Chris Orr brought to my attention an extremely useful review of the new full Orthodox Study Bible, written by R. Grant Jones: Notes on the Orthodox Study Bible (2008 Edition) [defunct link]. He focuses on the quality of the translation as representative of the underlying Greek, providing an excellent chart presenting the differences. It’s a topic I’ve touched on in my own review (Two Septuagints), but not in such substantial depth and detail as Mr Jones has done. His review is only beginning, but a point that has been clearly demonstrated in his detailed examination is that the OSB Old Testament relies too heavily on the NKJV as its base text, to the extent that it cannot honestly be called a translation of the Septuagint. For this reason, when I’ve been asked for a good, contemporary, complete English Septuagint translation, I can only recommend the New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS). Various ongoing translation projects are nearing completion, so there will be more options soon. A very important point advocating for accuracy in translation is one that Mr Jones expresses very well in his notes: important patristic theological discussions were based on particular readings of the Septuagint text which are not present in the Hebrew. By opting for the latter’s readings, important didactic opportunities are missed with direct connections to patristic commentary, something that should have been the motivating goal of the annotations.
I look forward to the continuation of Mr Jones’ review.
R. Grant Jones article Notes on the Orthodox Study Bible moved here.