Invitation to the Septuagint 2nd ed (Gupta)

In seminary (Gordon-Conwell) I cut my teeth on LXX-studies with the first edition of Invitation to the Septuagint (Baker, 2000, by K. Jobes and M. Silva). The same book again was used at Durham in a postgrad seminar on LXX Tobit (taught by Stuart Weeks and Loren Stuckenbruck) – clearly Jobes/Silva’s work gained notoriety and at the time it was the only “textbook” of its kind – even today hardly anything can be found so comprehensive, yet user-friendly.

A second edition – with the same structure and basic content – offers an update in light of the massive growth of LXX-studies in biblical scholarship and textual criticism (Baker, 2016). I have skimmed through the new edition and the inclusion of up-to-date scholarship since 2000 is well-integrated, both into end-of-chapter reading recommendations and also footnotes. One should note the added discussion of the “interlinear” paradigm in association with the NETS (86-90), trends in modern translation theory (303-304), and certain people added to the biographic profiles in ch. 11 (including Ziegler, Soisalon-Soininen, Barthelemy, and Wevers). Also, the appendix on LXX organizations and research projects has been updated including information on, e.g., the Brill Septuagint series and the SBL Septuagint series (quite a lot of activity and opportunities in LXX studies – it is an exciting time!).

I would say Septuagint nerds will want this update for their collection, even if they have the old edition. Folks in NT studies (like myself) ought to have one edition of Jobes/Silva, and if you never got a copy of the old edition, now is the time for the new one!