Why do Christians trust the Bible?

[Aractus]

I got a little bit carried away last night, let me sum it up better. Also I should have quoted the question posed to the theologian which was this:

• Jeannie, let’s begin with the Hebrew scriptures, because we’ve got a lot of ground to cover tonight, and I want to get to it even if we have to go a little bit long. Let’s start with the Old Testament, or the Hebrew scriptures. The first translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek, which was the common language of the Roman civilization at the time, is the Septuagint version, sometimes known as LXX to our listeners, written approximately 150-250 B.C. It continues to be the authorized version of the Hebrew scriptures that we Orthodox use liturgically.
  
  However, and here’s the big question—I’ll phrase it—the Old Testament, or the Hebrew Bible that is considered authoritative today by Jews and Protestants is not the Septuagint, but it’s the most recent, more recent translation, rather, called the Masoretic text, circa 7-10th centuries after Christ’s death. So the Masoretic Old Testament or Hebrew text was based on translations from Hebrew manuscripts, original Hebrew manuscripts, that are at least ten centuries later than that which was used in the Septuagint.
  
  So here’s my first question: Why do the Orthodox churches use the Septuagint translation as the official version of the Old Testament, liturgically, when Jews and Protestants use the later and more recent Masoretic version?

If Jeannie disagreed with the premise of the question, she would have said. So she is agreeing that the Orthodox faith teaches that the LXX dates to the 3rd-2nd century BC, and that Masoretic Text (MT) is a later text.

There's also this:

• Mr. Allen: And is it true—correct me where I’m wrong—that most of—or maybe all of; I don’t know—the quotations of Hebrew scripture in the New Testament came, not from ancient Hebrew manuscripts, but came out of the Septuagint version of Old Testament Hebrew scriptures?
  
  Dr. Constantinou: Yes, especially that is the case with most of the New Testament. When they’re quoting from the Old Testament, they’re quoting it [from] the Septuagint version. The apostles didn’t find anything wrong with the Septuagint. They didn’t say, “Oh, we can’t use this, because it’s not Hebrew.” That was the common Bible of the Jews for 200 years before Christ. Those were their Scriptures. And the thing is that the New Testament is just saturated with words and images from the Old Testament.

So, to sum up Orthodox teaching on the OT and LXX:

1. The LXX (Septuagint) is an early translation of the OT and dates to the 3rd-2nd century BC.
2. The LXX was used widely by both the Jewish church AND the early apostles/Christians.
3. The NT authors quote from the LXX and not the MT.

Okay, now here are the facts:

1. The complete LXX does not exist anywhere in a single ancient manuscript, unlike the Hebrew scriptures which does (ie Leningrad Codex), and the New Testament scriptures which also does (ie Codex Sinaiticus and others).

So, here are the dates for the earliest complete manuscripts:

Hebrew OT: Early 11th century (Leningrad Codex - c. 1008 AD).
Greek NT: Mid 4th century (Codex Sinaiticus - c. 350 AD).
LXX: THERE ISN'T ONE!!

The Greek OT we have today is taken from just two manuscripts - Codex Vaticanus (which is nearly complete - but is missing most of Genesis, and small sections of Samuel and Psalms) and Codex Sinaiticus (which is quite incomplete), both of which are copies of the fifth column of the Hexapla. If Vaticanus had all its leaves then we would call it complete (even if some text was missing from some pages), however even then it wouldn't be a complete LXX copy because it has the Theodotion translation of Daniel. This isn't an opinion held by a few scholars, it's a fact: Jerome said that by the time he received the Greek text that the book had been replaced. There's actually more Theodotion influence than just this one book, but the fact that an entire book was replaced shows the nature of the "LXX" as a progressive text.

Here you can see the LXX and Theodotion texts translated into English side-by-side . They're not just a little different - they're hugely different!

There are only two ancient Greek manuscripts in the entire world that contain the LXX translation of the book of Daniel. The first is Codex Chisianus, 9th century - complete (for the book of Daniel). The second is Papyrus 967 which is not complete but contains some of the pages. P967 dates to the 3rd century.

1b. The oldest manuscripts...

The oldest known manuscripts containing the following are:

Hebrew OT: 2nd century BC (Dead Sea Scrolls).
Greek NT: late 1st or early-mid 2nd century AD.
LXX: 3rd century AD.

The first manuscripts of decent quality (ie. complete or near-complete for certain books):

Hebrew OT: 2nd century BC (various DSS including "great Isaiah scroll).
Greek NT: late 2nd - early 3rd century AD (Papyrus 75).
LXX: mid-4th century AD (Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus).

Any way you look equitably at it, there are older copies of both the Hebrew OT and the Greek NT than there are of the LXX.

2. Widespread use and the NT authors all quote from it.

Wrong.

Some NT writers were familiar with a proto-lxx for some books, that's probably true. Just like how Matthew and Luke probably had a proto-mark manuscript. But others were NOT.

Most of the information you find on the LXX will not comprehensibly look at the quotation styles per author, and that's really what you have to look at. If all you do is look at all the quotations of the OT in the NT as a whole and then ask "where did it come from" you will find yourself with examples of where the NT follows the Hebrew very closely, where it seems to follow the LXX letter-for-letter, and also where it doesn't follow the original text quite so adherently.

What you need to do is separate the quotations per author, starting with Mark. All the quotations in Mark are the work of a single author. You then discount those passages that are duplicated among Matthew and Luke, and you also consider the quotations that come from "Q", and you are left with only a handful of quotations in Matthew that you can attribute to Matthew and in Luke-Acts that you can attribute to Luke.

Next you have John - all the quotations in John are from a single author.

Then you have Paul - again, all his undisputed epistles are the work of single author.

When you look at it this way, which I did a while ago, you find that some authors seem to be familiar with a proto-lxx for some quotes, and others never use it and only know the Hebrew.

For example, John:

John 2:17/Psalms 68:9 - No difference (between LXX and MT)
John 6:45/Isaiah 54:13 - Follows MT
John 10:34/Psalms 81:6 - Follows LXX (letter-for-letter).
John 12:38/Isaiah 53:1 - No difference
John 13:1/Psalms 40:9 - MT (again, it's very similar but the Greek text itself is clearly distinct).
John 15:25/Psalms 68:4 - MT (past tense).
John 19:36/Psalms 33:20/Exodus 12:4 - Neither.
John 19:37/Zechariah 12:10 - MT

Now here's a good Example. John 6:45 - clearly very literal translation in the Gospel.

This is the LXX Isaiah 54:13:

καὶ πάντας τοὺς υἱούς σου διδακτοὺς θεοῦ

And this is John 6:45:

Καὶ ἔσονται πάντες διδακτοὶ τοῦ θεοῦ

(note that's just the quoted section "they will all be taught by God", and not the full verses).

There's simply no way to explain differences like that if they're using the LXX as the basis. If he was copying from the LXX it would be near letter-to-letter identical, like the John 10:34/Psalms 81:6 example. What you see above is a clear example of two independent translations of the same few words in Hebrew.

Besides just one example, John follows the MT and not the LXX. And since the LXX was revised by Origen (and others), it's entirely possible that the LXX passage was altered to match John's quote.