Page:The Septuagint version of the OT, with an English translation (1879).djvu/12

ii The fact may, however, be regarded as certain, that prior to the year 285 the Septuagint version had been commenced, and that in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, either the books in general or at least an important part of them had been completed.

The embellishments and fictitious additions which this account soon received might be scarcely worthy of notice in this place, were it not that they are intimately connected with the authority which this version was once supposed to possess, and with the name by which it is commonly known.

A writer, who calls himself Aristeas, says that when Ptolemy Philadelphus was engaged in the formation of the Alexandrian Library, he was advised by Demetrius Phalereus to procure a translation of the sacred books of the Jews. The king accordingly, as a preliminary, purchased the freedom of more than one hundred thousand Jewish captives, and he then sent a deputation, of which Aristeas himself was one, to Eleazar the high-priest to request a copy of the Jewish Law and seventy-two interpreters, six out of each tribe. To this the priest is represented to have agreed; and after the arrival of the translators and their magnificent reception by the king, they are said to have been conducted to an island by Demetrius, who wrote down the renderings on which they agreed by mutual conference; and thus the work is stated to have been completed in seventy-two days. The translators are then said to have received from the king most abundant rewards; and the Jews are stated to have asked permission to take copies of the version.

Other additions were subsequently made to this story: some said that each translator was shut into a separate cell, and that all by divine inspiration made their versions word for word alike; others said that there were two in each cell, accompanied by an amanuensis; but at all events miracle and direct inspiration were supposed to be connected with the translation: hence we cannot wonder that the authority attached to this version in the minds of those who believed these stories was almost unbounded.

The basis of truth which appears to be under this story seems to be, that it was an Egyptian king who caused the translation to be made, and that it was from the Royal Library at Alexandria that the Hellenistic Jews received the copies which they used.

In examining the version itself, it bears manifest proof that it was not executed by Jews of Palestine, but by those of Egypt: — there are words and expressions which plainly denote its Alexandrian origin: this alone would be a sufficient demonstration that the narrative of Aristeas is a mere fiction. It may also be doubted whether in the year 285 there were Jews in Palestine who had sufficient intercourse with the Greeks to have executed a translation into that language; for it must be borne in mind how recently they had become the subjects of Greek monarchs, and how differently they were situated from the Alexandrians as to the influx of Greek settlers.

Some in rejecting the fabulous embellishments have also discarded all connected with them: they have then sought to devise new hypotheses as to the origin of the version. Some have thus supposed that the translation was made by Alexandrian Jews for their own use, in order to meet a necessity which they had felt to have a version of the Scriptures in the tongue which had become vernacular to them.

There would be, however, many difficulties in the way of this hypothesis. We would hardly suppose that in a space of thirty-five years the Alexandrian Jews had found such a translation needful or desirable: we must also bear in mind that we find at this period no trace of any versions having been made by Jews into the languages of other countries in which they had continued for periods much longer than that of their settlement at Alexandria.

The most reasonable conclusion is, that the version was executed for the Egyptian king; and that the Hellenistic Jews afterwards used it as they became less and less familiar with the language of the original.

If the expression of Aristobulus does not designate the whole of the books of the Old Testament as translated in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, the question arises, When were the other books besides the Pentateuch turned into Greek? To this no definite answer could