Scholarly Reflections
Daly, Robert J. "Part 2: From the Old Testament to the New. Chapter One: The Septuagint." Christian Sacrifice: The Judaeo-Christian Background Before Origen. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1978, 139-144.
The Septuagint is important in the early Christian understanding of sacrifice not because of any introduction of new material, but because of its work to articulate the Old Testament ideas in Greek, thus establishing a vocabulary framework for later developments (Daly 1978, 139).
Daly observes that the Septuagint may well have drawn from some oral or other cultural sources at the points where it diverges from the Masoretic Text. This idea of a "lviing" interpretation of the text is consistent with much rabbinical interpretation (Daly 1978, 140). However, whatever the means of developing the text, there is relatively little explanation of the meaning of the sacrifices, apart from the translation of Leviticus 17:11, discussed in the previous chapter.
The language of the New Testament was heavily influenced by the translation decisions made in the Septuagint (Daly 1978, 141). It provided a ready-made technical standard to discuss and interpret Jewish tradition and thought. Daly notes a trend in vocabulary. "The LXX [also] invented numerous neologisms, but they are so similar to already existing Greek terms that they cannot have been invented in order to make a clear distinction between the Hebrew and the Greek terms. The neologisms seem rather to be making a conscious use of pagan terminology in order to make the Scriptures understandable to all; and at the same time they introduce a slight difference, apparently in order to call attention to the distinction between pagan and Jewish" (concepts) (Daly 1978, 142). (S. Daniel Recherches sur le Vocabulaire du culte dans le Septante 363-366). These coinages are similar to existing Greek words and also normally have a resemblance to the Hebrew text.
Daly concludes this brief chapter with Septuagint translations of some common Hebrew terms (Daly 1978, 143-144).