Mistaken beliefs about the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Septuagint

 

Many in The Eastern Orthodox Church claims to believe in the Septuagint as the key Text. That is Not historically accurate. The Eastern Orthodox Church has never looked to the Septuagint, either as a text which it used, or as a means by which it could demonstrate it's authenticity. 

 

The first problem with this concept - of the use of the Septuagint - is that no one can actually decide just what the Septuagint is:  no 2 copies of that supposed Septuagint exist today, and no two copies  accord (agree) with each other. How then can we tell which Septuagint is the right one to read or follow ? No one today can even tell just what the text of the Septuagint is. There is no master copy. There is no surviving copy of an early "Septuagint". And to complicate matters more, in the 19th century, some renegade [fake] textual scholars began re-naming some of their false translations the "Septuagint".

This complicated the issue of the "Septuagint" greatly. When those textual critics began to rename their fraudulent manuscripts, the result was that there were - after that time - at least 2 Separate "septuagints": 

A. the Original Septuagint as it existed at the time of Christ {if it actually existed}, and

B. the manuscripts from the 4th Century, which these renegade [fake] textual scholars had simply decided to call those manuscripts "The Septuagint". But there was no historical basis for their decision. 

 

Contrary to popular mythology, it is not as though there were dozens of copies of the Septuagint lying around - for purposes of Textual Comparison. The fact is that there were No copies of the Septuagint around, in order to find out just which text of the Old Testament SHOULD ...be the True Septuagint. 

 

The Fake Septuagint

Concerning the renegade [fake] textual scholars, they disregarded the Bibles used by the Historic Christians for 1900 years and simply began calling their false Greek Manuscripts "the Septuagint". Those two scholars were Westcott & Hort, two Occultists who wanted to overthrow Christianity and anything connected with the Historic record. They established a plan to alter Christianity to make it more closely resemble Ancient Paganism. 

There were already many manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments around - at the time of Westcott & Hort. Those historic Koine Greek Manuscripts were the ones used by Christians around the world, which agreed with each other. But Westcott & Hort could not accept the authenticity of those Greek manuscripts, because they had decided that Jesus was Not divine. Therefore, they rejected the 99% of the Greek Manuscripts from Syria, from Israel, from Ancient Rome (italy), from Carthage, and from the others parts of the world. Instead they decided to use the manuscripts of the Bible - which the Christians around the world, had previously rejected as being corrupt. 

They settled on their choice of manuscripts: Vatican Manuscript # 1209 and the manuscript discovered by Tischendorf at the St. Catherine's Monastery - which had been REJECTED by the Eastern Orthodox priests (who lived at St. Catherines) and which had also been REJECTED by the Eastern Orthodox Church. 

The Vatican Manuscript # 1209 was renamed "Codex Vaticanus", and the Rejected Manuscript of Tischendorf was renamed "Codex Sinaiticus". At last, Westcott & Hort had the materials they would need in order to develop a FAKE Bible.

 

Lets review the Background of these Manuscripts - for a brief moment

 

1. Codex Vaticanus - (known to even the scholars of the 1500s and 1600s who rejected it as a corrupted manuscripts)

2. Codex Sinaiticus - this it the copy of the corrupt manuscript discovered by Constantin von Tischendorf, when he went to the Middle East to search for ancient manuscripts.

You might think that Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus agree with each other. Nothing could be further from the truth. Tischendorf states that Both of these 4th Century texts were part of the 50 Bible that Eusebius commissioned for Constantine [worshipper of Sol Invictus/Mithras]. However these two Bible manuscripts disagree with each other in more than 2,000 (Yes, Two Thousand) places. Further, these two manuscripts have more Bible verses which disagree with each other, than that agree with each other. (These manuscripts however, are held in high regard by the Roman Catholic Church)

Please recall that Tischendorf - (A tenured German professor at the height of Biblical Criticism within the Anti-Christianity German Educational system ) - left to find manuscripts of the Bible because he accepted the myth that the Biblical text used by the Christian church for 1800 years - could not - be the real, actual, literal Bible.

Both of these [Vaticanus & Sinaiticus ] comprise the oldest copies of what Westcott & Hort called their "Septuagint". Again, we must make the point that it is hard to understand how the Eastern Orthodox Church can claim to value "the Septuagint" and base its theology on the TRUE Septuagint- if it cannot even find 3 copies that agree with each other. {actually, it cannot even find ONE copy, because no one knows what the text of the Septuagint was. No copies have survived. No copies Exist !!!}

 

About the Septuagint, there are Two possibilities:

1. Either the Original Eastern Orthodox 

a) truly used the real Septuagint originally, and

b) recopied these and left many around for our use and study today, and

c) can provide Proof and Documentation of having even Used the Septuagint within its own Churches and Congregations

 

Or 

 

2. People today are Claming that the Septuagint was used by the Eastern Orthodox Church, and this claim is FALSE. 

 

WE believe that the Later Conclusion is Correct. We believe that the Eastern Orthodox Church has NOT historically used the Septuagint, nor has it claimed to do so. 

We believe that False Scholars today have misled the Eastern Orthodox into thinking that the "Septuagint" was their ancient Bible, for the purpose of misleading them and giving them a Bible which will be false. 

We believe that the Manuscripts of the Eastern Orthodox Church which were used Historically, are as a rule very accurate (or very close to it), and that they have a strong authentic History of using the CORRECT and TRUE Manuscripts of the Bible in Greek. 

(whether they Follow the Bible that they have is a different matter, but at least historically - they have followed the right Bible and the Correct Manuscripts.

Apples & Oranges

 

The Eastern Orthodox Church often retains its commitment to non-answers suggesting that all inconvenient questions are a "mystery" to which none can know the answer to.

We believe that those answers are not nearly as "mysterious" as some in the EOC leadership would have us believe, and we are committed to bringing those answers to the Public. 

 

 

 

 

We invite your questions and comments, so please do not hesitate to contact us HERE

 

 

Please Note: We do try to be accurate. If you see anything which you believe

Is not correct on our website, please do bring it to our attention.

 

Thank you

(XOFC Staff)

 

 

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