WHEN the task of preparing the larger Cambridge edition of the Septuagint was entrusted to the present editors by the Syndics of the University Press in 1895, it was settled that the first volume should contain the Octateuch (Genesis to Ruth). As the collection and arrangement of material have occupied a much longer time than was anticipated, it has been decided to publish the first volume in four parts—containing (1) Genesis, (2) Exodus and Leviticus, (3) Numbers and Deuteronomy, and (4) Joshua, Judges and Ruth—in order to place the information we have collected at the disposal of scholars as soon as possible. We are not yet able to present in final form our preface to the Octateuch, and must here confine ourselves to lists of the symbols and abbreviations used, with a short explanation of the methods adopted in our critical notes.

The object of our work is to present as clearly and fully as is possible within reasonable limits of space the evidence available for the reconstruction of the text or texts of the LXX. At an early stage of the undertaking it was decided that it would be premature to attempt to provide a reconstructed or ‘true’ text in this edition; and that the text of the Vatican MS. should be followed wherever extant, its lacunae being supplied from the Alexandrian or another uncial MS. The text of Dr Swete's manual edition has therefore been reprinted with but few alterations.