bacht

Besides the Old Latin versions, the LXX is also the basis for the Slavonic, Syro-Hexaplar (but not the Peshitta), Old Armenian, Old Georgian and Coptic versions of the Old Testament.[6] Of significance for all Christians and for Bible scholars, the LXX is quoted by the Christian New Testament and by the Apostolic Fathers. While Jews have not used the LXX in worship or religious study since the second century AD, recent scholarship has brought renewed interest in it in Judaic Studies. Some of the Dead Sea scrolls attest to Hebrew texts other than those on which the Masoretic Text was based; in many cases, these newly found texts accord with the LXX version.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuagint

I have John Allegro's first book about the DSS, he says they show more than one family of Hebrew scriptures were circulating in the 2nd C bce, also the Samaritan Pentateuch.

ph2ter

But the issue here is not did in the first century exist more than one family of Hebrew scriptures, but the question is: are some of the Matthean passages taken from the LXX or are independent translations of a Hebrew text.
Apparently there existed more than one LXX version:
"There are three families of Septuagint manuscripts -- the Hexaplaric, Hesychian, and Lucianic....From these three editions the extant manuscripts of the Septuagint have descended, but by ways that have not yet been accurately traced. Very few manuscripts can be assigned with more than probability to one of the three families. The Hexaplaric, Hesychian, and Lucianic manuscripts acted one upon the other. Most extant manuscripts of the Septuagint contain, as a result, readings of each and of none of the great families. "
But my impression is that for the quotations in question is difficult to claim that they are taken from some version of LXX circulated in those times.

gurugeorge

Yes, and subsequently you get the "big tent" people edging out the descendants of the original mystics (i.e. the "Gnostics") and taking over the movement, by means of the subterfuge of a pretended "Apostolic Succession" that trumps the merely visionary inspiration of the originals.

If you can "prove" that your lineage goes back to people who had eyeballed the actual mythical entity at the time he lived on earth ... well, as the Clementines argue, that's a strong argument that would appeal to rational people. In that light, those whose Christianity is based on personal visionary and mystical experience, start being seen as "elitists", and "pretenders to secret knowledge". But actually, those people were the originals, and visionary/mystical experience was all there was, to begin with. This beautifully, and without strain, fits the evidence (although of course it can't be conclusive, since historicist alternatives also fit the evidence, albeit with more strain - yet they could still be right).

As I like to put it, it's the tail (i.e. the need to validate an "Apostolic Succession" that trumps lineages coming from mere visionaries) that wags the dog (of the heavily historicized Jesus). To my mind, this is the real key to the whole puzzle. And the hoodwinking is made possible by the Diaspora, and subsequent forgetfulness of the movement's true origins back in the home country.