Septuagint

Sources

[Sacred texts] may not be written in [obsolete] Hebrew characters or in the Median, Elamitic or Greek languages. Seventy Elders wrote the Torah for king Ptolemy in Greek, and that day was as ominous for Israel as the day on which the Golden Calf was made, since the Torah could not be adequately translated.

Tractate Sefer Torah 1:8

Thirteen things they changed for King Ptolemy. They wrote for him, “God created the beginning.” “I shall make man in stature and form.” “Male and his openings He created them.” “He finished on the Sixth and rested on the Seventh” “Now I shall descend.” “Sarah laughed in her surroundings, saying.” “For in their rage they slew a bull and in their will uprooted a trough.” “Moses took his wife and his sons and let them ride on people-carriers.” “The dwelling of the Children of Israel, which they dwelled in Egypt and other lands, was 430 years.” And the hare, “and the young of foot…

Jerusalem Talmud Megillah 1:9:15

Rather, say in explanation of the baraita: And our Rabbis permitted them to be written only in Greek. And it is taught in another baraita that Rabbi Yehuda said: Even when our Rabbis permitted Greek, they permitted it only in a Torah scroll, and not for other books of the Bible, which must be written only in Hebrew. The Gemara continues: And this was due to the incident of King Ptolemy, as it is taught in a baraita: There was an incident involving King Ptolemy of Egypt…

Megillah 9a:10-13

It also happened that King Ptolemy assembled seventy-two elders and placed them in seventy-two [separate] rooms without telling them the reason for which he had assembled them. He then went to each one of them and said to him, ‘Write for me [a translation of] the Torah of Moses your master’. The Omnipresent inspired them and the mind of all of them was identical, so that each on his own wrote the [same translation of the] Torah, introducing [the same] thirteen alterations as follows: ‘God created in the beginning’. ‘And God said I shall make a man in image and likeness…

Tractate Soferim 1:8

Instead of Moses’ assertion: “I have not taken one donkey [ḥamor] from them” (Numbers 16:15), they wrote in more general terms: “I have not taken one item of value [ḥemed] from them,” to prevent the impression that Moses took other items. To the verse that discusses the worship of the sun and the moon, about which it is written: “Which the Lord your God has allotted to all the nations” (Deuteronomy 4:19), they added a word to make it read: “Which the Lord your God has allotted to give light to all the nations…

Megillah 9b:1-3

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: Even with regard to Torah scrolls, the Sages permitted them to be written only in Greek. Torah scrolls written in any other language do not have the sanctity of a Torah scroll.

The mishna cites that Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: Even with regard to Torah scrolls, the Sages permitted them to be written only in Greek. Rabbi Abbahu said that Rabbi Yoḥanan said: The halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel. And Rabbi Yoḥanan said: What is the reason for the opinion of Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel? He based his opinion on an allusion in the Torah, as the verse states: “God shall enlarge Japheth, and He shall dwell in the tents of Shem” (Genesis 9:27)…

The miracle of Chanukah, centered around the menorah, indicates that the Greeks' primary aim was to defile the oil. They sought to distance Bnei Yisrael from Hashem through wisdom, knowing that the written Torah was already translated into Greek (Megillah 9b). The Midrash (Tanchuma Vayera 6) explains that Moshe requested the Oral Torah be explicit, but Hashem responded that it would be regarded as foreign. The Oral Torah, understood through the sages' comprehension of Hashem's will, testifies that the Torah belongs solely to Bnei Yisrael…

Sefat Emet, Genesis, For Chanuka 5:7

Relatedראו גם

The Greek Language

The Book of Esther

Sheetsדפי מקורות

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