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The Letter of Aristeas has the Jewish leaders curse anyone who changes the Greek law. Josephus tells the same story in Antiquities of the Jews without the curse, and instead has the leaders ask that any addition or omission be found and corrected.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Letter of Aristeas 1:311
Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
After the books had been read, the priests and the elders of the translators and the Jewish community and the leaders of the people stood up and said, that since so excellent and sacred and accurate a translation had been made, it was only right that it should remain as it was and no alteration should be made in it. And when the whole company expressed their approval, they told them to pronounce a curse in accordance with their custom on anyone who should make any alteration either by adding anything or changing in any way whatever any of the words which had been written or making any omission. This was a very wise precaution to ensure that the book might be preserved for all the future time unchanged.
Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 12.2.13
Classical
And they desired that he would give leave to their rulers also to read the law. Moreover they all, both the priest, and the ancientest of the elders, and the principal men of their common weal made it their request, that since the interpretation was happily finished, it might continue in the state it now was; and might not be altered. And when they all commended that determination of theirs, they injoined, that if any one observed either any thing superfluous, or any thing omitted, that he would take a view of it again, and have it laid before them, and corrected: which was a wise action of theirs: that when the thing was judged to have been well done, it might continue for ever.
Date: 93-94 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... § 311. They ordered … deletion. Josephus’s version varies a lot from the manuscript tradition in the larger section, in which his list of the officials differs as well. For this sentence, however, he goes in a completely different direction. He does not have the curse, and rather than imprecations against change, he claims that the leaders encouraged correction, if anyone found changes being made: “Accordingly, when all had approved this idea, they ordered that, if anyone saw any further addition made of the text of the law or anything omitted from it, he should examine it and make it known and correct it” (Ant. 12.109). Why he has taken this tack is not immediately clear. ...”
Wright, Benjamin G., III
The Letter of Aristeas: ‘Aristeas to Philocrates’ or ‘On the Translation of the Law of the Jews’
(p. 452) 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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