They say that there aren't enough primary care doctors in the world. No one wants to do the grunt work.

That's equally true in Biblical studies. The very first task of Bible scholars is to determine the original text of the Bible -- this is known as textual criticism. And, for the Hebrew Bible, the single most important tool of textual criticism is to compare the Hebrew manuscripts with the Greek -- because, with a handful of exceptions such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, all the Hebrew manuscripts are at least a thousand years more recent than the Hebrew originals, and have passed through many, many generations of copies. The Greek manuscripts are in Greek, not Hebrew -- but at least they were translated from the Hebrew more than two thousand years ago. This makes them an independent witness -- almost the only independent witness -- to the earliest form of the Hebrew.

The most important, and earliest, Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, is the Septuagint, or LXX. Amazingly, to this day there still is not a complete and properly edited edition of this vital document. Progress is being made, but it is slow, and of course new discoveries are being made all the time.

Because the work goes so slowly, scholarly knowledge about the LXX is limited. This volume is an attempt to make useful knowledge more widely available. As such, it has great value.

There are some limitations, though. The book amounts to a collection of photocopies -- the essays it includes are not re-typeset, so the size of the type and appearance of the page varies from article to article. The articles are in multiple different languages, some of which the reader may not know. Introductions to the individual articles are few. Bottom line: This was an important collection in its time, and parts of it are still very valuable. But you need to already know a lot to find it very useful. It is not an introduction to the Septuagint, and should not be treated as such. ( )