Christian scholars in the early church argued endlessly over the meaning of biblical text – and sometimes spent decades poring over one particular passage.

About 25 of their contemporary counterparts converged on Bangor Theological Seminary a few days ago for an international conference, where they pored over one particular version of the Christian Old Testament, written in Greek.

Twenty-five scholars from the United States, Canada and Germany spent three days presenting papers, outlining theories and debating how new translations of a very old version of the Old Testament called the Septuagint should be approached.

David Trobisch, who teaches at the Bangor seminary, organized the conference, called “The Septuagint in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity.”

“Septuagint” is the Latin name for the Old Greek translations of the Hebrew scriptures, known to modern Christians as the Old Testament. The Septuagint became the Bible for much of the early church, according to Trobisch, and when Jewish scripture is quoted in the New Testament, it is almost always from the Old Greek translations.

Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians still use modern translations of the Septuagint. In the 16th century, however, Protestants reverted to the Hebrew Jewish Bible as the basis for translations into modern languages. Bibles translated from Old Greek have more books – 1 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, for example -in their Old Testaments than their Protestant counterparts.

According to legend, the Septuagint was created when King Ptolemy Philadephus of Alexandria, Egypt, decided to make a collection of the world’s greatest literature about 250 years before the birth of Christ. His librarian suggested that he include the Hebrew books of holy law. The high priest in Jerusalem, according to legend, selected six elders from each of the 12 tribes and sent them to Alexandria with a copy of the scriptures in which the Hebrew letters were written in gold.

One version of the story has the 72 translators completing their work in 72 days, and when they compared their work, they discovered that each had produced an identical translation. Scholars refer to this work as the Septuagint, or LXX, which means 70 in Latin. At some point, two of the translators were dropped for the sake of brevity, scholars believe.

The Bangor conference, however, did not focus on the legend of the Septuagint, but on the recent work in translating it from Old Greek into modern languages. Separate projects, most anticipating publication in 2005, are under way in France, the United States and Germany, among other places.

Trobisch was familiar with much of this work. Before taking a job at the seminary five years ago, he taught for a decade at Heidelberg University in Germany, where he also received his doctorate. Several of his former colleagues attended the conference.

“Since coming to Bangor,” he said in welcoming the group, “I have made it my priority to help improve the dialogue between American and European scholars. Now, 12 months [after planning began] and 573 e-mails later, we are meeting here at the seminary to discuss the Septuagint.”

One of the reasons for renewed interest in the Septuagint, according to attendee Harold Scanlin of the United Bible Societies, was the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe.

“Through Bible societies in many nations, we provide scriptures for churches,” said Scanlin, whose office is in New York. “Eastern Europeans and people living in the former Soviet Union are rediscovering their spiritual past now that they are free to pursue religion. They want a new translation in their own languages.”

The scholars spent a long, hot Monday debating approaches, methods, as well as translations of sections of scripture.

But the appeal of the Septuagint is not limited to Biblical scholars. About 40 members of the public attended an evening lecture.

Area ministers were on hand when scholar Robert Kraft gave a presentation. The University of Pennsylvania professor is known for his work on translations of the Dead Sea Scrolls and is an expert on the Septuagint.

His talk, titled “Continuities and Discontinuities in the Transitions from Jewish to Christian Scribal Practices,” drew clergy from liberal, mainline and conservative denominations alike. The Rev. James Haddix, pastor of All Souls Congregational Church, and the Rev. Brian Nolder of Pilgrim Orthodox Presbyterian Church, sat side by side in the second row.

Both men are pastors of churches in Bangor. But Nolder’s denomination follows a more conservative interpretation of the Bible than does Haddix’s United Church of Christ. Yet the ministers’ interest in and love for Old Testament scripture drew them back, at least for one evening, to the scholarly discussion of minute differences in ancient texts they’d poured over during their seminary studies.

After the lecture, the ministers admitted that few members of their congregations had ever heard of the Septuagint or were likely to be interested in the narrow topics scholars debated at the seminary. Both ministers, however, said that the broader subject of early Christianity was important to their congregants.

“If I were to teach a class in Old Testament at my church, people would be interested in the way the Bible came to us,” said Haddix, “and how scholars, and we, determine if these manuscripts are reliable.”

Nolder added that the timing of the translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek, a language which more people knew at the time than Hebrew, was not just a random footnote in the history of literature.

“It’s a remarkable coincidence that the Greek [translation of the] Bible was completed just in time for the coming of Christ,” Nolder said. “There’s a providential aspect to the Septuagint in that it made the Hebrew scriptures accessible to everyone. It’s an incredible phenomenon that gentiles [non-Jews] could have access to it.”

Scholars at the conference did not forecast how or if the publication of a new translation of the Septuagint might affect Christianity.

That most likely will be left for ministers like Nolder and Haddix to wonder about.

For information on the conference and the Septuagint, visit www.bts.edu/

LXX/default.htm.