throw in my two denarii right at the beginning. I'm quite happy to use the Septuagint for the very simplistic and naive reason that it's the Bible Jesus used. The vast majority of Scriptural quotations in the Gospels and Epistles are exact quotations of the Septuagint. And when St. Paul tells Timothy that "all Scripture is God-breathed," it's surely the Septuagint he's speaking of.

Nevertheless, the Septuagint is not a canon in the sense that the New Testament is. It's never been an inflexible, fixed list. The events in 3 Maccabees take place more than a century after the first translation of the Septuagint, so it's obvious that at different times & places the Septuagint had a different list of books.

This isn't important, and it's not important for two reasons:

1. Right from the beginning, the Church embraced the Septuagint (as listed above) as her Scripture. We today are no smarter than the first- and second- century Church.

2. The Roman church used the Vulgate for nearly 700 years before the Great Schism-- in the meantime, the Eastern churches were using the Septuagint, and neither side was upset at the other for this issue. The Catholic communion still uses both versions between the Roman and Eastern churches. And today the Ethiopian Orthodox Church uses a version of the Old Testament slightly different from what we use, without anyone giving them grief.

I prefer the Septuagint because it was the Church's first Scripture, and because it's the Scripture most frequently quoted in the Gospels and Epistles. But I have no problem with other traditions using other lists. I do have a problem with churches anathemetizing one anothers' lists, as the Calvinists did in the Westminster Confession.

We can be flexible about the Old Testament because its function is so different from the Gospels and the Epistles. These books tell us all about the Christian faith. The Old Testament is the history of God's relationship with his chosen people. If I lose Esther, or Tobit, or 2 Chronicles, I lose some beautiful and inspired stories about how God protected and strengthened his people in hardship. But there are other stories aplenty. I don't lose essential teachings about who God is or how to walk in his light.

The Jews clearly had an agenda when they canonized the Masoretic text-- the Septuagint was by that time perceived as a Christian Scripture, and they needed a rebuttal. Luther had an agenda when he culled his Old Testament-- all those references to prayers for the dead, communion of the saints, and other popish notions were inconsistent with the Scriptura he wanted to Sola. When the Romans canonized the Vulgate they were sticking it to Martin Luther. And when the Calvinists anathematized the "apocrypha," that was a double-jab both at the Anglicans (who considered it sub-Scripture but useful) and the Pope. But when Ptolemy II commissioned the Septuagint, his only agenda was to enrich the Great Library.

@buddha_gazelle - 

I don't know if one could say with certainty that Jesus read (or preferred) the Septuagint. In the time of Jesus, there was tension between Jewish culture and Greek culture. Specifically within the Jewish populace, there was tension beween Hellenistic Jews and unassimilated Jews. The Septuagint is a product of Hellenism. It is possible, that as a an Aramaic/Hebrew speaking Jew, Jesus would have not read the Greek translation of the Torah and the Prophets. Unassimilated Jews believed they literally had the word of God in these books. To them, a translation makes it no longer the "exact" words of God, unless it came from God directly...which probably explains the legend of the Seventy Elders and its use as divine confirmation of the Greek canon.

Interestingly, Stephen M. Wylen notes that a Jewish sage of the second century was so disturbed by the inaccuracy of the Septuagint in light of the Hebrew langage that he "commissioned a Gentile convert, Aquila, to compose a more literal translation [now lost] into Greek" (Jews in the Time of Jesus, p. 40).

This isn't to say the Septuagint is wrong. Rather, it is to recognize the limitations we have in all translations, which may accompany interpretive perspectives from the translators.

Food for thought. Cheers.

@heyheybaby95 - 

Yes, by the second century AD most Jewish scholars had rejected the Septuagint. (many argue that they were reacting to Christianity embracing the LXX)

I believe I can say this with certainty: the Gospels and Epistles quote the Septuagint far, far more than they quote any other source. The vast majority of OT references in the Gospels & Epistles are Septuagint references. Jesus, as quoted in the Gospels, uses the Septuagint.

So the uncertainty you speak of is only to the extent that the Gospels as we possess them are unreliable.

About discrepancies between the Septuagint and the "original" (long-lost) Hebrew manuscripts: the oldest Hebrew texts we have-- the Dead Sea Scrolls-- agree more closely with the LXX than they do with the Masoretic Hebrew texts. This suggests that the Septuagint is based on manuscripts far older than the manuscripts used by 2nd-century Jewish scholars. Unreliable as it may be, the Septuagint may still be the most reliable-- and most ancient-- source in common use by any church.

@buddha_gazelle - 

It is no surprise the New Testament quotes mostly, if not all, from the Septuagint--all of the NT is written in Greek--it also has significant Hellenistic influence. When Paul said all scripture is God-breathed, he most likely was referring to the Septuagint--he was a Hellenistic Jew. I'm not quick to call the Septuagint the most reliable. I think we have come far enough to say we know a little more about ancient Hebrew culture and language to know the resulting discrepancies of translating the Hebrew into Greek. Like I said, there's nothing wrong with having a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. There were a lot of Hellenistic Jews that only read and spoke Greek; they needed to read the Bible too!

the Canon, as I see it, is laid out like this:

A Study in Scarlet

The Sign of Four

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

The Hound of the Baskervilles

The Return of Sherlock Holmes

The Valley of Fear

His Last Bow

The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes

@Prophetmargin - 

so "The Adventure of the Tall Man" is out?

Opinion still forthcoming.

@Prophetmargin - 

Ditto.

Though i've from using the Luther Bible to the Catholic, i don't really spend a substantial amount of time in the deuterocanonical books. I've read some of 1/2 Maccabees (love they attitude towards the Romans there--maybe THAT'S why the Jewish scribes wanted 'em out!), a bit of Tobit and some of Wisdom. None of the are contradictory to any of the rest of the OT so far as i can tell. Tobit is one of the most beautiful stories about marriage in the entire Bible. Wisdom is really beautiful. I found that once i realized the basis and grounding of my Christian faith and practice is in the continued life and practice of the Church, rather than trying to make sense of Scripture apart from the Church that codified it, the Bible was freer to do what it's meant to do.

I still have yet to see an Eastern Catholic use the Septuagint.

@Saakara - 

Bother, I should go correct that.

I've been linking to this post, because I think it's so helpful. Please let me know if I should remove the links.