<P> The Early Christian Church used the Greek texts since Greek was a lingua franca of the Roman Empire at the time, and the language of the Greco - Roman Church (Aramaic was the language of Syriac Christianity, which used the Targums). </P> <P> The Septuagint seems to have been a major source for the Apostles, but it is not the only one . St. Jerome offered, for example, Matt 2: 15 and 2: 23, John 19: 37, John 7: 38, 1 Cor. 2: 9 . as examples not found in the Septuagint, but in Hebrew texts . (Matt 2: 23 is not present in current Masoretic tradition either, though according to St. Jerome it was in Isaiah 11: 1 .) The New Testament writers, when citing the Jewish scriptures, or when quoting Jesus doing so, freely used the Greek translation, implying that Jesus, his Apostles and their followers considered it reliable . </P> <P> In the Early Christian Church, the presumption that the Septuagint (LXX) was translated by Jews before the era of Christ, and that the Septuagint at certain places gives itself more to a christological interpretation than 2nd - century Hebrew texts was taken as evidence that "Jews" had changed the Hebrew text in a way that made them less christological . For example, Irenaeus concerning Isaiah 7: 14: The Septuagint clearly writes of a virgin (Greek παρθένος) that shall conceive . While the Hebrew text was, according to Irenaeus, at that time interpreted by Theodotion and Aquila (both proselytes of the Jewish faith) as a young woman that shall conceive . According to Irenaeus, the Ebionites used this to claim that Joseph was the (biological) father of Jesus . From Irenaeus' point of view that was pure heresy, facilitated by (late) anti-Christian alterations of the scripture in Hebrew, as evident by the older, pre-Christian, Septuagint . </P> <P> When Jerome undertook the revision of the Old Latin translations of the Septuagint, he checked the Septuagint against the Hebrew texts that were then available . He broke with church tradition and translated most of the Old Testament of his Vulgate from Hebrew rather than Greek . His choice was severely criticized by Augustine, his contemporary; a flood of still less moderate criticism came from those who regarded Jerome as a forger . While on the one hand he argued for the superiority of the Hebrew texts in correcting the Septuagint on both philological and theological grounds, on the other, in the context of accusations of heresy against him, Jerome would acknowledge the Septuagint texts as well . </P>

Who is believed to have assembled the old testament