Moving on from the sorts of interpretation that occurred in the process of assembling the Hebrew Bible, Reventlow turns to the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew Bible and some related literature into Greek. The Septuagint stands in an interesting relationship to the histories of Judaism and Christianity. Although originally a product of Jewish translators working before the beginning of Christianity, it was later taken up with great enthusiasm by the early Christian movement. According to Reventlow, “… rabbinic Judaism rejected the Septuagint and chose to make the Hebrew canon their Scripture and to interpret it alone. They rejected the Septuagint due to the fact that the Christians had made the Old Testament Septuagint their Scripture and interpreted it according to their own understanding” (History of Biblical Interpretation, Volume 1, p. 21).
I am not sure that such a clear statement can be made about the reason that the Septuagint fell out of use within Judaism. Perhaps Reventlow is right, and certainly Reventlow knows a great deal that I don’t about the history of the Bible’s reception, so I am not at all criticizing Reventlow for adopting this position. I only note that, if there is evidence for ascribing this motive to rabbinic Judaism, I have not personally become familiar with it yet.
Similarly, I am unsure about Reventlow’s treatment of the issue of canon. It sounds as though Reventlow maintains that there was a “Greek canon” used by at least some Jews which was more or less equal to the present Old Testament canon of Roman Catholicism. I do not know how this conclusion has been reached either.
Finally, the entire topic of the Septuagint’s witness to early interpretation of the Hebrew Bible is also intertwined with its witness to an early text of the Hebrew Bible. In other words, suppose that in Isaiah 62:11, the Masoretic Text reads “your salvation is coming”, while the Septuagint reads “your savior is coming”. Now, to an amateur like myself, the immediate question is this: has the Septuagint translator taken some liberties with a Hebrew text that reads “salvation”, or did the Septuagint translator have a Hebrew text that read “savior”. In other words, are we dealing with a translational issue, or a Vorlage issue?
In the case of Isaiah 62:11, Reventlow assures us that the Masoretic reading is that of “the Hebrew original”. Perhaps Reventlow is right about this. But I would be interested to see how this is established.
The bibliography for the section on the Septuagint is limited to three works: one from 1934 in German, and two from 1968, one in German and one in English.