Protection, Passover and Easter

One of the silliest hills you will see a radical KJV Onlyist die on is defending the use of the word Easter in Acts 12:4 specifically and nowhere else.

Now I suspect the people at the King James Research Center YouTube Channel I discovered in December of 2024 are scholarly types who’d know better than to do that.  They would just argue that in King James English Easter and Passover are synonyms so it’s not a big deal that this one verse translates the name of the holiday differently then the others.  And that position isn’t entirely wrong, I’m not one of those “Easter is Pagan and the very etymology of the word proves it” types.  But I do think the baggage the word now has is a good reason to avoid it at least in how we translate Scripture.

These bad KJV Onlyists first argument is “it’s during Unleavened Bread so Passover is past already”.  That is based on Exodus 12 and Leviticus 23’s rather strict usage of Passover for the 14th specifically, but Deuteronomy 16 and Ezekiel 45:21 set the precedent for using Passover to describe the entire Spring Festival season and that’s clearly how all New Testament references are using it like in Luke 22:1-7.

Herod Agrippa was a devout Jew not a Pagan, so no he would not have been observing any “Ishtar” festival in Jerusalem. 

The fact is this verse of Acts uses the same word as every other reference to Passover in the Greek, Pascha which is a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew Pesach.  So I think it should be translated consistently with all the others.

The little historical footnote they will cling to is that it was William Tyndale who coined the word Passover and he used Easter in this verse.  The problem is Tyndale used Easter for every Pascha verse of the New Testament.  You see he did the New Testament first and then started work on the Hebrew Bible which he never got to finish and it was for that he coined Passover.  If you asked him if future translations should use Passover for Pascha in the New Testament including Acts 12:4 he would probably have said yes.

I am however now going to say something that will be anathema to even those more sane KJV Onlyists. I think even Passover was a wrong translation of Pesach.  I think Tyndale got a lot of stuff right (like translating Limne as Lake), but he messed up here, though the error begins with the Septuagint version of Exodus 12:23.

As the proper name of a Holy Day Pesach should probably just be transliterated.  

But as far as what the word means when used as a verb I agree with scholars like Nehemiah Gordon that it really means Protect and thus as a name means Protection or Protector. Gordon’s articles are behind a Paywall now so I’ll instead link to these.

https://www.thetorah.com/article/why-passover-on-the-true-meaning-of-pesah

https://fatheroflove.info/article/view/explaining-that-passover-means-god-protecting-not-deciding-not-to-kill

The Septuagint in fact agrees with this interpretation of the word in two out of the three Exodus 12 verses.

Both uses of “pass over” in the KJV of Exodus 12 make more sense if translated “protect” especially verse 23, and “passed” in verse 27 works as “protected”.  Likewise “passing over” in Isaiah 31:5 definitely makes more sense in context as “protecting”.  

The seemingly contradictory way this word is translated in 1 Kings 18 as “halt” in verse 21 and “leaped" in verse 26 is fixed by understanding inherently defensive actions as what both verses were going for.  In 2 Samuel 4:4 the second “lame” in the KJV is a form of Pesach but the first “lame” is different, in this case I think it’s an ironic usage about Johnathon’s son being defenseless.

Continuing the running joke of me when talking about translation issues suggesting a Japanese word because I watch Anime, the best Japanese Translation of Pesach would be Mamoru.

King James only Baptists baffle me

I myself am very sympathetic to the King James Onlists on certain matters, like which source texts to use and which books, chapters and verses are and are not Canon, and the biggest issues I have with the KJV aren’t fixed by newer translations but often made worse.  I even consider the KJV compatible with certain doctrines many assume you have to reject the KJV to support like Universal Salvation.

The most Extreme KJV Onlists tend to be Baptists or younger sects of partially Baptist origin (Like Millerites and Pentecostals).

Baptists are at their core Hyper Congregationalists, yet part of the agenda behind the King James Bible was doubling down on High Church Translation decisions of the Geneva Bible like translating Ekklesia as Church, Episcopas as Bishop and Diakonos as Deacon.

KJV onlyists get around these issues by simply repeatedly saying that “Church in the Bible just means a gathering of believers”, and that is accurate to what the Greek word Ekklesia means, but that’s not what the English word Church means.  In its origin the English word Church refers to a type of building.  Words can change meaning over time, some of my issues with the KJV are words that were correct at the time but not anymore.  You can’t however simply force it to happen, the word Church still first and foremost puts the idea of either a religious building or a hierarchical organized religion in most people's minds.

William Tyndale used the word Congregation for Ekklesia which is why our position on Ecclesiastical Polity is called Congregational Polity. But perhaps an even better English translation would be Assembly, that’s how Ekklesia is usually translated when discussing the word’s use in Secular Greek Politics where it means the gathering together of the Citizenry of a Polis to discuss an issue and then Vote.  But nowadays the word Assembly in politics is used by some bodies of Representatives rather than Direct Democracy, but the same has happened to the root of Congregation thanks to Congress.

As a Christian Weeb the word I would suggest if consulting on a Japanese Bible is Shukai.

Episcopas means Overseer or one "who presides over a meeting" and Diakanos means Servant or Minister or Messenger, I think even Secretary could work.

Bishop and Deacon are hard to call absolutely wrong when they are technically just evolutions of the original Greek words.  But it’s precisely their lack of nativeness to the English Language that makes them sound like grander positions of prestige than the Scriptures themselves intended.  Further reinforced by all the High Church baggage attached to them by Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Episcopalian usage where Bishop has come to mean the clerical Monarch of at least an entire City.

KJV Only Baptists don’t usually use the word Bishop outside of directly quoting Scripture because they know the word doesn’t to most people mean what they want it to.

Priest is a uniquely Biblically awkward word since it etymologically derives from the Greek Presbyter but in modern English Bibles isn't used to translate that word instead being used in the Hebrew Bible for Kohen (and the Hurrian loan word Komer) and in the Greek New Testament for Hiereus. All the more reason to just not use it at all anymore.

As someone who does believe in honoring the Hebrew Roots of the faith in certain contexts I would just use Kohen to translate Kohen (and Kehuna for Priesthood) and for Hiereus when it’s referring to the Israelite Priesthood as well as that of Melchizedek and All Believers. 

And to add some Anti-Papist flavor I’d use Pontiff for Komer and the Hiereus of Dios/Zeus/Jupiter in Acts 14:13.  But since a Japanese Bible isn’t likely to want to be so directly Anti-Catholic it should just use words for Shinto Priests and Priesthood for Komer and Acts 14:13.

Translating Presbyter as Elder isn’t really wrong in any way, but I do feel connotatively many readers will first think a Fifty at the youngest type of Elder.  The alternative Senior has a similar problem but at least most people remember it being associated with High School Students.  As I’ve said before I very much like identifying Presbyter with Senpai and Newtron with Kohai for Japanese.  Senpai however is in the English Urban Dictionary now so is not out of the question for an English Translation, and lacks the potential misunderstanding as a word that refers inherently to someone grandfather aged. Presbuterion I would just translate depending on context either Elders or Council.

1 Timothy 4:14 is the only time Presbuterion is used among Believers, the other two times it’s of the Judean Sanhedrin.  So I imagine this verse plays a role in debates between Congregationalists and Presbyterians.  I don’t know how most Baptists explain this but I feel it’s just a reference to the believers doing the laying on of hands being older than the person receiving.  Nothing here to justify a committee meeting of elders who lead different congregations meeting in a Sanhedrin like fashion.  And it certainly refer to the people of one local Congregation not a regional council.

However I identify as a Congregationalist principally because of my belief in Ecclesiastical Direct Democracy.  In terms of the Localism vs Regionalism aspect of where Congregationalists and Presbyterians differ, I kind of fall between them.  There is no Biblical support for a single City having more then one Ekklesia, remember an Ekklesia means the entire citizenry of a Polis a City.  Fortunately thanks to Galatians 3:28 we know the Ekklesia of Christ does not exclude Women, Slaves or Ethnic Foreigners.  When all Believers regardless of location are referred to as one Ekklesia like 1 Timothy 3:15 that's the Ekklesia of the Heavenly Zion/New Jerusalem of Hebrew 12:22. Revelation 3:12, 20:9, and 21-22.

Calvin and Zwingli were also only ever devising Church Governmental structures for City-States, the Swiss regional Synods came after Calvin died and the formation of the Dutch Reformed Church and Church of Scotland came even later then that.  But I still think even on a city level their models were too organized and hierarchical, there should be no Council with a fixed membership, when the different congregations in a city need to meet they should send representatives chosen for that specific meeting.

Of course we also need to consider how much bigger many modern cities are then even the largest of Ancient Cities.  The Anime Durarara!! Is set in Ikebukuro, Ikebukuro is part of Toshima which is part of Tokyo.  The greater Tokyo Metropolitan Area has a population probably larger even then first century Galatia much less Ephesus.  In this Anime it sure seems like Ikebukuro alone could be an entire Classical Greek Polis.

I am more Congregationalist even then most Baptists because I don’t believe in there being a single Episcopas even for a local congregation of less than 70 people.  I reject the very notion that the primary structure of a gathering of believers is one person giving a speech and everyone else just nodding in agreement, the picture 1 Corinthians paints involves lots of people talking.  The Overseer(s) of a given meeting oversee it, nothing more.  Sermons have a place, but that’s not what the weekly gathering is for.

Going back to the word Church I actually would consider using it to translate a New Testament Greek word, Naos.  There are three Greek words translated Temple in the KJV, one accounts for only one KJV appearance of Temple and is like the Hebrew Beth a word for House so I'd just translate it House.  The main two are Hieron and Naos.  Hieron is the broader term that can refer to indoor Temples and outdoor Temples and complexes that contain both, that’s the word I’d keep translating as Temple.  Naos however very specifically means an enclosed structure containing a god or a representation of one.

It is Naos that is used of the all believers being God’s Temple doctrine in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, 6:19, 2 Corinthians 6:16, Ephesians 2:20-22 and Revelation 3:12, as well each individual believer's Body, and when John 2 calls Jesus’s Body “this Temple”.   

In The Hebrew Bible I’d likewise translate Dybir as Church which is a rarely used word for the building that contains the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s Temple. 

But for a Japanese Bible I’d translate Dybir and Naos as Honden.

Biblically Orange isn’t a real Color

The word “Orange” does not occur anywhere in the King James Bible or to my knowledge any other English Translations either.  The modern Hebrew word for the Color Orange is Katom but like a lot of modern Hebrew words it is a recent addition to the language.

Hebrew isn’t the only Language however where acknowledging Orange as a distinct color is a recent development.  Even English didn’t name a color Orange till like 500 years ago, the Color was named after the fruit not the other way around.  And the Japanese Language didn’t have any word for Orange till it’s modern Westernization started.

How we classify and think about Colors is to a large extent culturally constructed, that doesn’t mean different cultures are literally not seeing the same things we see.  But it does mean how we think about and classify them isn’t always the same.

Now a lot of people make a lot of mistakes when choosing Blue to be the color they focus on for talking about this, Blue is actually one of the oldest Colors to get a word it in most languages, and I’ve seen at least one person spreading this “Ancients didn’t see the color Blue” myth say Blue isn’t in The Bible even though anyone as Biblically literate at me knows that the Veil of the Temple basically has the color scheme of the Bisexual Flag.  The Hebrew word for Blue is Tekhelet, Red is Edom, Purple is Argaman, Greek is Yereq and Yellow is Tsahab.  

I really started thinking about the subjectiveness of the very existence of Orange as a distinct color when I was watching MandJTV’s video about Pokémon Colors.  Pokémon Home’s official Color designations for Pokémon can be subjectively disagreed with for many reasons.  But a big part of it is them not having the color Orange at all, every Pokémon you are likely thinking of as an Orange Pokémon is classified as either Red or Brown.

The thing about calling Nintendo Officially wrong on this however is that the list of “Orange” Pokémon officially classified as Red includes Charmander and Charizard, Charizard is Iconically the Box Art Mascot of Pokémon Red and FireRed in both Japan and the West and that is why they are often paired with the Human Character officially named Red.

As I thought about this I began to notice other ways in which Orange as a distinct color seems to be ignored in Japanese Media.  There has never been an Orange Power Ranger to my knowledge because there has never been an Orange Sentai, at least not one called Orange.  Now Purple Rangers are also rare but that’s because Japan associates Purple with Shadows and Darkness and so that color is often reserved for Villains or at least Antiheros.  There is an Anime literally called Orange, but I haven’t watched it yet so I have no idea what to expect, it could be named after the Fruit rather then Color given how there is an Anime called Citrus.

When I was first taught about Colors in School as a kid I was taught that Red, Blue and Yellow are the primary colors while Green, Purple and Orange are the secondary colors each made from combining two of the primary colors.  That’s based on how paints are made, in terms of how Light and our Eyes work it's actually a misleading system.

In our eyes the three Primary Colors are actually Green, Red and Blue with everything else deriving from how they interact.  Yellow is in fact the product of combining Red and Green while Orange is an imperfect Yellow that is more Red.

Besides the Fruit which the Color is now synonymous with, everything else you can think of as being Orange is more anciently culturally associated with either Red, Brown or Yellow.  Fire, the Sun, sand and deserts, ect.  Meanwhile Brown is really just Dark Orange and has itself been anciently associated with Red (Biblically many think the Red associated with Esau and David was probably Brown).  Also think about how often people called Gingers (Red Haired) really have Orange hair.

I spent much of my life thinking I was mildly Color Blind where the Color Orange is concerned for struggling to distinguish that color from Yellow or Red. I didn’t even notice that Charmander and Charizard were technically not Red till I watched this video a few days ago.  But now I know that both God and Anime see that color the same way I do.

I'm now thinking the Biblical Day does begin at Sunrise

I wrote my post arguing agaisnt the Lunar Calendar assuming Biblical days begin and end at Sunset, but I'm now addressing that question.

I discovered some websites like these.

http://www.isawthelightministries.com/daystarts.html

https://www.bibletimemarkers.com/a-day-begins-at-sunrise

I am not at this time endorsing anything else on those sites.  But the first one I notice does support a Rapture view similar to mine was when I was a Futurist in being at the 7th Trumpet and before the Bowls.  That site however is still assuming a Lunar Calendar for determining the Months, which I am now highly skeptical of.  I also probably do not agree with their Passion Week chronology.

Both argue that during the Creation Week, the Day is when God does the work, and at the end of each day it describes the times of Sunset and Sunrise (evening and morning) following.  The first act of Creation is the creation of Light, which thematically supports the day beginning at Sunrise.  Then in Genesis 1:5, 15-16 and 18 the Day is listed before the Night.  Like many other times later on when referring to "forty days and forty nights" or "three days and three nights", in fact almost any time you see "nights" plural, and there are 27 verses that refer to "day and night".  Also the Sun is always listed before the moon in verses like Genesis 37:9, Deuteronomy 4:19. 17:3 and 33:14.  And in Numbers 28 the daily sacrifices are listed as morning first then evening.

In Leviticus 23 a few things make more sense when you remove the Sunset to Sunset based assumptions.  And this is the most important chapter to understanding the Torah Calendar.

What's said about the 14th of Nisan and Passover when compared to Exodus 12 and other Passover passages is a lot less confusing if the days begin and end at sunrise, since then the evening is the middle of the day.  

But the Yom Kippur instructions are what's really revealing.  The Day of Atonement is the Tenth day of the Seventh Month, that was determined already back in chapter 16.  But in verse 32 the Ninth Day is mentioned for some reason.  What the verse seems to be saying is this 24 hour period that functions like a Sabbath begins at the Sunset of the 9th and ends the next Sunset.  The emphasis on that here clearly implying that's not when actual calendar days begin and end, doing it that way here is a special occasion.

I have argued in the past agaisnt viewing Yom Kippur as a Fast day.  But this understanding of verse 32 can negate my main argument, since it can allow the Fast to be from Sunset of the 9th to the Sunset of the 10th so that in the Evening of the 10th you eat the meat of Sacrificed Animals, similar to how the 14th as Passover works in this model.

Likewise is Exodus 12:18, everywhere else the Seven Days of Unleavened Bread are 15-21 of the First Month, but in this passage it includes the Evening of the 14th making it consist of 8 evenings.  

This also explains how confused the Rabbinic Jewish observance of Passover is.  While Deuteronomy 16 and Ezekiel 45 provide Hebrew Bible precedent for expanding the use of the word Passover to cover the entire seven day Feast of Unleavened Bread, the change to a Sunset based observance causing the Evening of the 14th to become the Evening of the 15th explains why Rabbinic observance basically forgets that the 14th is Passover.  

Rabbinic tradition does call the 14th the Fast of the Firstborn.  Originally that was clearly tied to the 14th being the day the Egyptian First Born were killed and Israel's spared, but that is supposed to be happening during the Seder so the Sunset based reckoning now has that happening on the 15th so why the 14th is called the Fast of the Firstborn is something the Rabbis struggle to explain.

Speaking of Rabbinic tradition, Fasts are still traditionally supposed to begin at Sunrise, so that sounds like a carry over from the original reckoning.

1 Samuel 30:17 also arguably makes more sense on a Sunrise to Sunrise calendar.

It also mirrors the Torah year better.  Biblically the year begins in Spring, and Dawn is essentially the Spring of the day, hence Sunrise sometimes being refereed to as "dayspring".

Malachi says Jesus is the Sun of Righteousness, and the Fourth Gospel says He is the Light, and Peter calls Him the Lightbearer, there is also the Womb of the Morning reference in Psalm 110.  Revelation says Jesus is the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega.  So the day beginning and ending with Sunrise fits that typological pattern.

Which then leads to overlooked details of the Passion narrative.  Matthew 27:57 and Mark 15:42 depict the evening following the Crucifixion as still the day before The Sabbath.  And John 20:19 depicts the Evening following when Jesus had Risen and been seen Risen as still the First Day of The Week.

The KJV translation of Matthew 28:1 says the Sabbath ends at Sunrise, the Young's Literal Translation and the Peshitta agree.  But modern translations will try say "after the Sabbath" to force it to still fit the Sunset based calendar assumptions.

KJV Only Universal Salvation!!!

I've already done a post on the Words Translated Eternal.  But that is obviously not going to matter to the most absolute KJV onlyists.  And this remains the top reason that KJV onlyists are among the most difficult to convince of a Universalsit argument.

This post isn't just for KJV only people however, but anyone who refuses to accept the specific Translation Error arguments that Universal Salvation proponents make.  These issues all have their roots in the Vulgate and were inherited by Luther's German Bible and all early English Bibles, and probably also French Bibles.  So I can understand refusing to accept that the True Gospel was inherently incompatible with the only Bibles the Western Church had for well over a Thousand years.

The KJV says "Endless" only twice, in neither does it refer to judgment or punishment or torment. 1 Timothy 1:4 is about genealogies and Hebrews 7:16 is about Endless Life.  And it is only things like Jesus' Kingdom that are described as being "without end".

It is still in the KJV that "Hell" is cast into the Lake of Fire and yet elsewhere the Lake of Fire seems to be what is called "Hell".   There is more then one Bethlehem in he KJV, and more then one Kadesh.  So likewise there can be more then one place called "Hell".

What we've overlooked is that there are different ways to define "Eternal" and Everlasting which is a synonym for Eternal in the KJV.  I've seen many non Universalist Christians (like Chuck Missler) define "Eternity" as being not unlimited or endless time but as being outside of time.  And so remembering how I showed back before I was a Unviersalsit that the fire of the Lake of Fire comes from God.  Perhaps there is room to define the Fire of Gehenna and the coming Judgment as Eternal because it comes from Eternity, and not as an indication of how long it lasts.

Which can again be backed up by how the KJV translates Jude 7.

"Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."

That Fire is not still raging in the Dead Sea area today.  And again Ezekiel 16 assures us that Sodom will be restored.  And Jude 6 uses Everlasting of the angels' chains while also telling us that imprisonment will have an end.

If it's the Fire being described as Eternal or Everlasting, that's because the Fire is from God in Revelation 14, God is a Consuming Fire.  But Malachi 3 explains the fire is to purify and purge, same as 1 Corinthians 3.

And in some verses maybe the key to the Universal Salvation interpretation isn't even how Aionion is translated but how to understand other words in those passages.  Take the KJV of Matthew 25:46.

"And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal."

This verse doesn't even mention fire or Gehenna it just says the Punishment (for other verses remember Damnation meant judgment or punishment in 1611) is everlasting.  Well in the Ancient world a common Punishment was Exile or Banishment.  Which is consistent with my argument that "Outer Darkness" means outside New Jerusalem.  Now the fire is mentioned earlier in verse 41, but again sometimes exile or banishment was in addition to a more brief physical chastisement.

Other options for the Punishment or Judgment could be a loss of Citizenship or inheritance, or maybe losing a reward you'd previously earned.  Whatever it is it needs to be understood in the context of the KJV telling us in Habakkuk 1:12 that God's Judgment is for Correction, and Psalm 30 that his anger is for but a moment.

Even in the KJV no Torment or Torture is ever directly described as Eternal or Everlasting.

And the only place where "for ever and ever" is used in connection to the judgment of normal humans is Revelation 14:11 where it says the Smoke goes up forever, terminology also used of the Judgment on Babylon in Revelation 19:3 drawing on Isaiah 34:10 showing it can be used of a temporal judgment.   It is in Revelation 20:10 only used directly of the Devil's sentence to the Lake of Fire, though The Beast and False Prophet being there is mentioned.

And a lot of popular Universalist Proof texts I absolutely default to quoting in their KJV version, from Romans 5&11 to the things Jesus said. And as such my other posts on this blog tend to use the KJV when I quote them, or I had the KJV in mind if I only referenced them without directly quoting.  In fact with 2 Peter 3:9 and 1 Timothy 2:4 the KJV version is the most explicitly Universalist version, other translations of those verses try to allow some wiggle room, but the KJV says God "Will have All Men to be Saved" and is "not willing that any should perish" no ifs ands or buts about it.

Luke 2:14 is also very Universalsit in the KJV in a way that's undermined by how others say it should be translated.

KJV onliers who oppose Universal Salvation arguably have a little hypocrisy on this issue.  Because most KJV onliers, especially if they're also Baptists, teach that we're not under The Law anymore, that it was done away with because it was Fulfilled by Jesus.   But the KJV of the Pentateuch and other parts of the Hebrew Bible tend to say The Law and the Aaronic Priesthood and the Feasts and the Sabbath will be "forever" or "perpetual".  The Hebrew uses Olam, the Hebrew equivalent of Aion which means Age, and so many of us point that out, but the KJV onliers can't do that.  But the KJV in the New Testament has Jesus say that the Law and the Prophets were until John, and Paul says that we're now in the age or dispensation of Grace not the Law, and that the Law was a curse and imperfect.

Maybe God's Judgment/Punishment/Damnation(Which meant Judgment in 1611) on Sinners is described as seemingly forever for the same reason The Law was?  A Judge can issue a Life sentence that is latter commuted, but that doesn't make it wrong to say the sentence was for life.

Or if you argue all those Torah Laws are still Forever because they are Fulfilled in Jesus, then the entire point of the Penal Substitutionary view of Atonement is that all the ordained Punishment for All Sin is fulfilled in full in what Jesus suffered on The Cross.

And I find it interesting in this context that the post Reformation revival of Unviersalsit thinking largley started in the English Speaking world, after the KJV was published.  With men like Gerrard Winstanley.  Many claim the Geneva Bible was still popular during this era, but being as that was a Calvinist production I highly doubt it translated Aionion/Aionos or the Hell verses differently then the KJV.

[Update December 2024: I've defended form a Universalist perspective the use of the word Lake.]

So, I think a Universalist interpretation of even specifically the KJV is perfectly viable.

Everything below this point is really not the main topic of this post and is really a giant Post Script.

The Septuagint should not be trusted

We have lots of normal Christians using the Septuagint to make apologetic points.  We have people using the Septuagint rendering to support their particular interpretations of certain verses.  And we have some Christians (who clearly aren't KJV only) saying Christians should reject the Masoretic Text, that it was altered by "the Jews" after the NT was written to contradict Christianity.  Saying the Septuagint was what the New Testament authors and other early Christians used.

Claims are made that the DSS manuscripts often agree with the Septuagint over the Masoretic text.  This is highly misleading and mostly based on nothing more then that the DSS contains some of the Apocryphal books that were included in the Septuagint.  Which includes stuff written to be added to Daniel and Esther.  The Isaiah Scroll certainly matches the Masoretic text far more then the Septuagint.

I defend Almah meaning Virgin without appealing to the Septuagint at all.  In fact using the Septuagint to prove that is undermined by that the Septuagint also used Parthenos of Dinah after she is raped in Genesis 34.  The Hebrew uses neither Almah or Bethulah in that chapter.

I'm going to quote from a Jewish website incorrectly asserting that Almah doesn't mean Virgin because of some important facts it points out about the Septuagint.

The original Septuagint, translated some 2,200 years ago by 72 Jewish scholars, was a Greek translation of the Five Books of Moses alone, and is no longer in our hands. It therefore did not contain the Books of the Prophets or Writings of the Hebrew Bible such as Isaiah, from which you asserted Matthew quoted. The Septuagint as we have it today, which includes the Prophets and Writings as well, is a product of the Church, not the Jewish people. In fact, the Septuagint remains the official Old Testament of the Greek Orthodox Church, and the manuscripts that consist of our Septuagint today date to the third century C.E. The fact that additional books known as the Apocrypha, which are uniquely sacred to the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Church, are found in the Septuagint should raise a red flag to those inquiring into the Jewishness of the Septuagint.

Christians such as Origin and Lucian (third and fourth century C.E.) edited and shaped the Septuagint that missionaries use to advance their untenable arguments against Judaism. In essence, the present Septuagint is largely a post-second century Christian translation of the Bible, used zealously by the Church throughout its history as an indispensable apologetic instrument to defend and sustain Christological alterations of the Jewish Scriptures.

For example, in his preface to the Book of Chronicles, the Church father Jerome, who was the primary translator of the Vulgate, concedes that in his day there were at least three variant Greek translations of the Bible: the edition of the third century Christian theologian Origen, as well as the Egyptian recension of Hesychius and the Syrian recension of Lucian.1 In essence, there were numerous Greek renditions of the Jewish Scriptures which were revised and edited by Christian hands. All Septuagints in our hands are derived from the revisions of Hesychius, as well as the Christian theologians Origen and Lucian

Accordingly, the Jewish people never use the Septuagint in their worship or religious studies because it is recognized as a corrupt text.

The ancient Letter of Aristeas, which is the earliest attestation to the existence of the Septuagint, confirms that the original Septuagint translated by rabbis more than 22 centuries ago was of the Pentateuch alone, and not the Books of the Prophets such as Isaiah. The Talmud also states this explicitly in Tractate Megillah (9a), and Josephus as well affirms that the Septuagint was a translation only of the Law of Moses in his preface to Antiquities of the Jews.2

Therefore, St. Jerome, a Church father and Bible translator who could hardly be construed as friendly to Judaism, affirms Josephus’ statement regarding the authorship of theSeptuagint in his preface to The Book of Hebrew Questions.3 Likewise, the Anchor Bible Dictionary reports precisely this point in the opening sentence of its article on the Septuagint which states, “The word ‘Septuagint,’ (from Lat. septuaginta = 70; hence the abbreviation LXX) derives from a story that 72 elders translated the Pentateuch into Greek; the term therefore applied originally only to those five books.”4

In fact, Dr. F.F. Bruce, a preeminent professor of Biblical exegesis, keenly points out that, strictly speaking, the Septuagint deals only with the Pentateuch and not the whole Old Testament. Bruce writes,

The Jews might have gone on at a later time to authorize a standard text of the rest of the Septuagint, but . . . lost interest in the Septuagint altogether. With but few exceptions, every manuscript of the Septuagint which has come down to our day was copied and preserved in Christian, not Jewish, circles.5

I btw believe Matthew was originally in Hebrew or Aramaic so certainly not quoting The Septuagint.

There are also quotes of the Septuagint version of the Torah in the Talmud that do not match the standard Septuagint texts we have today.

At any-rate it is wrong to claim that the Masoretic Hebrew text was written by the Rabbis, in fact they are Kariate texts, Kariate websites love to point out that the Hebrew Texts the Rabbis use today are based on Kariate preserved manuscripts.  Kariates can at times be just as hostile to Christianity as the Rabbis, but they are the Sola Sciprtura believers of the Jewish world, they revere The Word and would have preserved it accurately.  When it comes to respect for Scripture I certainly trust them more then the Eastern Orthodox Churches, or the Alexandrian Early Church Fathers.

The Holy Spirit sometimes works through unbelieving individuals, like Balaam.  So I have no trouble believing He used the Kariates to preserve the proper Hebrew TNAK.

There is also a somewhat older then the standard text of the Septuagint that does not have Kenen added to the Genesis 11 genealogy like our standard texts do.  This shows me that Kenen was added by Christian copyists who thought it's absence from Genesis 11 was a problem for Luke 3.  But I believe the issue is that Luke's is a genealogy that is willing to sometimes go through Women, but always naming the male of that generation.  I think Kenen was an at least 15 years older brother of Selah and that Selah married Kenen's daughter.

Likewise Josephus and many Early Church Fathers who seem to be using the Septuagint as their source for this genealogy don't include the added Kenen either.

The reason the New Testament often seems to match the Septuagint is because Christian copyists conformed the Septuagint to match the New Testament references.  

As for why they may seem to not match the Hebrew, I think many NT quotations of the OT were not meant to be exact word for word quotes.  If Deuteronomy can express The Ten Commandments differently then Exodus then I certainly have no problem with Jesus expressing things a bit differently during his ministry.  Jesus own quotes were expressed differently at different times He said them (and thus recorded differently in different Gospels).

And these people making a big deal out of where the Septuagint seems to match the NT ignore places where it doesn't.  

Like the spelling used for Solomon, Solomon is the spelling Luke used, no NT spelling puts an Alpha in there.  But the Septuagint spells it Salomon.  Not only does the NT disagree with the LXX but it explicitly agrees with the Masoretic, the Masoretic vowel indicators tell us Solomon's vowels are all Os, there are other names in The Hebrew Bible that are basically the same consonants but with an A between the S and L, they refer to different people and one is also in the genealogy of Jesus in both Matthew and Luke.

Also the Septuagint never uses the same word for Comforter that the Fourth Gospel and it's corresponding Epistles used.

The Septuagint "translates" Tarshish as Carthage, which is clearly wrong, Carthage didn't exist yet in Solomon's day and was a Canaanite/Sidonian colony in Phut's territory, not Japhethite.

Also I couldn't even find in the Septuagint the Elam Prophecy of Jeremiah 49.

Also the Septuagint numbers for Genesis 5 fail to match the meaning of Methuselah's name (his Death shall Bring) by having him die the same year as The Flood like other versions do.

The standard texts we have of the Septuagint are in the exact same Manuscripts as the Alexandrian Bibles used by modern Scholars to justify all kinds of mutilations to the New Testament.

Update November 2018: And further arguments against the Septuagint are my arguments against the Deutercanonical Books, since the LXX adds those to the Canon.  Particularly the section I just added proving the Earliest Christians didn't view them as Canon.

Update May 20th 2019: Here is a more recent Article on the Subject at least in regards to Genesis 5 and 11.
 https://creation.com/lxx-mt-response

I have become more willing to accept alternate reading to the Masroetic then I used to be.  But there has to be an existing Hebrew text for that reading, or at least Semitic. I'll never support a change based on the Septuagint alone.

Update March 2023: Stephen's Speech is the exception, because the groups he disputed included Alexandrians he used The Text they prefer and indeed the use of Rempham there can only be explained by the Septuagint's Egyptian context coming from a Coptic name for Saturn.

Update October 2023: Further conflict between the New Testament and the Septuagint is the use of the Greek word Baptizos/Baptismos.  Mark 7:4-8, Luke 11:38 and Hebrews 9:10 confirm that these words should also be associated with cleansing rituals involving water in The Torah, that they should be used to translate the Hebrew word Rachats and maybe also Kabac, but in fact the LXX of the Pentateuch doesn't use Baptize or Baptismos at all.  The related Bapto is used to translate Tabal in verses associated with Dipping things in Blood which isn't wrong the NT also used Bapto that way.  But the New Testament authors clearly saw Baptismos in Torah passages like Exodus 29:4, 30:18-21 and Leviticus 15

Update December 10th 2024: I recently watched this Video and learned I gave the pro LXX position more credit then it ever deserved. Now for a disclaimer this speaker expressed early on a couple Conservative Political opinions I disagree with, but that's not the main point of the presentation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1mi_RcSLQ8&t

The most important revelation is that "as it is written" is an expression never meant to inherently refer to a direct Word for Word quotation.

Update January 16th 2025: Here's another lecture, again with allusions to Politics I disagree with mainly in the adds for other lectures.

https://youtu.be/fB5izBva3Xc