Publisher's Synopsis
Volume 1 of The Old Testament in Greek According to the Septuagint, edited by the Cambridge scholar Henry Barclay Swete (1835-1917), was first published in 1887. It contains the first fourteen books of the Greek Old Testament: Genesis to 4 Kings. 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 the Septuagint text; many later editors have followed suit. Where Vaticanus was defective the text was supplemented by the fifth-century Alexandrinus. The critical apparatus gives the readings of other important ancient manuscripts: Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Cottonianus Geneseos, Bodleianus Geneseos, and Ambrosianus. The edition's convenient size and ease of use assured its place as one of the most widely used versions of the Septuagint, and it is still consulted today.
