A couple of centuries after Plato—certainly beginning sometime prior to 285 B.C.—the Old Testament began to be translated into Greek, yielding the text we call the Septuagint. The term dikaiosune was used to translate the Hebrew terms tsedawkaw and tsehdek, usually rendered in English as “righteousness.” Thus, a great central text of the Old Testament, Gen. 15:6, tells us, “And Abram believed God, and it was counted to him for dikaiosune.” And we see in Isaiah: “All our dikaiosune is like filthy rags” (64:6). And again in Amos: “But let judgment roll down as water, and dikaiosune as an
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