The Greek version of the Bible, known as the Septuagint — that is, the translation of the seventy sages — owes its name to a story, related in the Letter of Aristeas (La Lettre d’Aristée), according to which seventy-two scholars, summoned from Jerusalem by Ptolemy II Philadelphus, produced a perfect translation of the Pentateuch, which was deposited in the Library of Alexandria.
The Letter of Aristeas
This is a literary composition of Judeo-Alexandrian origin, written by an anonymous Jew in the form of a letter purportedly written to his brother Philocrates by Aristeas, a Greek of the court of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–246 before the common era). The content of this text runs as follows:
On the advice of his courtiers, Demetrius of Phalerum and Aristeas, Ptolemy Philadelphus orders that the Sacred Scriptures of the Jews be translated for the Library of Alexandria.
The King writes to Eleazar, the High Priest at Jerusalem, requesting that expert translators be sent to him. His letter is accompanied by a precious gift for the Temple. Aristeas, at the head of an Egyptian delegation, goes to Jerusalem and returns with a detailed description of Judaea, of Jerusalem, of the Temple and its services, and of his conversations with Eleazar. The latter sends Ptolemy II seventy-two Elders who are deeply versed in the Law of Moses and in the customs of Greek society. The king gives them an elaborate reception, and for ten days he holds banquets in their honour, in the course of which he discovers their great wisdom. They are then taken to the island of Pharos, and over the course of seventy-two days they translate the Scriptures into Greek. The translation is approved by the king and by the representatives of the Jewish community of Alexandria, and the translators are sent home laden with gifts.
The historical and cultural framework
This story, based on a legend of the Septuagint current at Alexandria around the third century before the common era, is more a historical romance than an exact account. The author of this Letter used the legend as a framework to convey certain of those ideas he wished to disseminate among his Jewish readers. He describes the Greeks as admirers of Judaism and pleads for the establishment of closer ties between the peoples. He holds that their idolatrous religion is not a barrier, for he believes that the Greeks too pray to the one and only God under the name of Zeus. He describes Judaism as a pure monotheism not in conflict with the ideas accepted in Greek philosophy. This emerges in particular from the conversations with the seventy-two Elders at the banquet. He gives a symbolic explanation of the commandments as well as a rational one.
There is a certain dualism underlying the point of view expressed in the Letter: on the one hand the separation of the Jews from non-Jews as a result of their religious observances, and on the other their rapprochement with Greek culture. This reflects the point of view of the upper class of the Jewish community of Alexandria, which, although mixing freely with the Greeks in business, nonetheless remained faithful to the principles of Judaism, upon which depended the existence of the autonomous Alexandrian Jewish community.
The Letter is written in Hellenistic Greek, influenced by the official language of Ptolemaic Egypt.
The expansion of the translation
This story was embellished over time to the point where the seventy-two interpreters were credited with the translation of the entire Hebrew Bible. It was maintained that, although they had worked independently of one another, their finished versions were identical and, moreover, superior to the original — a result of divine inspiration.
Together with the New Testament, the Septuagint constituted the Bible of the Christian Church, and it is still the Bible of the Greek Orthodox Church. The number of surviving manuscripts is therefore considerable: more than 30 dating from the fourth to the ninth centuries, for the oldest. Recent discoveries have brought to light fragments of papyrus dating back to the second century before the Christian era, while a few fragments discovered at Qumran make it possible to date the Septuagint to before the Christian era.
The translation of the Old Testament contains all the texts of the Hebrew biblical canon, but with differences (titles, inversions in the order of certain chapters, or additional sections); it includes texts that figure only in the Christian Bible (e.g. Judith, Tobit, the second book of Maccabees…). The sequence is based on a literary classification: law, history, poetry, prophecy.
It is generally accepted that what the Letter of Aristeas states regarding the official translation of the Pentateuch at Alexandria in the third century before the Christian era may be taken as historically valid. But it is now supposed that the project itself was initiated by the Greek-speaking Jewish community of Alexandria, which needed a version of the Pentateuch for purposes of prayer and instruction. This translation, received with enthusiasm by the Jewish community, was followed over the three following centuries by that of the other books of the Bible.
This translation into Greek was made almost entirely in Egypt, then later spread throughout the Hellenistic diaspora and in Palestine. But over time, very numerous errors and copyists’ mistakes appeared, which would explain the marked reserve of the Jewish communities towards it, in contrast to its reception by the Christians.
(After the Encyclopaedia Judaica)