Septuagint Vocabulary

Greek Koine and Biblical and Medieval Greek
1

I don’t have access to Accordance or similar software, so I’m asking here:

How many unique words are in the LXX (Swete’s or Rahlf’s, I’m not particular) that are not in the Greek New Testament?

How many unique words are in the GNT that are not in the LXX?

I’m just trying to get a feel for the ratios before I make the jump to working on the LXX.

Thanks!

2

I don’t have software to recommend or numbers, but I can say that I bought amazingly cheap years ago from a used bookseller a really excellent two-volume lexicon:
A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, Part 1 A-I; Part 2 K-Omega
ed. by J. Lust, E. Eynikel and K. Hauspie
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft 1992 and 1996
I’ve been part of a Septuagint reading group for some years and it has been really useful. I picked it up used not even knowing that I would be making such good use of it years later. They are very humble-looking little paperback volumes, not imposing at all - but they really add to the experience of reading the Septuagint.

3

Is this an on-line group that people can join?

I don’t have the specific answers to those questions but I can tell you that if you can read the NT in Greek proficiently, you can read the Septuagint. There is some vocabulary that is not in the NT (by virtue of the fact that the OT is simply a bigger corpus) but I find that you can pick these words up easily simply by reading using the Apostolic Polyglot interlinear version of the Septuagint. There is also parsing available for the Septaugint so you should have all the tools you need to jump into Septuagint reading as soon as you are comfortable reading the NT.

4

I agree - in fact, the majority of the Septuagint is probably easier because the word order is less complex (at least, that’s my observation.)

If you are interested in reading the LXX start with the smaller books like the apocryphal Daniel stories, Susanna and Bel and the Dragon. They’re great stories and easy reads. I just posted a reading aid that takes care of some of the more obscure vocabulary in Susanna:

http://www.greekingout.com/lxx-reading-aid-susanna/

Bel and the Dragon should be finished in the next couple of days. Not sure if it’s exactly what you’re looking for, but maybe it will be useful to you.