LXX or Septuagint: New Testament Comparison

On Tuesday and Wednesday, I posted LXX or Septuagint: Scattered Thoughts and LXX or Septuagint: Thoughts of John Owen. Today I follow up with a further consideration about comparing New Testament references to the LXX (Septuagint). How should we consider and determine whether New Testament authors were quoting or referring to statements in the Greek LXX rather than the Hebrew Old Testament?

A fairly common tact from representatives on “my side” (defenders of the Traditional Texts and the King James Version) is to claim that no Greek Old Testament yet existed, and therefore the New Testament authors could not have quoted from it. While it may be true that no official complete Greek Old Testament existed, it seems that there nevertheless were Greek translations of parts of the Old Testament.[i] Even someone as radical as Peter Ruckman acknowledged the existence of two papyrus fragments that predated the New Testament times. It seems to me, from what I have been to find, that the general LXX scholarship recognizes about ten extant manuscripts (papyrus fragments) that are from BC (Before Christ).

For the sake of argument, I will accept the dating of these extant manuscripts as reliable. However, most of the opposition are “matching” New Testament readings to the LXX by inspecting LXX manuscripts (Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus) that postdate the New Testament by several hundred years. This is chronologically challenged and raises the question whether these texts accurately represent Greek translations of the Old Testament that existed before the New Testament. The case can be made that portions of these manuscripts were edited to match the New Testament. The Vaticanus text of Psalm 13/14 is one of the more egregious examples. I posit that the most reliable way to test this is to compare New Testament quotations with Greek LXX readings believed to exist before the New Testament was written. A full inspection, I believe, should consider these four questions.

1. What level of agreement must a NT quote/reference have with the LXX to be considered a quote from the LXX? (Thanks to Dwayne Green)
2. Can quotes/references be found in the NT with this level of agreement with the LXX?
3. Can any quotes/references with this level of agreement be found in manuscripts that predate the writing of the NT, or only in manuscripts that postdate the writing of the NT (or both)?
4. Is there more than one explanation in regard to the quote/reference, and, if so, which explanation best answers the facts?

For this post, I have sort of skipped forward just to see whether this can be tested. This is done as an experiment and needs more intense and careful work to be the most useful. However, perhaps I can at least demonstrate what I think should be done. The list of pre-BC manuscripts I compiled are these (using Rahlfs numbering):

• 801-805 are fragments of, respectively, Leviticus 26:2–16; Leviticus 1:11, 2:3–6:5; Numbers 3:39–4:16; Baruch 6:43–44; Exodus 28:4–7.
• 819 is a fragment of Deuteronomy 11:4. 
• 847 is fragments of Deuteronomy 10:22; 11:1, 10,11, 16; 31:26–19; 32:2,4; 33:14–19, 22–23, 26–27.
• 848 is fragments of Deuteronomy 17:14 to 33:29. (847, 848, and 942 = Fouad 266)
• 942 is fragments of Genesis 3:10–12; 4:5–7, 23; 7:17–20; 37:34–38:1; 38:10–12. 
• 957 is fragments of Deuteronomy 23:24–24:3; 25:1–3; 26:12; 26:17–19; 28:31–33; 27:15; 28:2.

For the NT quotes/references to the LXX, I used a list of about 70 verses that I found HERE.[ii] Again, this needs to be more fully and carefully investigated. As I went through their list and the list of extant LXX manuscripts, I found only one verse on both lists – Deuteronomy 10:22. Their argument is that Stephen says 75 people went down to Egypt (based on the LXX) and the Hebrew says 70 people. That Stephen said this, in itself, is correct. Whether he did so based on the LXX is the question. In Acts 7:14 Stephen “Then sent Joseph, and called his father Jacob to him, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls.” Based on the Hebrew Masoretic text, Genesis 46:27 has “threescore and ten” and Deuteronomy 10:22 has “threescore and ten persons.” The modern LXX has “seventy-five souls” (ἑβδομηκονταπέντε, Genesis) and “seventy souls” (ἑβδομήκοντα, Deuteronomy). Some debaters assert that the statement made by Stephen in Acts 7:14 about “75 souls” is based on the LXX reading.

I had hoped to inspect the Fouad 266 reading (supposed to be 1st century BC) of Deuteronomy 10:22. This papyrus is housed at the Societé Royale de Papyrologie in Cairo, Egypt.[iii] However, I have yet to discover a scan of it online. References to and discussion of this manuscript that I have found online focus on the use of the tetragrammaton and show no interest in “75 souls.”

This “test case” turned out to not be a very good one – especially because I could not find the fragment to compare whether it mentions 75 or 70, but also:

• The LXX texts of Genesis 46:27 and Deuteronomy 10:22, at least as we now know them, disagree on the number.
• It is not clear that Stephen is even quoting or referencing a specific Old Testament text.
• There are other explanations for the statement in Acts 7:14 other than Stephen quoting the LXX.[iv] 

Even though this test case turned out to be deficient in needed areas, I hope that this illustrates how we could compare the NT to LXX in a manner of what actually existed that they might have referenced, rather than just looking at LXX manuscripts that postdate the New Testament, whose text could have been edited to conform to the NT reading. Is this a legitimate way to proceed? Are there other New Testament quotes/references that can be found in the manuscripts that are supposed to date BC?

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[i] Paul Kahle is one Semitic scholar who distrusts the common view of a complete and official Greek Old Testament commonly accepted by Greek-speaking Jews. A overview of the opinions of Kahle can be seen HERE.

[ii] I do not claim this list is the best or most complete available. Their comparison of John 12:38 to Isaiah 53:1 falls flat. For example, the KJV translation based on the Masoretic Hebrew text and the TR yields the same reading, report. Though many modern translations do use “message,” this seems to merely be a translation choice rather than a difference in the base text. Nevertheless, for the time being, it is the best and most complete list that I have found via Google search.
[iii] Apparently, it can be viewed at the Trismegistos portal from institutions with a subscription. I am unsure whether it might be accessed elsewhere on the World Wide Web. Also being a fragment, it might not even contain the relevant number (70 or 75).
[iv] 75 Souls - Acts 7:14.