ET us now go back to the ancient centuries to peep at people who lived three hundred years before Christ came on earth. It is a long way back; but we need not be alarmed for the Old Testament records events thousands of years earlier, and the last of its writers died before the time of which I am now writing. We want to know something about an old Bible which had a strange name, but which had a wide circulation, was very popular in many places, and in a wonderful way was blessed of God in preparing the nations for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which was to be published when God had all things ready for it.

      This book was called the Septuagint. It has a great deal to do with our Bible, and we cannot find out where ours really came from unless we know a little of this. This Septuagint Bible was in the Greek language, and was made from the Hebrew about the year 280 B. C. It was the first [71] complete translation of the Old Testament from the original that was ever made that we know of, and was certainly the most important.

      I should like to tell if I could how it was made, but unfortunately we have not much real history to guide us.

      There are several pleasant stories which profess to tell of its origin. One of these says that the Egyptian King, Ptolemy Philadelphus, was anxious to have a translation of the Hebrew Bible, of which he had heard much, that it might adorn the great library which there was at Alexandria in the third century before Christ. The king's librarian, Demetrius, told his majesty that he would never get the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures so long as he held so many Jews in slavery in his country.

      The story goes on to say that the king set a vast number of Jewish slaves free, and then sent valuable presents to the high priest, at Jerusalem, and asked for scholars to be sent to him to make him a Greek Bible. The high priest and other officials were greatly delighted, and selected six learned men from each of the twelve tribes of Israel, and sent off the seventy-two thus chosen to Alexandria to do the work the king wished done. For these men he provided each a separate room, and they began their work. In seventy-two days each [72] man had produced a translation, and when they compared them it was found that each copy exactly agreed with all the rest! This was taken to be an evidence that God had inspired them all. Not many believe the story now; but Josephus and many of the early Christian fathers not only told it, but doubtless believed it.

      There is one thing about which we can be tolerably certain, and that is that the Septuagint, which had this name because of the seventy men engaged upon its translation, was as made in the third century before Christ, and probably about the year 285, B. C.

      Let me state, in few words, why I think it was made. It is well known to historians that when the Jews returned from captivity to their own land, they had almost forgotten the Hebrew language. This is not to be wondered at. Of those who came back only the smallest remnant had seen the land before. Two generations of them had been born in the land of captivity. In touch with the life of another nation and surrounded by influences that were powerful, it was no wonder that they ceased to speak the language of their forefathers.

      Suppose a number of Welsh-speaking people, knowing only their own language, had been transplanted from their own country to the heart of the United States, and that they and their children remain there for seventy years--what would happen [73] as to their language? In twenty-three years some of the children of these Welsh parents, born in the United States, would be married. In another twenty-three years more grandchildren would be married. A quarter of a century later the great-grandchildren would be married. Thus in about seventy years, all those who had come from Wales would either have died, or, if living, would be of a great age. Do you think these children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren would be still speaking Welsh? Their language would have dropped out of use. This was the case with the Jews. They had largely forgotten Hebrew.

      But vast numbers of Jews never returned at all. When the last of the exiles reached home, about the year 445, B. C., they left behind them a larger number, known as the Jews of the Dispersion. The Septuagint was made about one hundred and sixty years after the last company of Jews had returned to Palestine under Nehemiah. During that period the Jewish race had multiplied and spread enormously in those Eastern lands.

of these Jews in many lands, and to meet their requirements and fulfil the purpose of God the Septuagint or Greek translation of the Bible was made. It released the people from their dependence upon the priests for the Word of Life. [74]

      The influence of this old Bible was marvelous, and the effect it produced in the world can never be told. It put the Scriptures into the hands of the people. It was the wide and far-reaching influence of this Book which prepared the world for the coming of the Great Prince, whose star the wise men who came to the cradle of the infant Christ had seen in the East. And it did more than anything else to prepare the Eastern world for the reception of Christianity. Our Bible came through this channel. [75]

[HWGI 71-75]