Editing Septuagint (section)

=== Jewish legend ===
[[File:Letter of Aristeas (Vat. gr. 747 f. 1r).jpg|thumb|alt=Fragment of a Greek manuscript|upright=1.2|Beginning of the Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 11th century)]]
According to tradition, Ptolemy II Philadelphus (the Greek Pharaoh of Egypt) sent seventy-two Hebrew [[sofer|translators]]—six from each of the [[Twelve Tribes of Israel]]—from [[Jerusalem during the Second Temple Period|Jerusalem]] to [[Alexandria]] to translate the ''Tanakh'' from Biblical Hebrew into Koine Greek, for inclusion in [[Library of Alexandria|his library]].<ref name=Dines2004>{{cite book |last=Dines |first=Jennifer M. |editor-last=Knibb |editor-first=Michael A. |editor-link=Michael A. Knibb |title=The Septuagint |series=Understanding the Bible and Its World |edition=1st |publisher=T&T Clark |location=London |year=2004 |isbn=0-567-08464-7}}</ref> This narrative is found in the possibly [[Pseudepigrapha|pseudepigraphic]] Letter of Aristeas to his brother Philocrates,<ref name=Davila1999>{{cite web |last=Davila |first=J |title=Aristeas to Philocrates |website=Summary of lecture by Davila, February 11, 1999 |publisher=University of St. Andrews, School of Divinity |year=2008 |url=http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/divinity/rt/otp/abstracts/aristeas/ |access-date=19 June 2011 |archive-date=18 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110618050330/http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/divinity/rt/otp/abstracts/aristeas/ |url-status=dead}}</ref> and is repeated by [[Philo]] of Alexandria, [[Josephus]] (in ''[[Antiquities of the Jews]]''),<ref name=Whiston1998>{{cite book |author=William Whiston |title=The Complete Works of Josephus |year=1998 |publisher=[[T. Nelson Publishers]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_4YBAAAACAAJ |isbn=978-0-7852-1426-7 |author-link=William Whiston}}</ref> and by later sources (including Augustine of Hippo).<ref name=Augustine>Augustine of Hippo, ''The City of God'' 18.42.</ref> It is also found in the Tractate [[Megillah (Talmud)|Megillah]] of the [[Talmud|Babylonian Talmud]]:

{{quote|King Ptolemy once gathered 72 Elders. He placed them in 72 chambers, each of them in a separate one, without revealing to them why they were summoned. He entered each one's room and said: "Write for me the Torah of [[Moses|Moshe]], your teacher". God put it in the heart of each one to translate identically as all the others did.<ref name=Megillah />}}

Philo of Alexandria writes that the number of scholars was chosen by selecting six scholars from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Caution is needed here regarding the accuracy of this statement by Philo of Alexandria, as it implies that the twelve tribes were still in existence during King Ptolemy's reign, and that the [[Ten Lost Tribes]] of the twelve tribes had not been forcibly resettled by [[Assyrian captivity|Assyria]] almost 500 years previously.<ref name=Shavitsky2012>{{Cite book |last=Ziva |first=Shavitsky |title=The Mystery of the Ten Lost Tribes: A Critical Survey of Historical and Archaeological Records relating to the People of Israel in Exile in Syria, Mesopotamia and Persia up to ca. 300 BCE |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-4438-3502-2 |location=Cambridge, England}}</ref>{{bsn|date=January 2025}} Although not all the people of the ten tribes were scattered, many peoples of the ten tribes sought refuge in Jerusalem and survived, preserving a remnant of each tribe and their lineages. Jerusalem swelled to five times its prior population due to the influx of refugees. According to later [[rabbinic tradition]] (which considered the Greek translation as a distortion of sacred text and unsuitable for use in the synagogue), the Septuagint was given to Ptolemy two days before the annual [[Tenth of Tevet]] fast.<ref name=Toy1906 /><ref name=Turim>[[Arba'ah Turim|Tur]] Orach Chaim 580, quoting [[Simeon Kayyara|Bahag]].</ref>

According to [[Aristobulus of Alexandria]]'s fragment 3, portions of the Law were translated from Hebrew into Greek long before the well-known Septuagint version. He stated that [[Plato]] and [[Pythagoras]] knew the Jewish Law and borrowed from it.<ref name=Yarbro>[[Adela Yarbro Collins|A. Yarbro Collins]], ''Aristobulus (Second Century B.C.). A New Translation And Introduction'', in [[James H. Charlesworth]] (1985), ''The Old Testament Pseudoepigrapha'', Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company Inc., Volume 2, {{ISBN|0-385-09630-5}} (Vol. 1), {{ISBN|0-385-18813-7}} (Vol. 2), p. 831.</ref>

In the preface to his 1844 [[The Septuagint version of the Old Testament (Brenton)|translation of the Septuagint]], [[Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton]] acknowledges that the [[History of the Jews in Alexandria|Jews of Alexandria]] were likely to have been the writers of the Septuagint, but dismisses Aristeas' account as a [[Noble lie#Pious fiction|pious fiction]]. Instead, he asserts that the real origin of the name "Septuagint" pertains to the fact that the earliest version was forwarded by the authors to the Jewish [[Sanhedrin]] at Alexandria for editing and approval.<ref name=Brenton1844>{{cite book |editor-link2= |translator-last1=Brenton |translator-first1=Lancelot Charles Lee |translator-link1=Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton |edition=1st |volume=1 |title=The Septuagint version of the Old Testament |chapter=Preface |pages=vii |publisher=[[Samuel Bagster the Elder|Samuel Bagster and Sons]] |location=London |year=1844 |url=https://archive.org/details/septuagintversio00bren/page/n13/mode/2up}}</ref>

The Jews of Alexandria celebrated the translation with an annual festival on the island of Pharos, where the [[Lighthouse of Alexandria]] stood—the location where the translation was said to have taken place. During the festival, a large gathering of Jews, along with some non-Jewish visitors, would assemble on the beach for a grand picnic.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Barclay |first=John M. G. |title=Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: from Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE–117 CE) |date=1998 |publisher=T&T Clark |isbn=978-0-567-08651-8 |edition= |location=Edinburgh |pages=424}}</ref>