Endnote 1 – Mission To Alexandria

1 The English translation used in this article is from R.J.H. Shutt, “Letter of Aristeas (A New Translation and Introduction),” which can be found in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 2, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985). The well-known collection of ancient documents edited by R.H. Charles (The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English, 2 vols. [Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1913]) also contains an English translation of the Letter of Aristeas prepared by H.T. Andrews. Shutt’s renderings are more up to date, but Andrews’s introduction and notes are fuller.

Moses Hadas provides an authoritative translation, along with almost 100 pages of introductory discussion, in his study of the letter. (Aristeas to Philocrates [New York: Harper, 1951J). Hadas is a reliable guide to almost everything written about this document up until his time.

For the discussion of issues during the period since Hadas, interested readers can consult with confidence two works by Sidney Jellicoe: The Septuagint and Modern Study (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1968), which he wrote, and Studies in the Septuagint: Origins, Recensions, and Interpretations (New York: KTAV, 1974), which he edited. In his brief introduction and notes, Shutt provides even more recent coverage in a few areas.