septuagint
UK /ˈsɛptjʊəd͡ʒɪnt/ · US /sɛpˈtuəd͡ʒənt/ noun, proper noun
Forms septuagints
- noun (now rare) A group of 70 people or a collection of 70 things.
- proper noun (now rare) The team of translators who produced the Septuagint.
- proper noun (biblical) An influential Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible produced in Alexandria in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Latin septuaginta (“seven tens, 70”), chiefly under the influence of the Septuagint and the story of its team of translators, q.v.
From Late Latin Septuaginta, lit. "The Seventy", a clipping of earlier descriptional names such as septuaginta translatio (“translation by the seventy”) and septuaginta interpretes (“the 70 interpreters”), calques of Koine Greek names such as οἱ ἐβδομήκοντα ἑρμηνευταί (hoi ebdomḗkonta hermēneutaí, “the 70 interpreters”) and οἱ Ο′ (hoi O′, “the LXX”), deriving from the popular (but probably mistaken) belief that its translation of the Torah had been produced in 72 days by a team of 72 Jewish scholars from Jerusalem (6 from each tribe) summoned to Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy II.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A Greek version of the Old Testament; --so called because it was believed to be the work of seventy (or rather of seventy-two) translators.
Etymology [From L. septuaginta seventy.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “septuagint”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details