Lucian of Antioch was born round about 240 AD in a small town in the region of Syria. He became an important Christian leader and writer in a school in the great city of Antioch. Eventually, he was executed as a martyr for his faith by the Roman Empire in 312 AD.
But, what we’re interested in today is a translation project where he undertook to update the Greek translation of both the Old and New Testaments.
The Lucianic Recension
At the time, most Christians were using the Greek Septuagint for the Old Testament. And, of course, the New Testament was already written in Greek.
What Lucian did was make a “recension” of the Bible. You might also hear it called the “Antiochian Text”. He went through the Old Testament and tried to make the Greek line up more closely with the original Hebrew. He also updated parts of the New Testament.
Now, we don’t have perfectly clear records of what exactly Lucian “revised”. You see, Lucian’s Recension became a very popular translation of the Bible in the Eastern Roman Empire. So, thanks to it being ancient and widespread, we don’t know exactly what the translations Lucian used looked like before Lucian revised them.
Instead, scholars have tried to figure out what parts of the Lucianic Recension are the work of Lucian, and which parts were already there before he revised the translations.
There is also one very big problem.
Many other ancient Christian translators did not speak very highly of Lucian’s translation. Jerome, who wrote the Latin Vulgate, especially criticized parts of the Lucianic Recension.
What did people not like about Lucian’s Recension?
Well remember, Lucian updated the Greek Old Testament to line up better with the original Hebrew. But, that’s not all he did. He also changed many sections of Scripture to make them sound better. He freely switched out words for synonyms. And, he would commonly change the text to make it flow better.
For one example of how Lucian changed the original text of the Bible, we can look at 1 Kings 15:23. In our modern Bibles, it says:
23…in the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet.
However, Lucian changed this to say:
23…in the time of his old age Asa did wickedly and was diseased in his feet.
Lucian’s version was still true. But, he changed the original wording to make things more clear for readers. There are many other similar examples throughout the Old and New Testaments.
Conclusion
Lucian of Antioch was an important Christian leader who lived from about 240-312 AD. He made a revised version of the Greek Old and New Testaments, called the Lucianic Recension. This version was still a true and faithful account of the Word of God. But, he did change the wording and add words to the original text to help make the Bible easier to read and understand. Ultimately, we don’t know too much about Lucian nor his translation of the Bible. But, we do know that he died as a martyr for his faith at the hands of the Roman government.