Apocrypha. Greek. Septuagint

The Septuagint ( SEP-tew-ə-jint), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (Koine Greek: Ἡ μετάφρασις τῶν Ἑβδομήκοντα, romanized: Hē metáphrasis tôn Hebdomḗkonta), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek title derives from the story recorded in the Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates (his brother) that "the laws of the Jews" were translated into Koine Greek at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–247 BC) by seventy-two Hebrew translators—six from each of the Twelve Tribes of Israel—though this story is considered to be pseudepigraphical by some scholars. Biblical scholars agree that the first five books of the Hebrew Bible were translated from Biblical Hebrew into Koine Greek by Jews living in the Ptolemaic Kingdom, probably in or around Alexandria, and can be dated with confidence to the mid- or late 3rd century BCE. The remaining books were presumably translated in the 2nd century BCE. The corpus continued to undergo revision and recensional development in both Jewish and Christian communities through the fourth century CE. Few people could speak and even fewer could read in the Hebrew language during the Second Temple period; Koine Greek and Aramaic were the lingua francas at that time among the Jewish community. The LXX, therefore, satisfied a need in the Jewish community. (Some targums translating or paraphrasing the Bible into Aramaic were also made during the Second Temple period.)