The Septuagint, Sexuality, and the New Testament

William Loader in professor of New Testament at Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia, and lecturer in New Testament at Perth Theological Hall of the Uniting Church in Australia.
-Publisher

This fascinating book by William Loader shows how the Septuagint created new slants and emphasis on sexuality and explores how they leave their mark in the writings of Philo and the New Testament.^Loaderbs useful motif in this study is that bsome things are lost in translation, others gained.b The Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures could not help but result in verbal connections, lost emphases, and novel word plays that ultimately opened the door to new interpretations. One particularly important instance of this effect of translation is the Septuagintbs treatment of sexuality.^In the course of his book Loader explores sexuality as it is presented in the Decalogue, the stories of Creation and the Garden of Eden, and the brief reference to divorce in Deuteronomy 24. He looks at each of these three samples in three stages: its Septuagint translation, its use in Philo, and then its possible impact in the New Testament. ^As an example, Philo makes much of the fact that in his scriptures, as in most early Septuagint texts, adultery heads the list of sins on the second table of the Law, and such changes in turn impacted the New Testament writings. Loader also shows how the Septuagint version of the Creation stories opens the possibility of framing male-female relations in several ways and how the Eden narratives allow for conjuring women as faulty creations or understanding Eve as seduced by the serpent. Such possibilities find fruitful soil in Philo, but also take root in such writers as Paul.^"The Septuagint, Sexuality, and the New Testament" is a groundbreaking book that makes a major contribution to biblical studies, with reverberations to the whole field of Christianscholarship.
-Publisher

This fascinating book by William Loader shows how the Septuagint created new slants and emphasis on sexuality and explores how they leave their mark in the writings of Philo and the New Testament.
Loaderbs useful motif in this study is that bsome things are lost in translation, others gained.b The Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures could not help but result in verbal connections, lost emphases, and novel word plays that ultimately opened the door to new interpretations. One particularly important instance of this effect of translation is the Septuagintbs treatment of sexuality.


In the course of his book Loader explores sexuality as it is presented in the Decalogue, the stories of Creation and the Garden of Eden, and the brief reference to divorce in Deuteronomy 24. He looks at each of these three samples in three stages: its Septuagint translation, its use in Philo, and then its possible impact in the New Testament.


As an example, Philo makes much of the fact that in his scriptures, as in most early Septuagint texts, adultery heads the list of sins on the second table of the Law, and such changes in turn impacted the New Testament writings. Loader also shows how the Septuagint version of the Creation stories opens the possibility of framing male-female relations in several ways and how the Eden narratives allow for conjuring women as faulty creations or understanding Eve as seduced by the serpent. Such possibilities find fruitful soil in Philo, but also take root in such writers as Paul.


"The Septuagint, Sexuality, and the New Testament" is a groundbreaking book that makes a major contribution to biblical studies, with reverberations to the whole field of Christianscholarship.


-Publisher