2. Gen. i, 20, where we read "Let us make man in our image (13^3213), after owr likeness (ISPlTOTD)," has been altered into "I will make man in the image (D?2i3), and in the likeness (m?aini)," to remove the appearance of polytheism.
3. Gen. ii, 2, where "And he ended on the seventh pS'^^ffiH) day" has been changed into OlTlL'n) the sixth day, to avoid the apparent contradiction, since God did not work on the seventh day. This alteration is still to be found in our text of the Sept., and also in the Sa- maritan version (nrT^niD), and in the Syriac (N^IT^r'S).
4. Gen. v, 2 (i, 27), where "Male and female created he t/iem" (D!!<"l3, dHX N13) has been altered into created he him (1X1^), to remove the apparent contradiction in the passage where the man and woman are spoken of as having been created together or simultaneously.
5. Gen. xi, 7, for the same reason as in 2, the words " Let HSgo down, and let its confound" (tlPSSI mi) have been changed into " I will go down and I will confound" (HI^X
nbasi).
6. Gen. xviii, 12, "After my decay I had air-iin pleasure" has been altered into (HJ'IS' "h nr^n inSa intlN, o;;- TTu n^v jjiot -yi-jovev ews -rov vvv), after it had been thus with me hitherto, to avoid the offensive application to the dis- tinguished mother of Israel of the expression ri?3, which is used for rotten old garments (comp. Geiger, Urschrift, p. 45 sq.).
7. Gen. xlix, G, " In their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they hamstrung au ox," has been altered into "In their anger they slew an ox ("lilU), and in their self-will they hamstrung a fatted bull (D12N)," to do away with the wholesale slaughter of men.
8. Exod. iv, 20, the word Tl^H, ass, is altered into imo- Kiiyta, beasts of burden, because of the reluctance which the translators had to mention the name of this beast. This alteration is still preserved in our text of the Sept.
9. In Exod. xii, 40, and all other lands, i. e. " the land of Canaan," has been added in order to remove the apparent contradiction, since the Israelites did not sojourn four hundred and thirty years in Egypt.
10. Exod. xxiv, 5, 11, ''"l"D and ^P'^iJX are changed into ■'t3'lU3'"f (=:C'iTiiTi';? ; i. e. worthy, or searchers after wisdom), because it was not thought becoming to say that at this great revelation boys or youths {^'''W'^) were brought as sacrifices.
11. In Lev. xi, 6 and Deut. siv, 7, t^-5'1!!t=:Aayor, a hare, has been altered into xo'poypovWo?, porcupine or hedgehog.
to avoid giving offence to the Ptolemy family, whose name was Lagos.
12. Numb, xvi, 15, "I^H, ass, was changed into tTri-
^viir]iJ.a=^XLn, a desirable thing, for the same reason as
given under S. This alteration is still in our text of the Sept.
13. Deut. iv, 19, the word T'Nnb=aiaKoo-Mtw, to shine, has been inserted so as to avoid the idolatry of the hea- then being ascribed to God.
14. Deut. xvii, 3, where we read that God had not com- manded the Israelites to worship other gods (in accordance with Deut. iv, 19), has been altered to Cnii:: xb "ITX D13"? niwIXP) tvhich I have forbidden the nations to worship, to preclude the possibility of ascribing the origin of idolatry to the God of Israel.
This much for the alterations. But there are two oth- er very important notices, viz. "that the day on which the translation of the Bible into Greek was made was re- garded as a great calamity equal to that of the worship of the golden calf" [Sopherim, i, 7); and "the day on which it was accomplished was believed to have been the beginning of a preternatural darkness of three days' duration over the whole world, and was commemorated as a day of fasting and humiliation" (comp Kuenen, The Religion of Israel, iii, 214-2 IG). The Samaritans took the same view on account of their hatred of the Jewish translation (comp. Herzfeld, Geschichte, iii, 537). Says dean Stanley, " It needs but slight evidence to convince us that such a feeling, more or less widely spread, must have existed. It is the same instinct which to this hour makes it a sin, if not an impossibili- ty, in the eyes of a devout Mussulman, to translate the Koran ; which in the Christian Church assailed Jerome with the coarsest vituperation for venturing on a Latin version which ditfered from the Greek; which at the Reformation regarded it as a heresy to translate the Latin Scriptures into the languages of modern P^nrope ; and which, in England, has in our own days regarded it in the English Church as a dangerous innovation to revise the Authorized Version of the 17th century, or in the Roman Church to correct the barbarous dialect of the Douay translation of the Vulgate, or to admit of any errors in the text or in the rendering of the Vulgate itself. In one and all of these ca.ses the reluctance has sprung from the same tenacious adherence to ancient and sacred forms — from the same unwillingness to ad- mit of the dislodgment even of the most flagrant inac- curacies when once familiarized by established use. But in almost all these cases, except, perhaps, the Ko- ran, this sentiment has been compelled to yield to the more generous desire of arriving at the hidden meaning of sacred truth, and of making that truth more widely known. So it was, in the most eminent degree, in the case of the Septnagint" {Jewish Church, iii, 286 sq. ). While we agree in the main with the learned dean, yet in the case of the Sept. the explanation of the above- given Talmudic statement must be sought for some- where else. It is known that most of the early contro- versies with the Jews were conducted in the (ireek lan- guage, and on the common ground of the faithfulness of the Sept. version, which was quoted alike on both sides. And so it continued to be respected during the age of the writers of the Ncav Test, and the 1st cen- tury of the Christian aira. As, however, the version grew into use among Christians, it gradually lost the confidence of the Jews, especially when it was urged against them by the Christians. The first signs of this appear in the works of Justin IMartyr, in the 2d cen- tury. His IHalogne with Tnjplio the Jeir (irofesses to be the account of a discussion which actually look place, and Eusebius {Hist. Eccles. iv, 18) places the scene of it at Ephesus. The Dialogue abounds in citations from the Old Test. ; and even such passages are quoted as are not to be found in the Hebrew. The latter circum- stance made Justin charge the Jews with removing es- pecially four iirophecics of Christ from their copies. The first of these is: "And Ezra said unto the people,