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Theodotion (Te?d?t???) (d. ca. 200 A.D.) was a Hellenistic Jewish scholar, perhaps working in Ephesus
Ephesus

Ephesus was an ancient Greek city on the west coast of Anatolia, in the region known as Ionia during the period known as Classical Greece. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League....
 , who translated the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible

The term Hebrew Bible is a generic reference to those books of the Bible originally written mostly in Biblical Hebrew with some Biblical Aramaic....
 into Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
. Whether he was revising the Septuagint
Septuagint

The Septuagint , or simply "LXX", is the Koine Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, translated in stages between the 3rd century BC and 1st century BC in Alexandria....
, or was working from Hebrew manuscripts that represented a parallel tradition that has not survived, is debated. In the second century Theodotion's text was quoted in the Shepherd of Hermas and in the Christian apologist Justin Martyr
Justin Martyr

Saint Justin Martyr was an early Christian apologetics and saint. His works represent the earliest surviving Christian "apologies" of notable size....
's Trypho.

His finished version, which filled some lacuna
Lacuna (manuscripts)

A lacuna is a gap in a manuscript, inscription, text, painting, or a musical work.The state of old manuscripts or inscriptions which have weathered or been damaged sometimes gives rise to lacunae ? passages consisting of a word or words that are missing or illegible....
e in the Septuagint version of the Book of Jeremiah
Book of Jeremiah

The Book of Jeremiah, or Jeremiah , is part of the Hebrew Bible, Judaism's Tanakh, and later became a part of Christianity's Old Testament....
 and Book of Job
Book of Job

The Book of Job is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible. It relates the story of Job , his trials at the hands of Satan, his theological discussions with friends on the origins and nature of his suffering, and finally a response from God....
, formed one column in Origen of Alexandria's Hexapla
Hexapla

Hexapla is the term for an edition of the Bible in six versions. Especially it applies to the edition of the Old Testament compiled by Origen of Alexandria, which placed side by side:...
.






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Theodotion (Te?d?t???) (d. ca. 200 A.D.) was a Hellenistic Jewish scholar, perhaps working in Ephesus
Ephesus

Ephesus was an ancient Greek city on the west coast of Anatolia, in the region known as Ionia during the period known as Classical Greece. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League....
 , who translated the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible

The term Hebrew Bible is a generic reference to those books of the Bible originally written mostly in Biblical Hebrew with some Biblical Aramaic....
 into Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
. Whether he was revising the Septuagint
Septuagint

The Septuagint , or simply "LXX", is the Koine Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, translated in stages between the 3rd century BC and 1st century BC in Alexandria....
, or was working from Hebrew manuscripts that represented a parallel tradition that has not survived, is debated. In the second century Theodotion's text was quoted in the Shepherd of Hermas and in the Christian apologist Justin Martyr
Justin Martyr

Saint Justin Martyr was an early Christian apologetics and saint. His works represent the earliest surviving Christian "apologies" of notable size....
's Trypho.

His finished version, which filled some lacuna
Lacuna (manuscripts)

A lacuna is a gap in a manuscript, inscription, text, painting, or a musical work.The state of old manuscripts or inscriptions which have weathered or been damaged sometimes gives rise to lacunae ? passages consisting of a word or words that are missing or illegible....
e in the Septuagint version of the Book of Jeremiah
Book of Jeremiah

The Book of Jeremiah, or Jeremiah , is part of the Hebrew Bible, Judaism's Tanakh, and later became a part of Christianity's Old Testament....
 and Book of Job
Book of Job

The Book of Job is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible. It relates the story of Job , his trials at the hands of Satan, his theological discussions with friends on the origins and nature of his suffering, and finally a response from God....
, formed one column in Origen of Alexandria's Hexapla
Hexapla

Hexapla is the term for an edition of the Bible in six versions. Especially it applies to the edition of the Old Testament compiled by Origen of Alexandria, which placed side by side:...
. (The Hexapla presented six Hebrew and Greek texts side-by-side: two Greek versions, by Aquila
Aquila of Sinope

Aquila of Sinope was a 2nd Century AD native of Pontus in Anatolia known for producing an exceedingly literal translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek language around 130 AD....
 and Symmachus
Symmachus the Ebionite

Symmachus the Ebionite was the author of one of the Greek versions of the Old Testament. It was included by Origen in his Hexapla and Tetrapla, which compared various versions of the Old Testament side by side with the Septuagint....
, preceding the Septuagint, and Theodotion's version following it, apparently reflecting a contemporary understanding of their historical sequence.)

Theodotion's translation was so widely copied in the Early Christian church that its version of the Book of Daniel
Book of Daniel

The Book of Daniel is a book in both the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Originally written in Hebrew language and Aramaic language, it is set during the Babylonian Captivity, a period when Jews were deported and exiled to Babylon following the Siege of Jerusalem of 597 BC....
 virtually superseded the Septuagint's. Jerome
Jerome

Saint Jerome was a Christian priest and Christian apologetics best known for translating the Vulgate. He is recognized by the Catholic Church as a canonized saint and Doctor of the Church, and his version of the Bible is still an important text in Catholicism....
 (in his preface to Daniel) records the rejection of the Septuagint's version of that book in Christian usage, asserting that its translation was very faulty. Theodotion's Daniel is the one embodied in the authorised edition of the Septuagint published by Sixtus V in 1587.

His caution in transliterating Hebrew words for plants, animals, vestments and ritual regalia, and words of uncertain meaning, rather than adopting a Greek rendering, gave him a probably undeserved reputation of being "unlearned" among more confident post-Renaissance editors, such as Bernard de Montfaucon
Bernard de Montfaucon

Bernard de Montfaucon was a French Benedictine monk and scholar.He published L'antiquit? expliqu?e et repr?sent?e en figures between 1719 and 1724....
.

See also

  • Aquila of Sinope
    Aquila of Sinope

    Aquila of Sinope was a 2nd Century AD native of Pontus in Anatolia known for producing an exceedingly literal translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek language around 130 AD....
  • Symmachus the Ebionite
    Symmachus the Ebionite

    Symmachus the Ebionite was the author of one of the Greek versions of the Old Testament. It was included by Origen in his Hexapla and Tetrapla, which compared various versions of the Old Testament side by side with the Septuagint....
  • Septuagint
    Septuagint

    The Septuagint , or simply "LXX", is the Koine Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, translated in stages between the 3rd century BC and 1st century BC in Alexandria....