Septuaginta: A Reader's Edition, Hardcover

by Gregory R. Lanier (Editor), William A Ross (Editor)

A Reader’s Edition offers the complete text of the Greek Old Testament as it appears in the Rahlfs-Hanhart revised Septuaginta, laid out in a clear and readable format. All deuterocanonical books are included, as well as all double-texts, which are presented on facing pages for easy textual comparison. In order to facilitate natural and seamless reading of the text, every word occurring 100 times or fewer in the Rahlfs-Hanhart text (excluding proper names)―as well as every word that occurs more than 100 times in the Rahlfs-Hanhart text but fewer than 30 times in the Greek New Testament―is accompanied by a footnote that provides a contextual gloss for the word and (for verbs only) full parsing. Additionally, an appendix provides a complete alphabetized list of common vocabulary (namely, all the words that are not accompanied by a footnote), with glosses and (as applicable) comparison of a word’s usage in the Septuagint to its usage in the New Testament. All of these combined features will make A Reader’s Edition an indispensable resource for biblical scholars and an excellent tool for improving one’s comprehension of the Greek language. In addition to the attractive and high-quality binding, each volume will include two ribbon markers.

Genres: Old Testament, Reference, Theology

3376 pages, Hardcover

Published November 1, 2018

About the author

Gregory R. Lanier (Ph.D. University of Cambridge) is Associate Professor of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary (Orlando). He specializes in early Christology, Synoptic Gospels, Greek OT (Septuagint), and textual criticism. He also serves part-time as an associate pastor at River Oaks Church (Lake Mary, FL). He lives in Orlando with his wife and three children.

Reviews

[Matt Pitts · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve only had this a few days and I already love it. The format and layout are so much better than the readers editions of the GNT or HB I’m used to. Everything about it is beautiful. Very, very well done.

[Luke Hartman · Rating 4 out of 5]

These volumes are intended for those interested in the Septuagint but with only intermediate Koine experience. Admittedly the overlapping circles for this Venn diagram is fairly small, but for those who find themselves in the overlap they are tremendously valuable. They are the same dimensions as the corresponding Greek New Testament volume (obviously thicker) and serve the same purpose; offering footnote glosses of words occurring either less than 100x in the LXX or less than 30x in the GNT.

The layout and typography of the volumes are beautiful.

I have a few minor quibbles about the footnote glosses.

1. Unlike the GNT, infrequent words that appear more than once on a page each have a footnote, for example θυγάτηρ in Genesis appears four times in the footnotes of page 12. The pairs ἄρσην and θῆλυς appear three times each in the right-hand column of the page 14 footnotes. The text is short enough on each page that the repetition of an infrequent word should not be a problem. On page 14 πῆχυς ('cubit') appears on the top line because it’s in the same verse on the prior page. The same word appears on the next verse with a footnote.

2. Nouns and adjectives lack case endings for the genitive and articles. This is a feature in the corresponding GNT and is quite helpful for knowing declensions and trying to remember/learn endings. Since these volumes seem to be based (influenced?) on the GNT, this is a curious omission.

These are minor critiques of an otherwise tremendously valuable set of books. I have only read a dozen or so chapters to far (one does not *read* a work like this) but I am already grateful they are available to readers such as myself and look forward to increasing my knowledge of Greek and exposure to the scripture of many in Christendom.

[Cole Shiflet]

Genesis ✅
Exodus ✅
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Joshua
Judges
Ruth
1 Samuel
2 Samuel
1 Kings
2 Kings
1 Chronicles
2 Chronicles
Ezra
Nehemiah
Tobit
Judith
Esther
1 Maccabees
2 Maccabees
Job
Psalms ✅
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
Song of Songs
Wisdom
Sirach
Isaiah
Jeremiah
Lamentations
Baruch
Ezekiel
Daniel
Hosea
Joel
Amos
Obadiah
Jonah ✅
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi

[Cole Newton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've only worked my way through Exodus and a few Psalms so far, but this is an incredible resource!