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The Letter of Aristeas describes the law sent to Alexandria written in gold letters. Rabbinic tradition in tractate Soferim recalls an Alexandrian Torah scroll with God's names in gold, which the sages ordered put away.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Letter of Aristeas 1:176
Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
When they entered with the gifts which had been sent with them and the valuable parchments, on which the law was inscribed in gold in Jewish characters, for the parchment was wonderfully prepared and the connection between the pages had been so effected as to be invisible, the king as soon as he saw them began to ask them about the books. And when they had taken the rolls out of their coverings and unfolded the pages, the king stood still for a long time and then bowing about seven times, he said: 'I thank you, my friends, and I thank him who sent you still more, and
Soferim 1:9
Minor Tractate
Rabbinic
[The sacred scrolls] may not be written in gold. It is related that in an Alexandrian39So M. V and H read ‘a scroll of the Torah of Alexander’ [i.e. Alexander Jannaeus (103-76 B.C.E.) according to Krauss, Lehnwörter, II, p. 55]. scroll of the Torah all the divine names were written in gold, and when the matter came before the Sages they decided that it should be stored away.40lit. ‘it shall be hidden’; not to be used for the lection.
Date: 750 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... 176. inscribed in Jewish letters The text evidently uses “Jewish letters” and “Hebrew letters” interchangeably (Let. Aris. 3, 121). writing of gold This may well be a concoction by Aristeas. Cf. BT Soferim, 1:7–8. However, BT Soferim 1:9 records a tradition that the names of God were written in gold letters in Alexandrian Torah scrolls. ...”
Gruen, Erich S.
"The Letter of Aristeas" in Feldman, Louis H.; Kugel, James L.; Schiffman, Lawrence H. (ed.) Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture
(p. 2744) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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