# The Septuagint (LXX)

The Septuagint — abbreviated **LXX** ("seventy," for the traditional seventy-two Jewish translators) — is the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, produced in Alexandria beginning in the 3rd century BC. It was the Scripture of the Greek-speaking Jewish world and of the early Christian church, and the great majority of Old Testament quotations in the New Testament follow its wording rather than the Hebrew. The Septuagint also preserves a broader canon (including the Deuterocanonical / "Apocryphal" books) and frequently differs from the later Masoretic Hebrew text, making it essential for textual study, translation work, and understanding how the apostles read their Bible.

This is a **reference landing page**. The complete LXX runs to several megabytes of text, so the full downloadable English (Brenton) and Greek (Swete) editions are being added to the Source Library in a later pass. The verified public-domain sources are linked below.

Source: https://ebible.org/Scriptures/details.php?id=eng-Brenton

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## Complete English text — Brenton (1851), Public Domain

The standard public-domain English Septuagint is **Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton's translation**, *The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament*, first published in 1851. It is a full English rendering of the Greek Septuagint and is freely reproducible.

- **eBible.org — eng-Brenton (Brenton English Septuagint):** https://ebible.org/Scriptures/details.php?id=eng-Brenton
- Status per eBible.org: *"Published in 1851, and now in the Public Domain."*

The full downloadable Brenton English text is being added to this library.

## Complete Greek text — Swete (1909), Public Domain

For the **Greek** text in the public domain, use **Henry Barclay Swete's** edition, *The Old Testament in Greek According to the Septuagint* (Cambridge University Press, 1909 and earlier editions). The Swete edition is out of copyright and is available as scanned volumes.

- **Internet Archive (archive.org):** search "Swete Old Testament in Greek Septuagint" for the scanned 1909 (and earlier) volumes — these are public-domain page scans.

The full downloadable Swete Greek text is being added to this library.

## Copyright warning — DO NOT host Rahlfs / Rahlfs-Hanhart

The most widely cited modern critical edition of the Greek Septuagint is **Rahlfs** (*Septuaginta*, ed. Alfred Rahlfs, 1935) and its revision **Rahlfs-Hanhart** (2006). **These editions are under copyright held by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft (German Bible Society) and MUST NOT be reproduced, hosted, or redistributed here.**

- Do **not** copy the Rahlfs or Rahlfs-Hanhart Greek text into this library.
- For a freely hostable Greek Septuagint, use **Swete (1909)** or another verified public-domain edition only.
- Any Greek LXX text added to the Source Library must be confirmed public domain before hosting.

## Why the LXX matters for this ministry

- It is the Old Testament most often quoted by the New Testament writers.
- It shows how the earliest church read Scripture in Greek.
- Its differences from the Masoretic Hebrew illuminate translation, canon, and interpretation.

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*Provenance & licence: The English Septuagint reference is Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton's 1851 translation, hosted at eBible.org as eng-Brenton, which states it was "Published in 1851, and now in the Public Domain." The Greek reference is Henry Barclay Swete's edition (Cambridge, 1909), available as public-domain scans at archive.org. The Rahlfs (1935) and Rahlfs-Hanhart (2006) critical editions are copyright Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft and are deliberately NOT reproduced or hosted. Full downloadable Brenton (English) and Swete (Greek) texts are being added in a later pass.*