An Apology for the Septuagint, in which its Claims to Biblical and Canonical Authority are briefly stated and vindicated. By E. W. Grinfield, M. A. [pp. 541-557]

1850.] Grinfield's Apology for the Septuagint.
to read the Septuagint version. However interesting such a
fact may be historically, wve are wholly at a loss to understand
the weight attached to it by Mr. Grinfield in this argument.
It seems to have occurred to him after he began to write the
work before us, and to have so affected his religious sensibilities, that wvithout attempting any proof of the alleged fact, or
showing how it is to be applied, he merely dwells upon it in a
kind of rapture, which is much more edifying than convincing.
6. Subsidiary to these arguments is one derived from certain practical effects which have resulted and, according to
our author, must result from a refusal to regard the Septuagint version as canonical and equally inspired with the Hebrew Bible and Greek Testament. We were struck, in our
perusal of the volume, with the number and variety of evils,
which the author, sometimes quite ingeniously, derives from
this unsuspected source. The greater number we have quite
forgotten, having taken no pains to record them, and are not
disposed to go back now in search of them.'lwo of the most
impq'tant, which we still'retain, may serve as samples of the
rest. The first is what the author more than once describes
as German and American neology, for which "bad eminence"
our country is indebted to the learned skepticism of Mr. Norton. This neology is traced, we scarcely know by what
means, to the neglect of Hellenistic learning and exclusive
study of the Hebrew scriptures. A more plausible deduction
of the same sort is the one that traces to this origin the Judaizing
spirit of the Puritans and Millennarians. These however are
mere adjuncts to the main arguments before recited, with
which they must either stand or fall, and to which the comments which we have to offer will be consequently limited.
O)ur first remark is, that the arguments adduced by Mr.
Grinfield either prove too little or too much. If, as he quietly
assumes, "things must be as they may," if possibility, necessity, and certainty, are all identical or mutually presuppose
each other, then he has certainly demonstrated, that an inspired translation of the Hebrew Scriptures not only might but
must be made before the change of dispensations, and that
only such a version could have possibly supplied the terms required to express the peculiar truths of Christianity, and that
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