The Greeks in Bactria and India c12.79

c12.79

The Letter of Pseudo-Aristeas¹ tells the story of Ptolemy II inviting to Alexandria 72 Jewish Elders to translate their Scriptures into Greek—the legendary account of the origin of the Septuagint; there is an introduction or scene-setting explaining how Ptolemy was led to do it, and an account of his entertainment of the Elders. Among other things he gives seven great banquets, at which he puts a question to each of the Elders and the Elder answers it; there are ten questions on five nights and eleven on the last two. The author introduces throughout the work praise of the Jewish religion and customs, and it has been universally recognised that it is a propaganda work designed to commend the Jewish religion to Greeks. Another thing now universally recognised is that its date is very much later than the time of Ptolemy II; it has even been put after the Christian Era. Wendland dated it c. 90 B.C. or later; Thackeray put it about 120 to 80 B.C.;² Février merely put it before 30 B.C., that is, before the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty;³ Momigliano, comparing various letters in I Maccabees, thought it was c. 110–100 B.C.;⁴ the latest study known to me, a detailed examination of the language in the light of Hellenistic Greek, decides that the linguistic evidence so far as it goes supports an already well-known dating, c. 100 B.C.⁵ Many arguments have been adduced to prove this or that dating which are not valid, but one was given by Wendland in his Introduction which seems to me pretty conclusive for a date not earlier than c. 100 B.C.,⁶ and I have not been con-