in note 21.
37
It is fairly certain that the kaige-Theodotion-Aquila workshop was situated in Pales-
tine. This means that books like Song of Songs, Lamentations and Ecclesiastes may have
 The Origin of the Septuagint Canon 697

A wider perspective

Before concluding, it is worthwhile to take a step back and inquire whether

the hypothesis of an “Alexandrian canon” is plausible in light of what is
known about Judaism in Antiquity. One of the principal objections against
the hypothesis, formulated first by Sundberg and repeated by many other
scholars, is that one cannot oppose the western diaspora to Judaism in the
home country in a lapidary way. All Jews were Hellenized to a certain ex-
tent. Moreover, at all times there were contacts and exchanges between the
Metropolis and the periphery. Jews in Alexandria venerated Jerusalem and
went there to celebrate the holidays. Is it likely, in such a context, that
Egyptian Jews should have accepted a distinct set of books as Scripture?
Although many of the individual observations are correct, it seems to
me that the general thrust of the objection is problematic. Since the discov-
eries in Qumran, the extraordinary diversity of Judaism during the Second
Temple Period is ever more revealed. In light of this development, it is
problematic to claim that Alexandrian Judaism could not have had its own
traditions, distinct from the views – presumably those of a Pharisaic group
in Palestine – that became normative after the Jewish wars. There is no
reason to think Alexandrian Judaism was particularly homogeneous. If
Judaism in Palestine was diverse, it may have been similarly so in the di-
aspora. Contacts and exchanges between Alexandria and Jerusalem would
not necessarily lead to more homogeneity. Diaspora Jews may well have
looked to Jerusalem as their spiritual metropolis while nevertheless culti-
vating their own particular traditions.
The Septuagint itself witnesses to the otherness of Egyptian Judaism.
Some of its inputs come from Palestine: the Hebrew text on which it is
based, the knowledge of Hebrew, familiarity with exegetical traditions.
Nevertheless, from the Pentateuch onward, the Greek version also exhibits
readings and interpretations that have no real analogue in other Jewish
writings. Some of these may be due to mistakes, and others may reflect
traditions that are unattested only by accident, because of the fragmentary
nature of our evidence. But the peculiarities of the Septuagint are too nu-
merous and too well-profiled to explain them all away. The composition of
the Septuagint canon is but one remarkable phenomenon among others. In
short, to the question: “Could Jews in Alexandria have had a different can-
on?” the answer must be: Yes, they could.

been translated there, as well as the “Theodotionic” additions in Job, the “Theodotionic”
version of Daniel, and 2 Esdras.
698 Jan Joosten

Conclusions

The Septuagint canon as it appears to us, with some inner diversity, in the
earliest biblical codices is distinct from the rabbinic canon attested in the
Masoretic text. The two canons reflect different historical backgrounds,
and most probably obey to different raisons d’être. The following points
have been argued – all too briefly – in this paper:
• The Septuagint canon is a Greek canon that could not possibly have
existed in Hebrew or Aramaic.
• The Septuagint canon is not the result of random selection, but the
product of a continuous literary process coterminous with the composition
and elaboration of the books.
• The historical backdrop of the Septuagint canon is the Jewish diaspora
in Egypt.
How this Jewish canon could by-pass Philo and how it was handed
down to the Church are questions that could not be addressed in the pre-
sent paper. The absence of positive evidence in the Philonic corpus may
simply have to do with Philo’s predilection for the Law. 38 As to the trans-
mission of the “Alexandrian canon” from Jews to Christians, this would
almost certainly not have happened in the period when the New Testament
writings were being composed. As was stated before, the New Testament
reveals no trace of acquaintance with the Septuagint canon. The most like-
ly time frame for the transmission is the early second century, when Egyp-
tian Judaism was wiped out by the Romans and its intellectual heritage
appropriated by Christian groups.39 But that is an issue that must be left for
another paper.
Many other questions, too, remain open at this stage. The Septuagint
canon differs from the Masoretic one in many details that could not be dis-
cussed here: the titles of biblical books, their sequence, the inner organiza-
tion of the collection. The question which books exactly belong to it also
merits to be addressed again in future research.40
Some Jewish writings in Greek present a profile very similar to that of
some Septuagint books. For example, the romance of Joseph and Aseneth
was almost certainly originally composed in Greek. It links up abundantly
with Septuagint language and develops a rich intertextuality with the

38
FRANTS PETER W ILLIAM B UHL, Canon and Text of the Old Testament, Edinburgh:
T & T Clark, 1892, 43–44.
39
As suggested by ARYE EDREI, DORON MENDELS, A Split Jewish Diaspora: Its Dra-
matic Consequences, JSP 16 (2007), 91–137.
40
Most probably Bogaert is correct when he suggests the variation in the number of
books reflects different usages in different Jewish communities throughout the Mediter-
ranean word. See BOGAERT, Les frontières du canon.
 The Origin of the Septuagint Canon 699

Greek version. Most likely it originated among the Egyptian diaspora.41

Nevertheless, it never became part of the Septuagint canon. The exclusion
of Joseph and Aseneth and other books raises the question of when the
Septuagint canon was closed. This again is not a question to which we al-
ready have answers.
The Septuagint canon included a number of books that were never re-
ceived in Rabbinic circles. It is entirely possible that it originally lacked a
number of books that were admitted in the Masoretic canon. This seems to
be the most natural interpretation for the lack of an “Old Greek” transla-
tion of Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations and Ruth. The addition
of these books to the Septuagint canon may have happened in Christian
times, under the influence of the Hebrew canon which was becoming au-
thoritative. 2 Esdras might at first sight seem to fall in the same category,
but it is really a different story since it could be regarded, in a way, as the
revised (“Theodotionic”) version of 1 Esdras. In this perspective, the com-
petition between 1 and 2 Esdras is more comparable to that between the
Old Greek and “Theodotion” of the book of Daniel.
Finally the question of the principle underlying the Septuagint canon, in
its original, Jewish-Hellenistic form, could be set on the agenda again. The
“Alexandrian canon” did not necessarily fulfill the same functions as its
Masoretic counterpart, nor of its later, Christian reincarnation.
All these open questions should not obscure the importance of what is at
stake. If the Septuagint canon is, in one way or another, intrinsically bound
up with the Septuagint corpus, this is a crucial insight in its own right. Its
exegetical, theological and historical implications are profound and wide-
ranging.

41
See e.g. EBERHARD B ONS, Psalter Terminology in Joseph and Aseneth, in Kraus,
Kreuzer (eds.), Die Septuaginta – Text, Wirkung, Rezeption, 430–443.
Rezeption