Editing Bible translation (section)

===The Torah and Jewish Scriptures===
The story told round synagogues about the Torah makes it out as an exact copy of the text written by Moses some 3200 years ago — painstakingly copied so there are no errors at all. Unfortunately, the discovery of the {{wpl|Dead Sea Scrolls}} scotched this urban legend. Not only have minor errors been introduced since the Dead Sea Scrolls were written, major differences exist between the books of the two eras. Further, the care taken to copy Torah scrolls did not apply equally to the other Jewish writings. Copies of those can look as different as the "rumor" from the "source" in any media event. 

The first "Bible translation" dates from the third century BCE: the '''Septuagint''', a translation of the Old Testament into the colloquial Koine Greek spoken in [[Palestine]] following the invasions of Alexander the Great.<ref>{{wpa|Jewish Koine Greek}}</ref> The Septuagint got its name (meaning "The Seventy") much later (around Josephus' time; 50 CE-ish), based on the popular legend that it was produced by seventy-two Jewish scholars (and rounding the number off). It is often abbreviated into Latin numerals as such ('''LXX'''). In terms of the history of religion, the Septuagint is quite unprecedented, being a translation of Holy Writ into a "vulgar tongue" with approval by the clerisy and achieving high popularity long before most other religions allowed their texts to be translated in the first place. The <s>creat</s>production of the Septuagint also unintentionally resulted in the first '''Biblical canon''', the precise contents of the Hebrew Bible hitherto not having been entirely finalized. It does include the '''Apocrypha''', though their inclusion was controversial. The Septuagint today is mostly of interest to Christians, as it is the version commonly quoted by the Gospel writers, by the apostle Paul and, in theory, by Jesus himself. 

Modern Jewish translators often look to the Septuagint for help deciding how the subtleties of the original Hebrew were understood historically. It is probably the chief source of the later '''Vulgate''', though Jerome claimed that he translated from the Hebrew.