What Greek Scripture Existed Before Christ?

The argument over a pre-Christian Septuagint often proceeds as though only two answers were possible.

One side produces a handful of Greek fragments and announces that “the Septuagint” existed before Christ. The other points out that no complete pre-Christian Greek Old Testament survives and announces that no Septuagint existed.

Both conclusions outrun the artifacts.

A fragment can prove the existence of a Greek translation of the book represented on the fragment. It cannot, without additional evidence, prove the existence, contents, wording, or unity of a complete Greek Bible. The absence of a surviving complete Bible likewise cannot erase the fragments that do survive.

The proposition of this article is:

Under conventional palaeographical assignments, physical artifacts attest Greek translations of portions of the Torah before or near the beginning of the Christian era. They do not attest one complete, uniform pre-Christian Greek Old Testament corresponding to Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, Rahlfs-Hanhart, or Göttingen.

Every word in that conclusion matters: assigned, artifacts, portions, Torah, and do not.

Begin with the Objects

Four groups of evidence are especially useful because they force the discussion away from a vague title and toward actual material.

These are not names invented by a modern English Bible. The papyri and parchment fragments can be inspected, catalogued, transcribed, and compared.

The University of Manchester describes P.Ryl. Greek 458 as eight fragments from a papyrus roll of Deuteronomy and as among the earliest pre-Christian evidence for any portion of the Old Testament.¹ The Israel Antiquities Authority catalogs 4Q119 and 4Q120 as Greek translations of Leviticus from Qumran Cave 4 and supplies images of the surviving pieces.²

Papyrus Fouad 266 adds substantial Greek Pentateuchal evidence from Egypt. Its published units include Genesis and Deuteronomy material. The famous Deuteronomy roll preserves the Hebrew divine name within the Greek text, itself a warning that early Jewish Greek copying practices cannot simply be read from later Christian codices.³

The direct evidence is therefore not nothing.

It is also not a whole Bible.

What Palaeography Does—and Does Not—Establish

None of these artifacts arrives with a modern title page saying, “Published in 150 BC.”

Their dates are assigned by palaeography—the comparative study of handwriting—together with archaeological, material, and codicological considerations where available. Scholars compare letter forms, writing habits, format, and associated evidence with other examples.

That work is real evidence. It is not a dated colophon.

The distinction prevents two opposite errors. The first speaks as though “150 BC” were printed by the original scribe. The second says that, because the assignment is not an exact publication date, the manuscript has no age evidence at all.

This series will use the controlled form:

P.Ryl. Greek 458 is conventionally assigned to the middle of the second century BC on palaeographical grounds.

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1. University of Manchester Library, “Papyri: Greek P 458”. The official description identifies eight fragments from a papyrus roll of Deuteronomy. For the formal edition, see C. H. Roberts, Two Biblical Papyri in the John Rylands Library Manchester (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1936). ↩
2. Israel Antiquities Authority, Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library, <a href="https://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/explore-the-archive/manuscript/4Q119-1?locale=enUS”>“4Q LXXLeviticus” (4Q119) and <a href="https://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/explore-the-archive/manuscript/4Q120-1?locale=enUS”>“4Q papLXXLeviticus” (4Q120). The conventional dates come from palaeographical study in the formal Discoveries in the Judaean Desert editions and must not be presented as dated colophons. ↩
3. Zaki Aly and Ludwig Koenen, Three Rolls of the Early Septuagint: Genesis and Deuteronomy (Bonn: Rudolf Habelt, 1980); Françoise Dunand, Papyrus grecs bibliques (Papyrus F. Inv. 266): Volumina de la Genèse et du Deutéronome (Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 1966). The grouped inventory contains distinguishable rolls and hands. ↩

That sentence reports the judgment and its basis. It does not turn an estimate into direct attestation.

The Qumran Leviticus fragments require particular care. Published assignments for 4Q119 and 4Q120 cluster near the turn of the era, and some ranges cross from the late first century BC into the early first century AD. They are ancient Jewish Greek witnesses. A broad range that crosses the era cannot honestly be shortened to a proved pre-Christian year.

Precision protects the argument from false certainty.

What the Fragments Prove

The physical evidence supports several conclusions.

First, Greek biblical translation was a Jewish reality before Christianity or at least by the turn of the era. Greek Deuteronomy and Leviticus are not creations first made in a fourth-century Christian pandect.

Second, the evidence is geographically distributed. Egyptian papyri and Judaean Desert finds show Greek Torah texts in more than one setting.

Third, the surviving forms are not perfectly simple. Papyrus Fouad’s treatment of the divine name, 4Q120’s use of Greek letters for the name, and other textual features show that ancient Jewish Greek Scripture could circulate with practices different from later Christian conventions.

Fourth, the fragments give us actual readings. Where the parchment survives, it is no longer necessary to infer that a Greek text existed. The letters are present.

Those conclusions directly correct the claim that there is no physical evidence for Greek Scripture before AD 150.

They do not establish the familiar larger claims.

What the Fragments Do Not Prove

P.Ryl. Greek 458 does not contain Genesis through Malachi. It contains pieces of Deuteronomy.

Papyrus Fouad 266 does not contain one complete Torah in a single surviving roll, much less a complete Greek Old Testament. Its designation covers related but distinguishable material.

The Qumran fragments do not contain Isaiah, Psalms, or every prophetic book. They preserve portions of particular Torah books.

None of the four artifacts proves:

• that one committee translated every Old Testament book;
• that all biblical books had been translated by the same date;
• that one standard Greek edition circulated everywhere;
• that the exact text later found in Vaticanus or Sinaiticus already existed as a complete codex;
• that the contents of a later Christian pandect were the contents of a pre-Christian Jewish collection;
• that Jesus or an apostle used any one of these physical copies;
• that every Greek reading in a modern critical edition is ancient;
• that a Greek difference has authority to correct the received Hebrew.

The last point is the most important. An early date increases historical interest. It does not create immediate inspiration.

A second-century-BC translator is still a translator.

Ruckman Concedes the Evidence and Denies Its Meaning

Peter Ruckman’s treatment is internally unstable.

Early in The Mythological Septuagint, he declares that not one Greek fragment of the Old Testament existed before AD 150. Later he names Rylands 458 and Papyrus Fouad 266, reports their assigned pre-Christian dates, and answers that they are only scraps of one book and not a Greek Old Testament.⁴

The second answer abandons the first claim.

He is right that fragments of Deuteronomy do not prove a complete Greek Old Testament. He is wrong to say that no pre-Christian Greek biblical fragment exists while discussing the very fragments conventionally assigned to that period.

His additional requirement—that an extant early fragment must contain a verse quoted by a New Testament writer—confuses two separate questions:

1. Did Greek Scripture exist?
2. Does this surviving piece prove the wording and physical exemplar used by a New Testament writer?

The artifacts answer the first for particular Torah books. They do not necessarily answer the second. Failure to answer the second does not reverse the first.

Ruckman found a valid boundary and used it as an eraser.

Williams Turns a Corpus Warning into Nonexistence

H. D. Williams makes a related error. He cites standard scholarship on the diversity of the corpus, then concludes that “the Septuagint” is imaginary and should not even be considered.⁵

But the ambiguity of the collective name is precisely why the artifacts must be named.

“The Septuagint existed before Christ” is too broad if it means a complete and uniform Greek Bible.

“No Greek biblical translation existed before Christ” is contradicted by the conventionally dated material evidence.

The source-controlled sentence is:

Greek translations of particular Torah books are physically extant in artifacts conventionally assigned before or near the beginning of the Christian era; a complete, uniform pre-Christian Greek Old Testament is not physically extant.

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1. University of Manchester Library, “Papyri: Greek P 458”. The official description identifies eight fragments from a papyrus roll of Deuteronomy. For the formal edition, see C. H. Roberts, Two Biblical Papyri in the John Rylands Library Manchester (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1936). ↩
2. Israel Antiquities Authority, Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library, <a href="https://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/explore-the-archive/manuscript/4Q119-1?locale=enUS”>“4Q LXXLeviticus” (4Q119) and <a href="https://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/explore-the-archive/manuscript/4Q120-1?locale=enUS”>“4Q papLXXLeviticus” (4Q120). The conventional dates come from palaeographical study in the formal Discoveries in the Judaean Desert editions and must not be presented as dated colophons. ↩
3. Zaki Aly and Ludwig Koenen, Three Rolls of the Early Septuagint: Genesis and Deuteronomy (Bonn: Rudolf Habelt, 1980); Françoise Dunand, Papyrus grecs bibliques (Papyrus F. Inv. 266): Volumina de la Genèse et du Deutéronome (Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 1966). The grouped inventory contains distinguishable rolls and hands. ↩
4. Peter S. Ruckman, The Mythological Septuagint (Pensacola, FL: Bible Believers Press, 1996), supplied PDF, PDF pp. 7, 17–18. PDF page 17 explicitly names Rylands 458 and Fouad 266 and then limits them to fragments rather than a complete Greek Old Testament. ↩
5. H. D. Williams, The Septuagint: The Character of God’s Words Is Not Found in the Septuagint, supplied PDF, PDF pp. 13, 16–17. Williams’s warning against treating the corpus as homogeneous is retained; the inference from heterogeneity to nonexistence is rejected. ↩

That statement concedes everything the artifacts actually show and nothing they do not.

The Strongest Objection

A scholar may answer that the translation of Deuteronomy presupposes the rest of the Pentateuch, and that citations in Jewish writings indicate Greek versions of other books. The surviving scraps are therefore the visible tips of a much larger translation history.

That inference may be reasonable. It must still be identified as an inference.

The existence of one translated book can make the translation of related books more probable. A quotation can provide a chronological boundary for a wording. A prologue can testify that “other books” had been translated by its time. None of those witnesses is worthless.

But probability is not physical completeness. A collection may have existed without surviving as one object. Books may have circulated separately. Several translations may have been made at different times. A quotation may have been rendered independently.

The historian may assemble a cumulative case. He may not silently replace its parts with a surviving pre-Christian pandect that no one possesses.

The gap between “some books” and “one complete Bible” is not skepticism. It is the question under investigation.

A Better Evidentiary Habit

Every early Greek artifact should be recorded under the same fields:

• shelfmark and present holder;
• exact biblical contents;
• material and format;
• assigned date and method;
• find context and first secure provenance;
• published edition;
• visible textual features;
• what conclusion it directly supports;
• what larger conclusion remains inferential.

That discipline will become more important when this series reaches Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. Their conventional dates, physical forms, and documented histories must be kept separate. The same rule applies here.

P.Ryl. Greek 458 is not “the Septuagint.” It is a Greek Deuteronomy artifact.

4Q120 is not “the Bible used by Christ.” It is a Greek Leviticus artifact.

Rahlfs-Hanhart is not either artifact. It is a modern edited text.

The Göttingen Pentateuch is not a facsimile of a Ptolemaic scroll. It is a critical reconstruction.

Once those identities are kept clear, the controversy becomes smaller and more honest.

The Evidence May Testify

Confessional bibliology has no need to hide an ancient Greek letter.

The early fragments establish that Jewish translators rendered portions of the Torah into Greek and that Jewish scribes transmitted those translations. They provide evidence about vocabulary, reading practices, textual forms, and the divine name. They deserve exact study.

They do not occupy the constitutional place that Westminster assigns to the Hebrew Old Testament. They do not transform the Letter of Aristeas into an eyewitness archive. They do not materialize a lost complete Bible. They do not prove which way every later verbal agreement traveled.

The evidence may enter the witness box.

It must enter under its own shelfmark.

The next article will explain why the history cannot be reconstructed by giving the entire anthology one translator, one date, or one translation profile. The inquiry must proceed one biblical book at a time.

Notes and Further Reading

For the linguistic and text-critical limits of versional evidence, see Peter J. Gentry, <a href="https://etsjets.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/www.etsjets.orgfilesJETS-PDFs5252-1_JETS-52-1-19-45-Gentry.pdf”>“The Text of the Old Testament”, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 52.1 (2009): 19–45, and Emanuel Tov, The Text-Critical Use of the Septuagint in Biblical Research, 3rd ed. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2015).

Previous in the series: “Aristeas and the Seventy: What the Story Does—and Does Not—Prove.”

Next in the series: “One Book at a Time: Dates, Translators, and Profiles.”