The Question of the Greek New Testament

[Aractus]

First, there are 73 books in the entire Bible (66 if you're talking to a Protestant). 27 are NT books.

Second, would you say that Jesus (and the authors of the NT) did or did not quote from the Septuagint?

Third, since you sound like someone who's done a bit of research into this, did you read the articles that I referenced previously? They acknowledge that the Letter of Aristeas is not credible, but they go on to support the BC dating of the Septuagint.

Fine, 39 books then. Some of the authors quoted from a textual tradition that ended up at the LXX as we know it. Others did not; there are 263 quotes of the OT in the NT and overall about half of them comes from a proto-LXX and the other half comes from a proto-MT. There are clear examples of quotes that align perfectly with the MT and not at all with the LXX, and I can provide you with examples. But perhaps more importantly Jesus himself says he read from the Hebrew scriptures. See Matthew 5:18, 7:12, 11:13, 22:40. Matthew 5:18 alone proves it - since when does the Greek alphabet contain the letter Jot?

Again I'm not disputing that something existed at the time of Jesus. But firstly it wasn't "a" translation it was a collection of translations made over time that formed part of the textual recension that would eventually be called the "LXX"; and secondly nobody knows how much of it was already translated before the second century, and how much was translated in the second century AD. Thirdly, as a Catholic you probably don't know this, but there aren't 39 books OR 46 books in the LXX - there are 51 (52 if you count Psalm 151).

In any case, it contains: 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, Psalm 151, and the Prayer of Manasseh; none of which appear in the Catholic Bible. So much for being holy inspired scripture, huh?