Identities Masked: Sagacity, Sophistry and Pseudepigraphy in Aristeas

Abstract

The Letter of Aristeas can best be understood when interpreters attend to the full range of postures toward Hellenism and Judaism exhibited by the various characters in the work. These stances range from the translators’ public, universalist philosophizing before the king in Alexandria to the High Priest Eleazar’s more particularistic defense of Jewish ritual law articulated in Jerusalem. Yet when the translators work on the Island of Pharos, or when the High Priest writes to the King, these characters display other sides of themselves. For the author of Aristeas – himself a Jew parading rather successfully as a Greek – knowing how much to conceal or reveal, when and where, is a fundamental skill, the secret to success for Jews in the Hellenistic diaspora.