Judaism I. Группа авторов

and that they be preserved reverently« (317).³⁷

      Philo

      In the work of Philo of Alexandria, the translation legend is developed further.

      Judging this (scil. The island of Pharos) to be the most suitable place in the district, where they might find peace and tranquillity and the soul could commune with the laws with none to disturb its privacy, they fixed their abode there; and, taking the sacred books, stretched them out towards heaven with the hands that held them, asking of God that they might not fail in their purpose. And He assented to their prayers, to the end that the greater part, or even the whole, of the human race might be profited and let to a better life by continuing to observe such wise and truly admirable ordinances. Sitting here in seclusion with none present save the elements of nature, earth, water, air, heaven, the genesis of which was to be the first theme of their sacred revelation, for the laws begin with the story of the world`s creation, they became as it were possessed, and, under inspiration, wrote, not each several scribe something different, but the same word for word, as though dictated to each by an invisible prompter. (De vita Mosis II, 36–37).³⁸

      This then became the 72 cells of the Christian and rabbinic legend, according to which each of them translated the Torah from Hebrew into Greek in identical text.

      Josephus

      In his own historical account of the time of the Diadochi (322–275 BCE), after Ptolemy I Lagus, Josephus comes to speak of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, and reports on the king’s initiative on the translation of the Torah (Ant. 12.11–118). In Josephus, too, the translation took place on the island of Pharos in a house built near the beach (Ant. 12.103), by 72 translators (Ant. 12.39, 56). »Then he (Demetrius of Phaleron) entreated them (now they had everything they needed) to begin the work right away. The elders they made an accurate interpretation, with great zeal and great pains, and this they continued to do until the ninth hour … In all, the writing down and translation of the laws took seventy-two days« (Ant. 12.103–107).³⁹ The representatives and officials of the Jewish community expressed their agreement and the wish that »since the interpretation was happily finished, it might continue in the state it now was, and might not be altered« (Ant. 12.108).⁴⁰

      The Torah for King Talmai⁴¹

      The story of the 72 translators is also in b. Meg. (8b-9b), but rather differently:

      Once again, it happened that King Talmai assembled seventy-two elders and had them live in seventy-two houses. He did not reveal to them the purpose for which he had assembled them. He went to see each of them and said to them: ›Write me the Torah of Moses, your teacher.‹ God gave insight into the heart of every individual, and they agreed in their judgment; each wrote him a Torah in which they changed thirteen passages.⁴²

      These passages from the Torah are then listed where the Greek translation supposedly diverges from the original Hebrew text.⁴³

      The extra-talmudic tractate Soferim 1.7⁴⁴ declares the day on which the LXX was completed to be as fateful a day for Israel as that of the Golden Calf:

      It happened that five elders had written the Torah in Greek for King Talmai. This day was as consequential for Israel as the day when the Calf was made. For the Torah could not be translated adequately.

      The LXX translation was therefore idolatrous.

      A clear departure from the »classical« LXX legend is evident here. While »the 72« independently translated from Hebrew to Greek identically in their cells, in the rabbinic perception it was the 13 divergences on which the 72 translators agreed. In fact, there are countless deviations from the Hebrew in the LXX, in the Torah and in all the writings of the Hebrew Bible. Thus, for instance, the text of the book of Jeremiah in the LXX is one-eighth shorter than in the MT (although this short version was found in Hebrew at Qumran).⁴⁵ On the other hand, in Psalm 151 the LXX Psalter presents one psalm more than the MT Psalter. So, the rabbis’ list is actually a reminder that a translation can never adequately render what is written in the source language.

      4 The Temple Conflict under Antiochus IV and the Maccabean Revolt

      4.1 Preliminary remarks

      The history of the Maccabees covers a century. It begins in the year 167 BCE, at a time when Mattathias, a priest from the ›House of the Hasmoneans,‹ took up arms for the sake of the Torah against foreign rule, and it ends on the Sabbath in the fall of the year 63 BCE, when Roman legionaries stormed the temple mount and the Roman commander entered the holy of holies. The person who had led him and his troops to Jerusalem was a great-grandson of Mattathias’s, Hyrcanus II, who was fighting his own brother Aristobulus for the Jewish crown.⁴⁶

      The Maccabean Revolt against Seleucid rule in 167–164 BCE and Rome’s move on Syria-Palestine in 64 BCE mark the beginning and end-points of the history of Judea in the second and first centuries BCE. This is the century of Judea’s independence as a Temple state with Jerusalem as its capital.

      The Maccabean Revolt is well documented by relatively close sources (Daniel and 1 and 2 Maccabees), although the two books of Maccabees manifest their own different interests. These must always be considered in the question of the historical events.

      4.2 History of research⁴⁷

      In the question of the causes of the Maccabean uprising, a key role was played by two components, and their weighing has led to divergent, often contradictory views: the role of King Antiochus IV and that of the Jerusalem temple aristocracy in the abolition or transformation of the Judaic religion at the Jerusalem temple. While earlier research⁴⁸ saw in Antiochus IV the driving force in the replacement of the God of Israel by Zeus Olympios at the Jerusalem temple, this view was completely overturned by Elias Bickermann.⁴⁹ Because of the Hellenization of Judea, already of long duration, the reform of the Jerusalem cult started in High priestly groups associated with Jason, who bought his High priesthood and the establishment of a gymnasium from the king with ephebeia. The High priest Menelaus took the Hellenization of the cult to a radical conclusion. The God of Israel was equated with the Syrians’ Baal Shamem and the Greeks’ Zeus Olympios:

      Just like the uncorrupted children of nature of Greek theory, the ›sons of the Acra,‹ i.e. Menelaus and his partisans, thus worshipped the heavenly god of their ancestors without temple and images, under the open sky upon the altar which stood on Mt. Zion. They were free from the yoke of the law, and in mutual tolerance they were united with the Gentiles. What could be more human, what could be more natural, than their desire to force this tolerance also upon those of their coreligionists who were still unenlightened? That was the persecution of Epiphanes.⁵⁰

      The resistance of the Hasmoneans had then been directed against these reform efforts of the Jerusalem temple aristocracy. Victor Tcherikover⁵¹ adopted this assessment of the Hellenization of the Jerusalem aristocracy, who came into conflict with the still tradition-minded people, leading to civil war. With the help of a Syrian military settlement on the Akra, who were worshiping the Syrian God of heaven, Baal Shamem, Antiochus IV then reacted. Antiochus IV took the religious resistance of the Hasmoneans to be directed against his rule and therefore prohibited the Jewish religion. In the conflict between Antiochus IV, the Jerusalem aristocracy, and Hasmoneans, further variants may be identified. Jochen Gabriel Bunge⁵² thinks what triggered the Maccabean revolt was the self-deification of Antiochus IV and the compliance of the Hellenized Jerusalem upper class. Klaus Bringmann,⁵³ on the other hand, blamed the religious prohibition of the king on political squabbles between the High priests Jason and Menelaus. Further research⁵⁴ has produced different evaluations of the political and religious aspects and turned increasingly to assessments of the source situation. First Maccabees can be seen as »narrative composition with an intentional reference to reality«⁵⁵ and the religious persecution as a myth, behind which stands the violent suppression