The Lexham English Septuagint, Second Edition

A review of the Lexham English Septuagint (ISBN 9781683593447), second edition. This volume is a cloth-over-board glued hardback with text formatted in a single column, divided into paragraphs. The print is somewhat bold, with 9 to 9.5 point text laid out in generously spaced ~76 character lines. The paper is reasonably opaque but too reflective. The Lexham English Septuagint (LES) is an English translation of Henry Barclay Swete’s diplomatic edition of Codex Vaticanus. As such, it shares some peculiarities with its source, such as missing verses. This video compares the LES with another modern English edition of the Septuagint, the New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS). We also spot check the LES and the NETS in a few verses where ancient Greek-speaking Christians thought they were reading about the Lord.

Detailed Contents

00:00 Dimensions, margins, layout, font … (three slides)
00:12 Unboxing
01:47 The ISBN
02:10 Dimensions compared to the New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS)
02:38 Page layout
03:28 The text is line-matched
04:50 The font in the text
06:34 Paper quality and characteristics
07:40 Print non-uniformity
10:25 The cover, the gold and gray head and tail bands, and the glued binding
11:07 The book lies open in Genesis, but the text drops off into the gutter
12:28 The copyright page
12:50 The table of contents
13:40 The introduction
14:40 The LES is an English translation of Henry Barclay Swete’s diplomatic edition of Vaticanus
15:22 The LES seeks to replicate in English the reading experience of an ancient Greek speaker
16:08 More from the introduction
17:15 Deuteronomy 23.2 is absent. Why?
18:44 Font compared to two editions of Brenton and to the NETS
20:33 An NETS/LES comparison chart
23:50 A few other differences between the LES and the NETS
24:44 The contents of the NETS and LES compared
26:20 Comments from Henry Barclay Swete on his sources for the four books of Maccabees, the Psalms of Solomon, Enoch, and Odes, which aren’t in Vaticanus
27:08 Differences between the LES and NETS in verse and chapter numbers in Proverbs 24/30
28:15 The LES and NETS compared in Proverbs 8.22-25; the LES implies that the Wisdom of God was made, not begotten
30:35 The LES and NETS compared in Genesis 6.2, where the LES, translating Codex Alexandrinus, reads ‘angels of God’ rather than ‘sons of God’
32:15 The LES and NETS compared in Psalm 3.6: ‘I went to bed and fell asleep’ or ‘I lay down and slept’
33:29 The LES and NETS compared in Psalm 18.7: a reference to Christ’s Incarnation?
34:53 The LES and NETS compared in Isaiah 45.14: ‘God is among you’ or ‘God is in you’?
36:27 Psalm 22/23 in the LES
36:54 Ezekiel 37.4-16 in the LES
37:04 Isaiah 53.4-12 in the LES
37:20 Alternate translations of Tobit (from Sinaiticus) and Daniel (Theodotion)
38:03 The book of Enoch in the LES compared to the Nickelsburg/VanderKam translation from the Ethiopic
41:43 Conclusion (pros and cons)