Old Greek

Old Greek is the Greek language as spoken from Late Antiquity (c. 400 AD) to c. 1500. Greek spoken during this period is usually split into:

Late Greek (c. 400 – c. 800 AD)
Medieval Greek (c. 800 – c. 1500)

"Old Greek" (OG) is also the technical term for the presumed initial Greek translations^[1] of the Hebrew Bible^[2] for books other than the Pentateuch.^[3]

Old Greek might also be understood to include a preceding period, Koine Greek, as well – also referred to as "the common dialect" or "Alexandrian dialect", "common Attic" or "Hellenistic Greek" – the universal dialect spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity (c. 300 BC – 300 AD).

^ The translators used a form of Koine Greek.
^ Thus books – or parts of books – that are not contained in the Hebrew Bible are not part of the Old Greek, even though they were eventually considered part of the Septuagint.
^ "As early as the second century A.D., "Septuagint" was used as an umbrella term for the Christian collection[s] of Jewish scriptures […] This convenient but potentially misleading use of the term still prevails […] Since there is no homogeneity among the various translation units of this collection […], it is more accurate to speak of the oldest recoverable Greek form of each section/book (OG="Old Greek"), which in the Pentateuch is the LXX proper." Kraft, Robert A. (1976). "B. Earlier Greek versions ("Old Greek")". In Crim, Keith (ed.). The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible. Supplementary Volume. Abingdon Press. p. 811. ISBN 9780687192694.
"It is probably better to refer to the original translation of books other than the Pentateuch as the Old Greek (OG) so as to distinguish them from the original translation of the Pentateuch and from the later revisions and new translations. (when referring to these initial translations of the Hebrew Bible as a whole, some scholars prefer the combined abbreviation "LXX/OG" as a continual reminder of the diversity that characterizes the corpus.) Jobes, Karen H. & Silva, Moisés (2000). Invitation to the Septuagint. Paternoster Press / Baker Academic. p. 32. ISBN 1-84227-061-3.

[1] The translators used a form of Koine Greek.

[2] Thus books – or parts of books – that are not contained in the Hebrew Bible are not part of the Old Greek, even though they were eventually considered part of the Septuagint.

[3] "As early as the second century A.D., "Septuagint" was used as an umbrella term for the Christian collection[s] of Jewish scriptures […] This convenient but potentially misleading use of the term still prevails […] Since there is no homogeneity among the various translation units of this collection […], it is more accurate to speak of the oldest recoverable Greek form of each section/book (OG="Old Greek"), which in the Pentateuch is the LXX proper." Kraft, Robert A. (1976). "B. Earlier Greek versions ("Old Greek")". In Crim, Keith (ed.). The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible. Supplementary Volume. Abingdon Press. p. 811. ISBN 9780687192694.
"It is probably better to refer to the original translation of books other than the Pentateuch as the Old Greek (OG) so as to distinguish them from the original translation of the Pentateuch and from the later revisions and new translations. (when referring to these initial translations of the Hebrew Bible as a whole, some scholars prefer the combined abbreviation "LXX/OG" as a continual reminder of the diversity that characterizes the corpus.) Jobes, Karen H. & Silva, Moisés (2000). Invitation to the Septuagint. Paternoster Press / Baker Academic. p. 32. ISBN 1-84227-061-3.

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