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spofceti of as '« the law , the prophets , and the other books , " or " the rest of the books . ' From this prologue we learn that Jesus , the son of Sirach , translated the book of Ecctesiasticus from Hebrew into Greek , in the thirty * eighth year of the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes IL , commonly called Physcon . Admitting , then , that the prologue was written , as it professes to be , and as
there is no reason to doubt that it was , by the person who translated the book , this triple classification of the Jewish Scriptures must have begun to prevail among the Alexandrine Jews as early as the year B . C . 132 . But from the indefinite terms in which the author of the prologue mentions ( he third part , as compared with the distinct manner in which he describes the first and second , it seems reasonable to conclude that the two parts comprehending the law and the prophets were , by this time , familiar to the Jews of Alexandria , but that no authorized version of the books composing the third
part had yet appeared in a collective form , although it is by no means improbable that separate and independent Greek translations of particular books may have existed long before this period . In later times this part had its distinguishing and appropriate title as well as the rest . In the age of our Lord and his apostles it was called "the Psalms , " * probably because
the Psalms occupied the first place among the books of which it was composed : by the Jews of Tiberias and Babylon it was called DOirD , Chetubim , Scriptures , and this title the Jews still retain ; and by the early Christian Fathers , and probably also by contemporaneous Jews , who spoke the Greek language , it was known by the corresponding Greek term Vpoubeia , or 'AyioypoKbat , Holy Scriptures , f
It appears , then , upon a review of the preceding arguments , that the , Septuagint Version of the Jewish law was made , for the use of the Alexandrine Jews , about the year B . C . 280 ; but that no Greek translation of " the books of the prophets existed prior to the year B . C . 168 . It appears also , that , in the year B . C . 132 , the five books of Moses , and the books of the prophets , were considered as two distinct classes or collections of writings by the Jews of Alexandria , and were mentioned as such by Jesus , the Son of Sirach , under the titles of " the law and the prophets . " It
likewise appears that the Septuagint Version of the other Jewish Scriptures could not have been made so early as the year B . C . 132 ; or that , if Greek translations of particular books did then exist , they were not collected into a separate volume , and distinguished by a general title , till a later period . Consequently , the Septuagint Version of "the prophets" must have been
made and published separately from that of ' * the law" and "the other books" of the Old Testament , between the years 168 and 132 B . C . But whether it then assumed the precise form in which we now have it , or has since been augmented by the insertion of new matter , or by the addition of separate books , are questions to which we must briefly advert before this branch of the subject is dismissed .
The version of the , prophets , published in all the printed editions of the Septuagint , is universally admitted to be , with the exception of one book , the version origjnalf y published under that name . That one book is Daniel , of which the translation , usually inserted in printed editions of the Septuagint , was taken from the version of Theodotion , w . ho translated the whole of the Jewish Scriptures into Greek about the year of our Lord 185 , It was
? Luke xxiv . 44 . f Suiceri Thesaurus , Fol . Amst , 1728 , Tom . I . pp . 59 , 783 ,
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Canonical Authority of the Books of the Prophets . BOB
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VOL . I . 2 L
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1827, page 505, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1798/page/33/
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