Texts in Conversation
Deuteronomy 4 warns Israel not to add to or subtract from what God commands. The Letter of Aristeas gives Ptolemy the same rule when he decides not to make the temple table larger than the size set down in the Jewish law.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Deuteronomy 4:2
Hebrew Bible
1 Now, Israel, pay attention to the statutes and ordinances I am about to teach you, so that you might live and go on to enter and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. 2 Do not add a thing to what I command you nor subtract from it, so that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I am delivering to you. 3 You have witnessed what the Lord did at Baal Peor, how he eradicated from your midst everyone who followed Baal Peor. 4 But you who remained faithful to the Lord your God are still alive to this very day, every one of you.
Letter of Aristeas 1:55
Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
sacrifices were able to do so appropriately on the table which he had made. He did not suppose that it was owing to lack of gold that the former table had been made of small size, but there seems to have been, he said, some reason why it was made of this dimension. For had the order been given, there would have been no lack of means. So we must not transgress or go beyond the proper measure. At the same time he ordered them to press into service all the manifold forms of art, for he was a man of the most lofty conceptions and nature had endowed him with a keen imagination which enabled him to picture the appearance which would be presented by the finished work. He gave orders too, that where there were no instructions laid down in the Jewish Scriptures, everything should be made as beautiful as possible. When such instructions were laid down, they were to be carried out to the letter.
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Notes and References
“... Ps.-Aristeas himself explains why this table was modeled on the biblical pattern. “Originally the king was eager to build it up to colossal dimensions, but he ordered inquiries to be made of persons in the locality concerning the size of the previous table which stood in the Temple at Jerusalem. ...Hence the correct measure must neither be deviated nor surpassed” (52–55). This is actually a paraphrase of biblical commandment: “Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you” (Deut. 4:2). That commandment is repeated in the Letter referring to the LXX: “Inasmuch as the translation has been well and piously made and is in every respect accurate, it is right that it should remain in its present form and that no revision of any sort take place” (310). In a sense, the table is another translation, “piously made and... in every respect accurate.” ...”
Kovelman, Arkady
Between Alexandria and Jerusalem: The Dynamic of Jewish and Hellenistic Culture
(pp. 117-118) Brill, 2005
* 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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