![]() ![]() Here they are following the Septuagint's pelekan. ![]() 11:18 is rendered 'pelican' by some English versions. Yanshuph, however, is rendered as a kind of owl by the majority of English versions. The Septuagint's translation 'ibis' is followed by the Revised Standard Version. The Septuagint translates this ibis, a bird that the Egyptians knew as hbj. In Lev.11:22 we encounter a bird called yanshuph. Even the accuracy of the Septuagint's translation here need not concern us either. The detailed identification of the birds need not concern us here. The list is an ornithologist's delight but a translator's nightmare. The precise identification of many of the birds in the list of unclean birds remains uncertain. Hints of the Egyptian Origin of the Septuagintĭoes the Septuagint translation itself give any hints of its supposed Egyptian origins? In Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 are given a list of unclean animals and birds, that is, creatures that the Israelites were prohibited from eating. The Septuagint was later to become the Bible of the Greek-speaking early Church, and is frequently quoted in the New Testament. The Septuagint translation made the Hebrew scriptures available both to the Jews who no longer spoke their ancestral language and to the entire Greek-speaking world. Following the conquests of Alexander the Great (336-323 BC), Greek became the official language of Egypt, Syria and the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. The significance of the Septuagint translation can hardly be overestimated. ![]() But even if the stories relating to the origin of the Septuagint are not true, at least not in all the details, it seems likely that Ptolemy II at least instigated a translation of the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. One of those credited as being present at the banquet, a certain Menodemus of Eritria, is known to have died two years before Ptolemy II succeeded to the throne. It is known that on the assumption of his throne, Ptolemy II banished Demetrius of Phaleron. 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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