Description

The three volume set of The Old Testament in Greek According to the Septuagint, edited by the Cambridge scholar Henry Barclay Swete (1835-1917), was first published in 1894. It contains the books from Hosea to 4 Maccabees with the Psalms of Solomon as an appendix. Swete set an important precedent for later editors by using an actual manuscript text as the edition's base. He selected the fourth-century Codex Vaticanus, which is still widely considered to contain the earliest and most valuable form of Septuagint text; many later editors have followed suit. Where Vaticanus was defective the text was supplemented by Codex Alexandrinus. or another important uncial manuscript. A critical apparatus contains the readings of eleven manuscripts for the Prophets and Maccabees, three for the Psalms, and five minuscules for the Psalms of Solomon. The edition's clarity helped it become one of the most widely used versions of the Septuagint.