So broad and dense is this atmosphere of myth and legend enveloping
them that it lingers about them after they have been brought forth
full-orbed; and, sometimes, from it are even produced secondary
mythical and legendary concretions--satellites about these greater
orbs of early thought. Of these secondary growths one may be
mentioned as showing how rich in myth-making material was the
atmosphere which enveloped our own earlier sacred literature.
In the third century before Christ there began to be elaborated
among the Jewish scholars of Alexandria, then the great centre of
human thought, a Greek translation of the main books constituting
the Old Testament. Nothing could be more natural at that place and
time than such a translation; yet the growth of explanatory myth
and legend around it was none the less luxuriant. There was indeed
a twofold growth. Among the Jews favourable to the new version a
legend rose which justified it. This legend in its first stage was
to the effect that the Ptolemy then on the Egyptian throne had, at
the request of his chief librarian, sent to Jerusalem for
translators; that the Jewish high priest Eleazar had sent to the
king a most precious copy of the Scriptures from the temple at
Jerusalem, and six most venerable, devout, and learned scholars
from each of the twelve tribes of Israel; that the number of
translators thus corresponded with the mysterious seventy-two
appellations of God; and that the combined efforts of these
seventy-two men produced a marvellously perfect translation.
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