For most Orthodox readers, the answer to the titular question of this piece will be an obvious and immediate ‘Yes’. It is a commonplace of Orthodox Christian catechesis that unlike the West, and here West primarily speaks to Protestant and more recent Roman Catholic Bible translations, which uses the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible as its Old Testament, the Orthodox Church places authority in the Septuagint. Even a casual internet search will reveal lengthy arguments to this effect, citing the evidence of New Testament quotations, of particular readings in the New Testament where a theological point seems to hinge upon a particular Greek rendering, and quotations from the Church Fathers about the value and reliability of the ‘work of…
