Daily Gleanings: Septuagint (4 September 2019)

Due out this October from Baylor University Press is Siegfried Kreuzer’s edited Introduction to the Septuagint. The volume weighs in at a hefty 728 pages. According to the publisher,

Siegfried Kreuzer’s Introduction to the Septuagint presents, in English, the most extensive introduction of the Septuagint to date. It offers comprehensive overviews of the individual biblical writings, including the history of research, current findings and problems, and perspectives for future research. Additionally, this survey presents a history of the Septuagint in its Greco-Hellenistic background, theories of its genesis, the history of its revisions, its lore in antiquity, and an overview of the most important manuscripts and witnesses of the convoluted transmission history of the text. The text includes extensive bibliographies that show the ongoing interest in Septuagint studies and provide a reliable basis for future studies.

Most of the volume proceeds book-by-book, including the apocryphal texts commonly included with Septuagint editions. Other chapters include two discussing the origins, transmission, and textual witnesses for the Septuagint and two discussing the significance of the Septuagint for understanding early Christianity.