There are several known historical inaccuracies in the Letter of Aristeas. It is difficult to know how much credence to give to these accounts. Philo of Alexandria, writing in the first century AD, says that each of the seventy-two translators were shut in a separate cell, and miraculously all the texts were said to agree exactly with one another, thus proving that their version was directly inspired by God. The translators were then sent back to Jerusalem, endowed with gifts for themselves and the high priest Eleazar. The work was then read to the king who, according to the Letter of Aristeas, marveled at the mind of the lawgiver. When the Alexandrian Jewish community assembled to hear a reading of the new version, the translators and Demetrius received lavish praise, and a curse was pronounced on anyone who should alter the text by addition, transposition or omission. high lighthouse, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, had just been finished.Īccording to the Letter of Aristeas, the translation, made under the direction of Demetrius, was completed in seventy-two days. They were then closeted in a secluded house on the island of Pharos close to the seashore, where the celebrated 110 m. On arrival at Alexandria, the translators were greeted by the king and given a sumptuous banquet. He wrote a letter to Eleazar, the high priest at Jerusalem, requesting six elders of each tribe, in total seventy-two men, of exemplary life and learned in the Torah, to translate it into Greek. This letter tells how King Ptolemy II commissioned the royal librarian, Demetrius of Phaleron, to collect by purchase or by copying all the books in the world.
It is commonly called the 'Septuagint' version (from the Latin for 'seventy') because according to the traditional account of its origin, preserved in the so-called Letter of Aristeas, it had seventy-two translators. This, the so-called Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, is traditionally dated to the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Egypt (285-246 BC). The very first translation of the Hebrew Bible was made into Greek, probably as early as the third century BC. Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Chronologies.People, Places, and Things in the New Testament.People, Places, and Things in the Hebrew Bible.Inspiration, Authority, Biblical Criticism and the Documentary Hypothesis.Ancient Manuscripts, Translations, and Texts.
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