Dr. Michael Brown is a Jewish believer in the Christian Messiah (Jesus). He is very active in promoting his belief among Jews with books, videos, and other means to try to get the Jews into Christianity. These people are called ‘missionaries’.
On the other side, in Orthodox Judaism, we find people who are called ‘counter-missionaries’, countering the missionary efforts that try to convert Jews to Christianity. A well-known counter-missionary is Rabbi Tovia Singer.
Needless to say, there are many videos on the internet where statements of the ‘other side’ are being discussed. I side with Orthodox Judaism.
In the next video, Dr. Michael Brown discusses statements made by Rabbi Tovia Singer.
In this series, without being disrespectful to both gentlemen, I will use ‘Brown’ and ‘Singer’ for convenience.
In the video above, Brown accuses Singer of making what Brown calls ‘the most bizarre statements made at all’. They are:
* Singer claims that ONLY the Pentateuch was translated into Greek at the time of Jesus, and all the other books later, with even Christian influences (at 1:44 and repeated at 3:24).
* The Hebrew word ‘betulah’ always means ‘virgin’ (at 3:29).
In this article, I will discuss Singer’s first ‘bizarre’ statement.
This first ‘bizarre’ statement, according to Brown, is that Singer allegedly should have said that ONLY the Pentateuch was translated into Greek before the time of Jesus and all the other books later, with even Christian influences.
Is this true? If you listen carefully (from 2:05), Singer doesn’t say this at all. He says that the original Septuagint, often referred to as the ‘LXX’ for convenience, was the translation of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible, or the ‘Old’ Testament), by 70 or 72 rabbis. He did NOT say that all the other books from the Tanakh were translated after the time of Jesus. He does not say this in this video, and not in others where he mentions the LXX, as far as I know.
Singer further says that Origen translated the Tanakh into Greek. But is this really the LXX? Origen, a Christian Church father, wrote his work, the Hexapla, in the third century CE in order to align several existing Greek translations that had many variations in his day with the Hebrew texts.
But let us look at what Brown says about the LXX (at 0:52): “The LXX is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, into Greek, beginning in around the 3rd century before the time of Jesus, and culminating maybe about 150 years before the time of Jesus. So, over about 150 years, the LXX was translated by different Jewish scholars. And this was so that Jewish people in the diaspora, who knew Greek better than Hebrew, would have an accessible translation, also interpreting things through Jewish eyes. So, that was the whole purpose of it.”
This is a very simple and inaccurate representation of what the LXX actually is.
The (original) LXX is the translation of the Pentateuch by 70 or 72 rabbis on the instructions of Ptolemaeus II. This is what Singer says. Tradition tells us that those 70 or 72 rabbis came up with the same translations AND with the same deliberate alterations from the original Hebrew into the Greek in order not to embarrass or anger Ptolemaeus II. This translation is lost. It does not exist anymore!
What we call today ‘THE’ LXX is a compilation, by the Christian Church, from many different manuscripts, more than 2000, that were scattered all over the Greek-speaking world, written by many translators with different translation skills and different agendas over many centuries, well into the Christian era. All these manuscripts are called ‘Septuaginta’, but this is not what we call ‘THE’ LXX today. We don’t even know if the translators were all Jewish scholars, if Jewish at all! Although all the books (scrolls) of the Tanakh were translated, you could not get ‘THE’ LXX off the shelf at around 150 BCE; it simply did not exist at that time. You had to collect these translated manuscripts yourself. There was no uniform translation available across the Greek-speaking world. That means that in different locations and at different times, there were different translations made by different anonymous translators with varying skills.
The next links give more insights about what we call the LXX actually is:
I cannot imagine that Brown is not aware of this. But he does not even hint at the complexity of the origin of what we call the LXX today! Maybe it has to do with Brown’s rebuttal of Singer’s ‘bizarre statement’ about the LXX. In fact, Brown’s simple representation of the LXX is really a bizarre statement!
Instead of hinting to the complexity of the translations, Brown presents witnesses as Ben Sira, and Philo, and a Jewish scholar Emanuel Tov, born in the Netherlands in 1941, to assert the completion of the ‘LXX’ in the second or first century BCE, calling this ‘the main Greek Jewish translation of the day’ (at 4:00), whatever that means around that time.
Here, Brown is completely missing the point that Singer makes. Or better said: did not make, Singer never said that only the Pentateuch was translated in the third century BCE and all the other books of the Tanakh after the time of Jesus!
But what is the issue with the LXX? The writers of the New Testament books often refer back to the Tanakh, and because these NT books are in Greek, they often used ‘the’ LXX, or better said, the various Greek translations they have at hand, as their source. It is a fact that many of these passages in the New Testament differ from the Tanakh, and that raises questions about the reliability of these translations by the Orthodox counter-missionaries. To counter this reliability issue, missionaries often do what Brown is doing: they suggest that well before the Christian era, there was a uniform, solid, and reliable translation of the Tanakh, the LXX, done by Jewish rabbis and/or scholars, widely available to the New Testament writers. The complex history of the origin of what we call today ‘the’ LXX shows us a different reality.
Among other things, because the original LXX, translated by the 70/72 rabbis, had intentional alterations, this translation was not considered authoritative by mainstream Rabbinic Judaism. And that is the case with all Greek LXX translations of the Tanakh. But as we will see later in another part of this series, it is very important for Christian and Brown’s position to give as much credibility as possible to ‘the’ LXX.
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Jun 21 2026
Dr. Michael Brown on Rabbi Tovia Singer’s ‘bizarre’ claims. Part 1: the Septuagint.
Dr. Michael Brown is a Jewish believer in the Christian Messiah (Jesus). He is very active in promoting his belief among Jews with books, videos, and other means to try to get the Jews into Christianity. These people are called ‘missionaries’.
On the other side, in Orthodox Judaism, we find people who are called ‘counter-missionaries’, countering the missionary efforts that try to convert Jews to Christianity. A well-known counter-missionary is Rabbi Tovia Singer.
Needless to say, there are many videos on the internet where statements of the ‘other side’ are being discussed. I side with Orthodox Judaism.
In the next video, Dr. Michael Brown discusses statements made by Rabbi Tovia Singer.
In this series, without being disrespectful to both gentlemen, I will use ‘Brown’ and ‘Singer’ for convenience.
In the video above, Brown accuses Singer of making what Brown calls ‘the most bizarre statements made at all’. They are:
* Singer claims that ONLY the Pentateuch was translated into Greek at the time of Jesus, and all the other books later, with even Christian influences (at 1:44 and repeated at 3:24).
* The Hebrew word ‘betulah’ always means ‘virgin’ (at 3:29).
In this article, I will discuss Singer’s first ‘bizarre’ statement.
This first ‘bizarre’ statement, according to Brown, is that Singer allegedly should have said that ONLY the Pentateuch was translated into Greek before the time of Jesus and all the other books later, with even Christian influences.
Is this true? If you listen carefully (from 2:05), Singer doesn’t say this at all. He says that the original Septuagint, often referred to as the ‘LXX’ for convenience, was the translation of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible, or the ‘Old’ Testament), by 70 or 72 rabbis. He did NOT say that all the other books from the Tanakh were translated after the time of Jesus. He does not say this in this video, and not in others where he mentions the LXX, as far as I know.
Singer further says that Origen translated the Tanakh into Greek. But is this really the LXX? Origen, a Christian Church father, wrote his work, the Hexapla, in the third century CE in order to align several existing Greek translations that had many variations in his day with the Hebrew texts.
But let us look at what Brown says about the LXX (at 0:52): “The LXX is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, into Greek, beginning in around the 3rd century before the time of Jesus, and culminating maybe about 150 years before the time of Jesus. So, over about 150 years, the LXX was translated by different Jewish scholars. And this was so that Jewish people in the diaspora, who knew Greek better than Hebrew, would have an accessible translation, also interpreting things through Jewish eyes. So, that was the whole purpose of it.”
This is a very simple and inaccurate representation of what the LXX actually is.
The (original) LXX is the translation of the Pentateuch by 70 or 72 rabbis on the instructions of Ptolemaeus II. This is what Singer says. Tradition tells us that those 70 or 72 rabbis came up with the same translations AND with the same deliberate alterations from the original Hebrew into the Greek in order not to embarrass or anger Ptolemaeus II. This translation is lost. It does not exist anymore!
What we call today ‘THE’ LXX is a compilation, by the Christian Church, from many different manuscripts, more than 2000, that were scattered all over the Greek-speaking world, written by many translators with different translation skills and different agendas over many centuries, well into the Christian era. All these manuscripts are called ‘Septuaginta’, but this is not what we call ‘THE’ LXX today. We don’t even know if the translators were all Jewish scholars, if Jewish at all! Although all the books (scrolls) of the Tanakh were translated, you could not get ‘THE’ LXX off the shelf at around 150 BCE; it simply did not exist at that time. You had to collect these translated manuscripts yourself. There was no uniform translation available across the Greek-speaking world. That means that in different locations and at different times, there were different translations made by different anonymous translators with varying skills.
The next links give more insights about what we call the LXX actually is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuagint#History
I cannot imagine that Brown is not aware of this. But he does not even hint at the complexity of the origin of what we call the LXX today! Maybe it has to do with Brown’s rebuttal of Singer’s ‘bizarre statement’ about the LXX. In fact, Brown’s simple representation of the LXX is really a bizarre statement!
Instead of hinting to the complexity of the translations, Brown presents witnesses as Ben Sira, and Philo, and a Jewish scholar Emanuel Tov, born in the Netherlands in 1941, to assert the completion of the ‘LXX’ in the second or first century BCE, calling this ‘the main Greek Jewish translation of the day’ (at 4:00), whatever that means around that time.
Here, Brown is completely missing the point that Singer makes. Or better said: did not make, Singer never said that only the Pentateuch was translated in the third century BCE and all the other books of the Tanakh after the time of Jesus!
But what is the issue with the LXX? The writers of the New Testament books often refer back to the Tanakh, and because these NT books are in Greek, they often used ‘the’ LXX, or better said, the various Greek translations they have at hand, as their source. It is a fact that many of these passages in the New Testament differ from the Tanakh, and that raises questions about the reliability of these translations by the Orthodox counter-missionaries. To counter this reliability issue, missionaries often do what Brown is doing: they suggest that well before the Christian era, there was a uniform, solid, and reliable translation of the Tanakh, the LXX, done by Jewish rabbis and/or scholars, widely available to the New Testament writers. The complex history of the origin of what we call today ‘the’ LXX shows us a different reality.
Among other things, because the original LXX, translated by the 70/72 rabbis, had intentional alterations, this translation was not considered authoritative by mainstream Rabbinic Judaism. And that is the case with all Greek LXX translations of the Tanakh. But as we will see later in another part of this series, it is very important for Christian and Brown’s position to give as much credibility as possible to ‘the’ LXX.
To be continued.
By Tom • Judaic Polemics 0 • Tags: bizarre statements, Christianity, Dr. Micheal Brown, Judaism, LXX, Rabbi Tovia Singer, Septuagint