Texts in Conversation
The Letter of Aristeas sends the translators along a breakwater to a secluded house on the island off Alexandria. In On the Life of Moses, Philo also sets the work on Pharos, which the translators chose for its quiet away from the city.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Letter of Aristeas 1:301
Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
Three days later Demetrius took the men and passing along the sea-wall, seven stadia long, to the island, crossed the bridge and made for the northern districts of Pharos. There he assembled them in a house, which had been built on the sea-shore, of great beauty and in a secluded situation, and invited them to carry out the work of translation, since everything that they needed for the purpose was placed at their disposal. So they set to work comparing their several results and making them agree, and whatever they agreed on was suitably copied out under the direction of Demetrius.
Philo, On the Life of Moses 2.35
Classical
The island of Pharos lies in front of Alexandria, the neck of which runs out like a sort of tongue towards the city, being surrounded with water of no great depth, but chiefly with shoals and shallow water, so that the great noise and roaring from the beating of the waves is kept at a considerable distance, and so mitigated. 36 They judged this place to be the most suitable of all the spots in the neighbourhood for them to enjoy quiet and tranquillity in, so that they might associate with the laws alone in their minds; and there they remained, and having taken the sacred scriptures, they lifted up them and their hands also to heaven, entreating of God that they might not fail in their object.
Date: 40 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... Before the Jewish translators begin their work, Demetrius, who has been absent from the narrative since submitting his report to the king in §§ 28–32, reappears as a central character and escorts the translators to an unnamed island that was joined to the mainland by a long breakwater. Later ancient tradition and most modern scholars identify that island as Pharos, location of the famous lighthouse (see especially Philo, Life of Moses 2.35), and the ancient geographer Strabo (1st c. BCE) describes a seven stadia long breakwater that reached Pharos from the mainland and that had two openings for ships (17.792). The major point for our author is that the island was quiet and clearly out of the way so that the translators could better accomplish their task. ...”
Wright, Benjamin G., III
The Letter of Aristeas: ‘Aristeas to Philocrates’ or ‘On the Translation of the Law of the Jews’
(p. 435) De Gruyter, 2015
* 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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