Septuagint Production and Reception: Conceptualising the LXX as ‘African’

Abstract

This article reflects on the question of how we might understand the Septuagint to be ‘African’ and why such a designation is significant. African biblical scholarship has borrowed from African American biblical scholarship an interest in the Bible in Africa and as African. The article focuses on notions of African place, African identity, African production and African reception. The article undertakes an in-depth analysis of ancient African production and reception of the Septuagint, before turning to contemporary African reception, with a particular emphasis on socially engaged reception. The article understands that in contemporary LXX textual criticism production is reception, recognising the presence of more than one Hebrew text and more than one LXX production, moving beyond notions of the LXX as secondary to the Masoretic Text to notions of the LXX as substantive theological literatures (in the plural). This is a particularly resonant aspect of ancient production, forging lines of connection with contemporary South African Black Theology’s reminder that the biblical text is a site of struggle, both in terms of interpretation and intrinsically in terms of its production and re-use. The article concludes by reflecting on the purpose or voice of the Septuagint, arguing that engaging with the theologies and ideologies of the Septuagint offers insights into its ancient purposes and resonant lines of connection with contemporary African religio-cultural and socio-historical concerns. An African Septuagint has the potential for contemporary African appropriations.