The company's mission is to critically edit the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament, using the entire tradition, i.e. the Greek manuscripts from pre-Christian fragments to the 15th century AD, the daughter translations (in Latin, Syrian, Coptic, Ethiopian and Armenian) and the quotations of the Greek and Latin church fathers. The company operates according to the guidelines established by the Septuagint Commission.
In addition to the editions, the communications of the Septuagint Company (MSU) include the detailed text stories on the edited books as well as other, primarily text-historical works on Septuagint research. One of the next volumes is the revision of Alfred Rahlfs' manuscript index.
The company is the only one of its kind in the world and therefore receives a great deal of attention and recognition, which is reflected not least in the lively international contact of the research centre, which is visited by researchers from Germany and abroad. The work carried out here promotes the understanding of the Hebrew Old Testament as well as the New Testament and early Christianity, whose “Holy Scripture” was the Greek Old Testament. As the most important testimony of Hellenistic Judaism, the Septuagint is also of central importance for the study of Greek antiquity as a whole, in particular the history of Greek language such as the Hellenistic-Roman and Late Antique religious history.