The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary Pt. 3 of 4

Classic lines of wisdom from the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary:

'The real value of LXX resides not so much in its function as a corrective to some Hebrew text of which we have a copy, but rather as a record of the way in which a group of Jews in the 3d century and for some time thereafter understood their traditions. In the pre-Christian centuries, there was wide textual variety as is evidenced in the discoveries of materials both in Palestine and Egypt, and thus it is well established that the parent texts (and certainly the translators) for each book of the LXX were probably different. It is also quite clear that the revisional activity which took place after Origen was in fact taking place long before his time, both on the Hebrew and Greek texts. Thus, while it is convenient to use BHS or BHK as a starting point for understanding what undergirded the LXX translations, it is dangerous, dishonest and wrong to assume that Leningradensis B 19A (MT) lay before the pre-Christian translators (cf. Ulrich 1988). Even more reprehensible is the widespread practice of assuming that the text of one uncial represents LXX. It has been shown that the character of B, the ms most often mistaken for LXX, is by no means consistent throughout. In Daniel, for instance, it witnesses to the text of Theodotion' (Melvin K. H. Peters' article, "Septuagint" in AYBD, 5:1100)

Lines like that can forever change how we make comments on the supposed LXX reading of the MT. Reread and inoculate yourself against many a fallacious argument!

'Intelligible as the thesis might seem—a priori—that Christianity adopted the worship of Jesus to the extent that it abandoned exclusive Jewish monotheism under the influence of the pagan environment, the evidence does not bear it out. On the contrary, it indicates that from the NT period onwards Christians held to exclusive monotheism as tenaciously as they did to the worship of Jesus, because both features were already definitive of Christian worship when it emerged from its original Jewish context into the pagan world' (Richard Bauckham's article "The Worship of Jesus" in AYBD, 3:816)

Yes, Bauckham's position is disputed – by people who are more or less wrong. This classic article is compulsory reading for anyone interested in the shape of early Christology.