The Seventy-Two Servants of the Word of God: Retrieving the Septuagint as Scripture

This book traces the dramatic history of the Old Testament—from its origins in ancient Temple scrolls during the reign of the kings of Jerusalem, to the profound moment when Jesus himself read from the Prophet Isaiah in the Synagogue of Nazareth.

By examining the roots of the Old Testament as used and read by Jesus and the apostles this book argues that the edition known as the Greek Septuagint provides a more accurate and faithful witness to the original Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament, reflecting the received and preserved texts as found in the Temple of Jerusalem in third century B.C. This book challenges the common view of the later Hebrew Masoretic Text being the authentic and genuine textual basis for the Old Testament. Yet the conclusions presented are not novel but rather reflects the consensus of early Judaism and the early Christian church of the first 400 years, a view not entirely forgotten at the time of the Reformation among Protestants and Roman Catholics.

Making usage of the most recent research and scholarship in textual criticism and Old Testament studies this early view of the importance of the Septuagint has increasingly become vindicated by new discoveries of ancient manuscripts helping us to more easily discern the Old Testament as it is written.

"Sotbæk traces the emergence and early recognition of the Septuagint in a brief, but concise, informative, and highly readable historical sketch, and argues for a return to the ancient Christian view of the Septuagint as the word of God for his church. While some readers may ultimately disagree with his conclusion, all may appreciate the solid insight this book provides into the fascinating early history of the transmission of the biblical text."

Jesper Høgenhaven
Professor of the Old Testament
University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Theology