Around 2,300 years ago,the Greek-Egyptian emperor Ptolemy ordered the Jewish sages to render the Torah into Greek on two separate occasions. The first time, he had five scholars carry out the translation together. The second time, he assembled 72 scholars, isolated them in separate rooms, and had them prepare their own simultaneous Greek translations. On the 8th of Tevet, all 72 scholars produced identical versions having made the same 13 changes, where they judged that the literal rendition would result in a significant distortion to the intended meaning.
An ancient rabbinic source, Masechet Sofrim, provides an account of the first translation:
It happened once that five sages wrote the Torah in Greek for King Ptolemy. That day was as terrible for the People of Israel as the day that the Golden Calf was made, because the Torah was unable to be translated adequately.
Upon reading this passage, it seems that the rabbis were extremely hostile to the idea of It seems the rabbis were extremely hostile to the idea translating the Torah – or at least translating it into Greek. It appears that they were concerned the translation would not do justice to the text’s intent, going so far as to compare it to one of the greatest religious abominations in Jewish history.
Never trust the Greek rendition of the Hebrew because the Greek has no way of using the word to establish the INTENT of the Hebrew.
A Hebrew idiom may not be easily translated into Greek.