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Adventures in the Bible of the Apostles

Updated August 12, 2023

The Apostles had a Bible that looked very different from the one that is found in most churches today. Most notably, they used and read the Septuagint, a pre-Christian translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek. The Septuagint left an indelible imprint on the New Testament and the early Church, and is still the version of authority in the Eastern Orthodox Church. In each 8-week course, we will explore what the Bible of the first century looked like, and closely compare (in English translation) the Hebrew and the Septuagint versions.

Each class will have two parts. The first half will provide a brief overview of some aspect of Biblical culture in antiquity. In the second half, a discussion leader (volunteers will be assigned early in the course), will identify three or more passages that reveal some interesting insights into the Septuagint version. The volunteer will also look at the New Testament quotations or allusions to the assigned block of chapters, and reflect on how the New Testament interacts with the Septuagint or the Hebrew. We will read and discuss these passages. Participants are encouraged to bring and use their Bibles, in a variety of translations or versions. Discovery requires hands-on experience, so come prepared to participate, even if just a bit.

Our study will in no way be exhaustive. We will be discovering some exciting things, and guess what, what we touch on is just the tip of the iceberg. Although we will be engaging with very good scholarship, the class is not focused on academics. Our goal is to read the Septuagint to better understand, and therefore better fulfill, the Apostolic Tradition.

All courses are facilitated by Joel Kalvesmaki at St. Anna Orthodox Church, Louisa, VA.

Resources

There are four complete English translations of the Septuagint:
Here are some useful links to online study tools:
If you are looking for book-length introductions to the Septuagint, the following may provide good starting points:

Adventures in Genesis and Exodus

When: Sunday June 25, 2023 through Sunday August 20, 2023, approx. 12:30 through 1:00, with optional overtime discovery and discussion
Where: Refectory, St. Anna Orthodox Church, Louisa, VA (map)
The heart of the Septuagint is the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. In this course we focus on Genesis and Exodus. Although we will be reading these books looking for aspects we haven't seen in the Bibles commonly known, we will also seek a fully immersive experience, attempting to ingest the stories of creation, the patriarchs, and the sojourn and exodus from Egypt in a way similar to how first century Christians might have experienced it. This is difficult to do in translation, but we will make an attempt!

Class 1 (June 25): Introduction

Class 2 (July 2): Genesis 1-11

Class 3 (July 9): Genesis 12-24

Class 4 (July 16): Genesis 25-36

Class 5 (July 23): Genesis 37-50

Class 6 (July 30): Exodus

August 6: no class (parish feast)

Class 7 (August 13): Leviticus and Numbers

Class 8 (August 20): Deuteronomy

Class 9 (August 27): Conclusion