Letter of Aristeas

Last updated

Beginning of the Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 11th century. Letter of Aristeas (Vat. gr. 747 f. 1r).jpg
Beginning of the Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 11th century.

The Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates is a Hellenistic work of the 3rd or early 2nd century BC, considered by some Biblical scholars to be pseudepigraphical. [1] The letter is the earliest text to mention the Library of Alexandria. [2]

Contents

Josephus, [3] who paraphrases about two-fifths of the letter, ascribes it to Aristeas of Marmora and to have been written to a certain Philocrates. The letter describes the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible by seventy-two interpreters sent into Egypt from Jerusalem at the request of the librarian of Alexandria, resulting in the Septuagint translation. Some scholars have since argued that it is fictitious. [4]

History

Latin translation, with a portrait of Ptolemy II on the right. Bavarian State Library, circa 1480. Aristeas, Epistula ad Philocratem (BSB Clm 627).jpg
Latin translation, with a portrait of Ptolemy II on the right. Bavarian State Library, circa 1480.

The Letter of Aristeas, called so because it was a letter addressed from Aristeas of Marmora to his brother Philocrates, [5] deals primarily with the reason the Greek translation of the Hebrew Law, also called the Septuagint, was created, as well as the people and processes involved. The letter's author claims to be a courtier of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (reigned 281-246 BC).

Over twenty Greek manuscript copies of the letter are known to survive, dating from the 11th to the 15th century. The letter is also mentioned and quoted in other ancient texts, most notably in Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus (c. 93 AD), in Life of Moses by Philo of Alexandria (c. AD 15), and in an excerpt from Aristobulus of Alexandria (c. 160 BC) preserved in Praeparatio evangelica by Eusebius. [6]

In detail, the work relates how the king of Egypt, presumably Ptolemy II Philadelphus, is urged by his chief librarian Demetrios of Phaleron to have the Hebrew Law translated into Greek, and so add the knowledge of the Hebrews to the vast collection of books the empire had already collected. The king responds favorably, including giving freedom to Jews who had been taken into captivity by his predecessors, and sending lavish gifts (which are described in great detail) to the Temple in Jerusalem along with his envoys. The high priest chooses exactly six men from each of the twelve tribes, giving 72 in all; he gives a long sermon in praise of the Law. When the translators arrive in Alexandria the king weeps for joy and for the next seven days puts philosophical questions to the translators, the wise answers to which are related in full. The 72 translators then complete their task in exactly 72 days. The Jews of Alexandria, on hearing the Law read in Greek, request copies and lay a curse on anyone who would change the translation. The king then rewards the translators lavishly and they return home. [7] Elements of this narrative are re-told in the Babylonian Talmud in Tractate Megillah. [8]

A main goal of the 2nd-century author seems to be to establish the superiority of the Greek Septuagint text over any other version of the Hebrew Bible. The author is noticeably pro-Greek, portraying Zeus as simply another name for the God of Israel, and while criticism is lodged against idolatry and Greek sexual ethics, the argument is phrased in such a way as to attempt to persuade the reader to change, rather than as a hostile attack. The manner in which the author concentrates on describing Judaism, and particularly its temple in Jerusalem could be viewed as an attempt to proselytise. [9]

Criticism

Greek-Latin bilingual Oxford edition of 1692. Aristeas Philocrati (Oxford 1692).jpg
Greek-Latin bilingual Oxford edition of 1692.

Scholars have noted that Demetrios of Phaleron, a client of Ptolemy I Soter, is not a good candidate as a collaborator with Ptolemy II Philadelphus. Roger S. Bagnall notes that Demetrios made a strategic mistake at the beginning of Soter's reign, supporting the ruler's older half-brother, and was punished with internal exile, dying soon afterwards. [10]

The Spanish humanist Luis Vives is sometimes quoted as having been the first to have exposed the fictitious character of the Letter, in his In XXII libros de civitate Dei commentaria (Basel: Frobenius, 1522), on Aug. Book XVIII, 42, [11] but a reading of Vives' Latin text reveals that he only transmitted Jerome's criticisms of the Aristeas story, and added nothing critical of his own account.

The inconsistencies and anachronisms of the author, exposed by many 17th-century scholars were collected and presented by Humphrey Hody (1659–1706), [12] Hody placed the writing closer to 170–130 BC. His Oxford dissertation of 1685 provoked an "angry and scurrilous reply" from Isaac Vossius (1618–1689), who had been librarian to Queen Christina of Sweden, in the appendix to his Observations on Pomponius Mela, 1686, to which Hody conclusively replied in notes to his reprint of 1705. [13] Due to this, the author of the letter of Aristeas is most often referred to as pseudo-Aristeas. [14] Modern scholarship is unanimously with Hody.

Victor Tcherikover summed up the scholarly consensus in 1958:

"Modern scholars commonly regard the "Letter of Aristeas" as a work typical of Jewish apologetics, aiming at self-defense and propaganda, and directed to the Greeks. Here are some instances illustrating this general view. In 1903 Friedlander wrote that the glorification of Judaism in the letter was no more than self-defense, though "the book does not mention the antagonists of Judaism by name, nor does it admit that its intention is to refute direct attacks". Stein sees in the letter "a special kind of defense, which practices diplomatic tactics", and Tramontano also speaks of "an apologetic and propagandist tendency". Vincent characterizes it as "a small unapologetic novel written for the Egyptians" (i.e. the Greeks in Egypt). Pheiffer says: "This fanciful story of the origin of the Septuagint is merely a pretext for defending Judaism against its heathen denigrators, for extolling its nobility and reasonableness, and first striving to convert Greek speaking Gentiles to it". Schürer classes the letter with a special kind of literature, "Jewish propaganda in Pagan disguise", whose works are "directed to the pagan reader, in order to make propaganda for Judaism among the Gentiles". Andrews, too, believes that the role of a Greek was assumed by Aristeas in order "to strengthen the force of the argument and commend it to non-Jewish readers. Even Gutman, who rightly recognizes that the Letter sprang 'from an inner need of the educated Jew,' sees in it 'a strong means for making Jewish propaganda in the Greek world.' ” [15]

But, Tcherikover continues:

"In this article an attempt will be made to prove that the Letter of Aristeas was not written with the aim of self-defense or propaganda, and was addressed not to Greek, but to Jewish readers." [15]

In 1902, I. Abrahams writes:

"It is, to my mind, no longer improbable that the king would communicate in writing with his librarian as Aristeas asserts, though Hody directs his satire against this very point." [16]

In 2001, Bruce Metzger writes:

Most scholars who have analyzed the letter have concluded that the author cannot have been the man he represented himself to be but was a Jew who wrote a fictitious account in order to enhance the importance of the Hebrew Scriptures by suggesting that a pagan king had recognized their significance and therefore arranged for their translation into Greek. [17]

Scholars avid for the scant information about the Library and the Musaeum of Alexandria have depended on pseudo-Aristeas, who "has that least attractive quality in a source: to be trusted only where corroborated by better evidence, and there unneeded," Roger Bagnall concluded. [18]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Book of Esther</span> Book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament

The Book of Esther, also known in Hebrew as "the Scroll", is a book in the third section of the Hebrew Bible. It is one of the Five Scrolls in the Hebrew Bible and later became part of the Christian Old Testament. The book relates the story of a Jewish woman in Persia, born as Hadassah but known as Esther, who becomes queen of Persia and thwarts a genocide of her people.

The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Israelites. The second division of Christian Bibles is the New Testament, written in Koine Greek.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Septuagint</span> Greek translation of Hebrew scriptures

The Septuagint, sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy, and often abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Hebrew. The full Greek title derives from the story recorded in the Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates that "the laws of the Jews" were translated into the Greek language at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus by seventy-two Hebrew translators—six from each of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bible translations</span> Translations of the Bible

The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. As of September 2023 all of the Bible has been translated into 736 languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,658 languages, and smaller portions of the Bible have been translated into 1,264 other languages according to Wycliffe Global Alliance. Thus, at least some portions of the Bible have been translated into 3,658 languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Demetrius of Phalerum</span> Ancient Greek statesman and philosopher

Demetrius of Phalerum was an Athenian orator originally from Phalerum, an ancient port of Athens. A student of Theophrastus, and perhaps of Aristotle, he was one of the first members of the Peripatetic school of philosophy. Demetrius had been a distinguished statesman who was appointed by Cassander, the King of Macedon, to govern Athens, where Demetrius ruled as sole ruler for ten years. During this time, he introduced important reforms of the legal system, while also maintaining pro-Cassander oligarchic rule.

1 Maccabees, also known as the First Book of Maccabees, First Maccabees, and abbreviated as 1 Macc., is a deuterocanonical book which details the history of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire as well as the founding and earliest history of the independent Hasmonean kingdom. It describes the promulgation of decrees forbidding traditional Jewish practices by King Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the formation of a rebellion against him by Mattathias of the Hasmonean family and his five sons. Mattathias's son Judas Maccabeus takes over the revolt and the rebels as a group are called the Maccabees; the book chronicles in detail the successes and setbacks of the rebellion. While Judas is eventually killed in battle, the Maccabees eventually achieve autonomy and then independence for Judea under the leadership of the Hasmonean family. Judas's brother Simon Thassi is declared High Priest by will of the Jewish people. The time period described is from around 170 BC to 134 BC.

2 Maccabees, also known as the Second Book of Maccabees, Second Maccabees, and abbreviated as 2 Macc., is a deuterocanonical book which recounts the persecution of Jews under King Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the Maccabean Revolt against him. It concludes with the defeat of the Seleucid Empire general Nicanor in 161 BC by Judas Maccabeus, the leader of the Maccabees.

3 Maccabees, also called the Third Book of Maccabees, is a book written in Koine Greek, likely in the 1st century BC in either the late Ptolemaic period of Egypt or in early Roman Egypt. Despite the title, the book has nothing to do with the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire described in 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees. Instead it tells the story of a persecution of the Jews under Pharaoh Ptolemy IV Philopator in Ptolemaic Egypt, some decades before the Maccabee uprising in Judea. The story purports to explain the origin of a Purim-like festival celebrated in Egypt. 3 Maccabees is somewhat similar to the Book of Esther, another book which describes how a king is advised to annihilate the Diaspora Jews in his territory, yet is thwarted by God.

The Letter of Jeremiah, also known as the Epistle of Jeremiah, is a deuterocanonical book of the Old Testament; this letter is attributed to Jeremiah and addressed to the Jews who were about to be carried away as captives to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. It is included in Roman Catholic Bibles as the final chapter of the Book of Baruch. It is also included in Orthodox Bibles as a separate book, as well as in the Apocrypha of the Authorized Version.

The Alexandrian school is a collective designation for certain tendencies in literature, philosophy, medicine, and the sciences that developed in the Hellenistic cultural center of Alexandria, Egypt during the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

In contrast to the variety of absolute or personal names of God in the Old Testament, the New Testament uses only two, according to the International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia. From the 20th century onwards, "a number of scholars find various evidence for the name [YHWH or related form] in the New Testament.

Hellenistic Judaism was a form of Judaism in classical antiquity that combined Jewish religious tradition with elements of Hellenistic culture. Until the early Muslim conquests of the eastern Mediterranean, the main centers of Hellenistic Judaism were Alexandria in Egypt and Antioch in Syria, the two main Greek urban settlements of the Middle East and North Africa, both founded in the end of the fourth century BCE in the wake of the conquests of Alexander the Great. Hellenistic Judaism also existed in Jerusalem during the Second Temple Period, where there was a conflict between Hellenizers and traditionalists.

There is no scholarly consensus as to when the canon of the Hebrew Bible was fixed. Rabbinic Judaism recognizes the twenty-four books of the Masoretic Text as the authoritative version of the Tanakh. Of these books, the Book of Daniel has the most recent final date of composition. The canon was therefore fixed at some time after this date. Some scholars argue that it was fixed during the Hasmonean dynasty, while others argue it was not fixed until the second century CE or even later.

Biblical languages are any of the languages employed in the original writings of the Bible. Partially owing to the significance of the Bible in society, Biblical languages are studied more widely than many other dead languages. Furthermore, some debates exist as to which language is the original language of a particular passage, and about whether a term has been properly translated from an ancient language into modern editions of the Bible. Scholars generally recognize three languages as original biblical languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek.

The Ptolemaic Baris was a citadel maintained by Ptolemaic Egypt during its rule of Jerusalem in the 3rd century BC. Described by only a few ancient sources, no archaeological remains of the citadel have been found and much about it remains a matter of conjecture.

Demetrius the Chronographer was a Jewish chronicler (historian) of the late 3rd century BCE, who lived probably in Alexandria and wrote in Greek.

The New Testament was written in a form of Koine Greek, which was the common language of the Eastern Mediterranean from the conquests of Alexander the Great until the evolution of Byzantine Greek.

Jewish Koine Greek, or Jewish Hellenistic Greek, is the variety of Koine Greek or "common Attic" found in a number of Alexandrian dialect texts of Hellenistic Judaism, most notably in the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible and associated literature, as well as in Greek Jewish texts from Palestine. The term is largely equivalent with Greek of the Septuagint as a cultural and literary rather than a linguistic category. The minor syntax and vocabulary variations in the Koine Greek of Jewish authors are not as linguistically distinctive as the later language Yevanic, or Judeo-Greek, spoken by the Romaniote Jews in Greece.

Eleazar was a Jewish High Priest during the Second Temple period. He was the son of Onias I and brother of Simon I.

Sarah J. K. Pearce is Ian Karten Professor of History and Head of the School of Humanities at the University of Southampton. She is known in particular for her work on Jews in the Hellenistic world and the Roman Empire, especially the life and work of Philo of Alexandria.

References

  1. ↑ Harris, Stephen L., Understanding the Bible. (Palo Alto: Mayfield) 1985; André Pelletier, SJ, La Lettre d'Aristée à Philocrate (Paris) 1962.
  2. ↑ The Cambridge Companion to the City in Literature, edited by Kevin R. McNamara, p.36
  3. ↑ Antiquities XII:ii passim (Online in Greek and English at York University)
  4. ↑ The narrative is "open to the gravest suspicion, and the letter abounds with improbabilities and is now generally regarded as more or less fabulous," observed The Classical Review335/6 (August–September 1919:123), reporting H. St.J. Thackeray's The Letter of Aristeas, with an Appendix of the Ancient Evidence on the Origin of the LXX..
  5. ↑ "Letter of Aristeas". Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
  6. ↑ Hereen, Achille; Seminaire, Grande; Bruges, Belgium (2009–2012). "Origin of the Septuagint according to Tradition". Bible Source Texts Septuagint Version. Veritas Bible. Archived from the original on 27 July 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
  7. ↑ Smith, Prof. Barry D. (2 September 2010). "Jewish History from Alexander to the Death of Seleucus IV Eupator (333-175 BCE)". The Intertestamental Period. Crandall University. Archived from the original on 23 June 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
  8. ↑ "Letter of Aristeas | Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates", intertextual.bible
  9. ↑ "Letter of Aristeas (Full Text in Greek and English) – Page 2 – ELLOPOS" . Retrieved 7 April 2023.
  10. ↑ Bagnall 2002, p. 348.
  11. ↑ E.g., in Natalio Fernández Marcos, The Septuagint in Context: Introduction to the Greek Versions of the Bible (tr. W.G.E. Watson; Leiden: Brill, 2000),
  12. ↑ Hody, Contra historiam Aristeae de LXX (Oxford) 1705, a reprint of his dissertation, Oxford, 1685.
  13. ↑ Sidney Jellicoe, The Septuagint and Modern Study, 1993:31.
  14. ↑ Prosographia Ptolemaica
  15. 1 2 V. Tcherikover, "The Ideology of the Letter of Aristeas" Harvard Theological Review51.2 (April 1958), pp. 59–85 (JSTOR ref.)
  16. ↑ "Recent criticism of letter of aristeas". Jewish Quarterly Review. 1902.
  17. ↑ Metzger, B., The Bible in Translation (Baker Academic, 2001), p. 15.
  18. ↑ Bagnall 2002, p. 352.

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.