The Greek Pentateuch and the Scholarly Milieu of Alexandria

Abstract

The origins of the first translation of the Bible, the Greek Pentateuch, in the first part of the third century BCE, is still an enigma. Ancient and new theories try to explain this phenomenon without precedents in Antiquity. The author, after years of dedication to the study of the Septuagint and Hellenistic Judaism, proposes his own view of this particular issue. He call for a critical return to the narrative of the Letter of Aristeas inasmuch as it rightly describes the atmosphere of the Ptolemaic court and the scholarly milieu of the Library of Alexandria. The translators were cultivated Jews, bilingual intellectuals, expert in both Hebrew and Greek language and literature and in both religious traditions. It cannot be decided whether they were Alexandrian or they came from the circle of the Jerusalem temple in a period when Palestine was under Ptolemaic rule and the relations between Jerusalem and Alexandria were very easy-going.