1. The Greek translation of the Seventy Interpreters (Septuagint). The closest to the original text of the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament is the Alexandrian translation, known as the Greek translation of the Seventy Interpreters. It was begun by the will of the Egyptian king Ptolemy Philadelphus in 271 B.C. Wishing to have in his library the sacred books of the Jewish law, this inquisitive sovereign ordered his librarian Demetrius to take care of acquiring these books and translating them into the then well-known and most widespread Greek language. From each tribe of Israel, six of the ablest were chosen and sent to Alexandria with an accurate copy of the Hebrew Bible. The translators were placed on the island of Pharos, near Alexandria, and completed the translation in a short time. The Orthodox Church from apostolic times has used the holy books of the translation of the seventy.

2. Latin translation, Vulgate. Until the fourth century A.D., there were several Latin translations of the Bible, among which the so-called ancient Italian, made from the text of the Seventy, was the most popular for its clarity and special closeness to the sacred text. But after Blessed Jerome, one of the most learned Fathers of the Church of the fourth century, promulgated in the year 384 his translation of the Holy Scriptures in Latin, made by him according to the Hebrew original, the Western Church gradually began to abandon the ancient Italian translation in favor of Jerome's translation. In the sixteenth century, the Council of Trent introduced Jerome's translation into general use in the Roman Catholic Church under the name of the Vulgate, which literally means "common translation."

3. The Slavonic translation of the Bible was made according to the text of the seventy interpreters by the holy Thessaloniki brothers Cyril and Methodius in the middle of the ninth century A.D., during their apostolic labors in the Slavic lands. When the Moravian prince Rostislav, dissatisfied with the German missionaries, asked the Byzantine Emperor Michael to send to Moravia capable teachers of the faith in Christ, the Emperor Michael sent to this great task Saints Cyril and Methodius, who thoroughly knew the Slavonic language and had already begun to translate the Holy Scriptures into this language in Greece. On their way to the Slavic lands, the holy brothers stopped for some time in Bulgaria, which was also enlightened by them, and here they labored much over the translation of the holy books. They continued their translation in Moravia, where they arrived around 863. It was completed after the death of Cyril by Methodius in Pannonia, under the protection of the pious prince Kocel, to whom he withdrew as a result of the internecine strife that arose in Moravia. With the adoption of Christianity under the holy prince Vladimir (988), the Slavonic Bible, translated by Saints Cyril and Methodius, also passed to Russia.

4. Russian translation. When, in the course of time, the Slavonic language began to differ significantly from Russian, for many the reading of the Holy Scriptures became difficult. As a result, the translation of books into modern Russian was undertaken. First, by decree of Emperor Alexander I and with the blessing of the Holy Synod, the New Testament was published in 1815 at the expense of the Russian Bible Society. Of the Old Testament books, only the Psalter was translated as the most used book in Orthodox worship. Then, already during the reign of Alexander II, after a new, more accurate edition of the New Testament in 1860, a printed edition of the law-positive books of the Old Testament appeared in Russian translation in 1868. The following year, the Holy Synod blessed the publication of historical Old Testament books, and in 1872 teaching books. Meanwhile, Russian translations of individual holy books of the Old Testament began to be published frequently in spiritual journals. So a complete edition of the Bible in Russian appeared in 1877. Not everyone supported the appearance of the Russian translation, preferring Church Slavonic. St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, later St. Theophan the Recluse, St. Patriarch Tikhon and other outstanding archpastors of the Russian Orthodox Church spoke in favor of the Russian translation.

5. Other Bible Translations. The Bible was first translated into French in 1160 by Peter Wald. The first translation of the Bible into German appeared in 1460. Martin Luther translated the Bible into German again in 15221532. The first translation of the Bible into English was made by Bede the Venerable, who lived in the first half of the eighth century. A modern English translation was made under King James in 1603 and published in 1611. In Russia, the Bible was translated into many languages of small nations. Thus, Metropolitan Innocent translated it into the Aleutian language, the Kazan Academy into Tatar and others. The British and American Bible Societies were most successful in translating and distributing the Bible in various languages. The Bible has now been translated into more than 1,200 languages.

It should also be said that any translation has its advantages and disadvantages. Translations that seek to literally convey the content of the original suffer from ponderousness and difficulty to understand. On the other hand, translations that seek to convey only the general meaning of the Bible in the most understandable and accessible form often suffer from inaccuracy. The Russian Synodal translation avoids both extremes and combines the maximum closeness to the meaning of the original with the lightness of the language.

The Pentateuch of Moses

A Review of the First Five Books of the Bible

The name Moses (Moses in Hebrew) supposedly means "taken out of the water." By this name he was called by an Egyptian princess who found him on the bank of the river. The book of Exodus tells the following about this. Abram and Jochebed, from the tribe of Levi, had a very beautiful child. His mother, wishing to save him from death, which threatened him because of Pharaoh's order to kill all Hebrew male infants, laid him in a tarred basket in reeds on the banks of the Nile. There he was found by an Egyptian princess who came to bathe. Being childless, she adopted him. Moses, as the son of a princess, received a brilliant education at the court of Pharaoh for that time. It was the heyday of Egyptian culture. As an adult, Moses once inadvertently killed an Egyptian overseer who was abusing Jewish slaves while protecting a Jew. Therefore, Moses was forced to flee from Egypt. Settling on the Sinai Peninsula, Moses lived there for 40 years, tending the flocks of the priest Jethro, whose daughter he married. At the foot of Mount Horeb, the Lord appeared to Moses in the form of an unburning bush and commanded him to go to the Egyptian Pharaoh and free the Jewish people from heavy slavery. In obedience to God, Moses went with his brother Aaron to Pharaoh with a request to free the Jewish people. Pharaoh persisted, and this brought 10 plagues (disasters) on the Egyptian country. In the last "plague" the Angel of the Lord smote all the firstborn of Egypt. The Jewish firstborns did not suffer, since the doorposts of the Jewish houses were anointed with the blood of the Passover lamb. Since then, the Jews have celebrated the Passover every year on the 14th day of the month of Nisan (the day that falls on the full moon of the vernal equinox). The word Passover means "to pass by" because the Angel who smote the firstborn passed by the Jewish homes. After this, the Jews left Egypt, crossing the Red Sea, which by the power of God parted apart. But the Egyptian army, which was chasing the Jews, was drowned in the sea. On Mount Sinai, Moses received from God the Ten Commandments written on stone tablets. These commandments, as well as other religious and civil laws written down by Moses, formed the basis of the life of the Jewish people. Moses led the Jewish people during the forty-year wandering in the desert of the Sinai Peninsula. During this time, God fed the Jews with white semolina, which they picked every morning directly from the ground. Moses' brother, Aaron, was ordained high priest, and other members of the tribe of Levi were ordained priests and "Levites" (deacons in our language). From that time on, the Jews began to perform regular worship services and animal sacrifices. Moses did not enter the promised land, he died at the age of 120 on one of the mountains on the east bank of the Jordan. After Moses, the Jewish people, spiritually renewed in the wilderness, were led by his disciple Joshua, who led the Jews into the promised land.

Moses was the greatest prophet of all time, with whom God, according to the Bible, spoke to Moses face to face, as a man would speak to his friend (Exodus 33:11). Because of Moses' closeness to God, his face constantly shone. But Moses, out of modesty, covered his face with a veil. Moses was of a very meek disposition. Since childhood, he suffered from tongue-tie. His life and miracles are described in the books of Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

Genesis

In the Holy Scriptures, the first book of Moses is called by its initial word Bereshit, which means "in the beginning." The Greek title of this book "Genesis" indicates its content: a narrative about the origin of the world, the first people and the first human societies of the patriarchal time. The description of the creation of the world pursues not a scientific, but a religious goal, namely, to show that God is the first cause of all that exists. The world and everything that fills it did not arise by chance, but by the will of the Creator. Man is not just an animal, but carries within himself the breath of God, an immortal soul, in the image and likeness of God. Man was created for the supreme purpose of perfecting himself in love and virtue. The devil is the culprit of the fall of man and the source of evil in the world. God constantly cares for man and directs his life towards the good. This, in a nutshell, is the religious perspective in which the Book of Genesis describes the origin of the world, man, and subsequent events. The Book of Genesis was written in order to give man an idea of the origin of the world and the beginning of human history after the traditions about it began to be forgotten, in order to preserve in purity the original predictions about the Divine Deliverer of the human race, the Messiah.

All the narratives of the Book of Genesis, which consist of 50 chapters, can be divided into three parts:

The first tells about the origin of the world and the fall of man (Gen. 13).