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.] Crinfield's Apology for the Septuayint.
language. If he had, this book must have contained at least
some incidental proof of it. If he had, he could scarcely have
confounded the Samaritan Pentateuch with the Samaritan
Version, as he seems to do on p. 169. If he had, he could
not possibly have entertained such superstitious notions as to
the terrible obscurity and difficulty of the language, upon which
his doctrine with respect to the necessity of an inspired version
seems to rest. All these erroneous prepossessions would be
instantly dispelled by the most elementary knowledge of the
language itself. If our suspicions as to this point are well
founded, we cannot regard it as a proof of Mr. Grinfield's
wisdom, that he should have spent thirty years in studying
the version without ever seeking to compare it with the original, which he admits to be equally inspired. We can only
explain this by supposing, what is probable for other reasons,
that his recognition of the Hebrew text is merely nominal, and
that to all practical intents and purposes hlie looks upon the
Septuagint version as complete in itself and all-sufficient.
If, on the other hand, he really believes, that the Hebrew
and Greek texts are co-ordinate parts of the inspired canon,
how can he account for the irreconcileable discrepancies between
them? That such discrepancies exist is as notorious to all
who have compared them, as that Greek and Hiebrew are
written in opposite directions. If their existence is accounted
for by assuming a corruption of the text, on which side are we
to assume it? Why should the inspired original be'suffered
to become corrupt any more than the inspired version? Or
why should a version be inspired and then abandoned to corruption, so as to defeat its very purpose? And if either is essentially corrupted, what assurance have we that the other is
not? If it be said that the truth sometimes lies on one side
and sometimes on the other, then as wide a door is opened to
the discretion or caprice of the interpreter, as by any of those
systems of neology which fill the mind of Mr. Grinfield with
horror.
Little as we have said, it is enough, we think, to show, that
of all conceivable hypotheses, in reference to the mutual relation of the Greek and Hebrew text of the Old Testament, this
is the most improbable a priori, as well as the most destitute
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