Pseudo-Aristeas

The so-called Letter of Aristeas is a forgery. Josephus Ant. XII, ii passim) ascribes to 'Aristeas' a letter ascribing the Greek translation of the Old Testament to seventy six interpreters sent into Egypt from Jerusalem at the request of the librarian of Alexandria, resulting in the Septuagint Bible.

Early philological analysis proved the letter was a forgery. In 1684 Humphrey Hody published Contra historiam Aristeae de LXX. interpretibus dissertatio, in which he showed that the so called "letter of Aristeas", was the late forgery of a Hellenized Jew, originally circulated to lend authority to that version. The dissertation was generally regarded as conclusive, although Isaac Vossius (1618-1689) who had been librarian to Queen Christina of Sweden, published an angry and scurrilous reply to it, in the appendix to his edition of Pomponius Mela.

See also Library of Alexandria, Kosher, Masoretic Text, Tefillin