 |
The
International Organization for |
|
|
International Septuagint Day
In 2006, the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies established February 8 as International Septuagint Day, a day to celebrate the Septuagint and encourage its study. The date was chosen because, as Robert Kraft noted, it is “the one date we know of from late antiquity on which LXX/OG/Aquila received special attention." Emperor Justinian’s Novella 146 permitted the Jews of the Roman Empire to read the Scriptures in their synagogues in Greek, Latin, or "any other tongue which in any district allows the hearers better to understand the text". Specifically, "We make this proviso that those who use Greek shall use the text of the seventy interpreters..." This novella (see English translation) was published on the eighth day of February in the year 553 CE. Links
The background of the palimpsest image above contains the opening lines of the Song of Songs in its Old Greek translation, scanned from Constantin von Tischendorf's facsimile edition of the fourth-century Codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus. |
