Abstract
The Letter of Aristeas has been read by a great number of theologians since Philo of Alexandria. Its ancient readers give an interesting interpretation which has not been suspected by the modem commentators since Joseph Juste Scaliger. The Letter is neither an historical account of the translation of the Jewish law under King Ptolemy II Philadelphus nor an apology. It's a political pamphlet denouncing the tyrannical institutions devised by John Hyrcanus, High Priest in Jerusalem at the end of the 2nd century B.C.E. and head of a Jewish independent State emancipated from the Seleucid domination. It cannot be taken into account to prove that the Torah was translated into Greek at the beginning of the Hellenistic era.
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