[Source] More than 20 years ago, long before I embraced Eastern Orthodoxy, I was regularly attending a men’s Bible Study at a church in Winchester, Mass. After a while, something began bothering me. Jesus and His Apostles frequently quoted the Old Testament. However, when I turned to the Old Testament passage alluded to, it usually said something different—not radically different, but different nonetheless. I asked my group if they knew why.
of the men, better schooled in the Bible’s history than I, said: “Well, that’s because there are two versions of the Old Testament—the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text. Jesus and the Apostles were quoting the Septuagint. But our Bible uses the Masoretic Text.”
“Oh, OK,” I said. I didn’t give it further thought at the time.
The story of the Septuagint’s origin was described by the Christian apologist Saint Justin Martyr (100-165 AD):
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