The Septuagint is a third century B.C. Greek translation of the Old Testament. The word septuaginta is Latin for 70.
The Septuagint gets its name from the 70 or 72 Jewish scholars commissioned in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, according to the Letter of Aristeas, to translate the Old Testament into the language that was supplanting Hebrew as the language of the Jewish people. According to Calvin J. Roetzel in The World That Shaped the New Testament, the original Septuagint only contained the Pentateuch, but in later versions included the Prophets and Writings. He also says that the story about the creation of the document includes such later embellishments as that seventy-two scholars working independently made separate translations in 70 days that agreed in every detail.
