Secret Alias wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 8:41 am
"On the eighth day of Tevet the Law was written in Greek in the days of King Tolmai [Ptolemy], and darkness came upon the world for three days." Megillat Taanit (1st - 2nd century CE)
And this should be trusted because?
Furthermore, the selection which you quote supports a Greek original because it says nothing about the law's being translated into Greek from another language.
Finally, do you believe that that event was accompanied by 3 days of darkness?
Philo was reporting a tradition that the pentateuch's translation into Greek was associated with a certain day.
No he's not. Read the fucking account. It's an ongoing festival.
And this ongoing festival was associated with the day when the Pentauteuch had supposzedly been translated into Greek, right?
Allegedly significant days and festivals associated with those significant days, especially when associated with events alleged to have occured centuries in thr past, reveal nothing about what actually happened in the past - only about what people believed had happened. Or do you believe that Purim comemorates true events?
Consider evidence which, if true, would contradict your views.
Last edited by ABuddhist on Tue Mar 21, 2023 9:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
Are you suggesting the festival of the translation of the Seventy at Pharos as described in Life of Moses was a hallucination on Philo's part? That he "imagined" the whole thing? Sheesh.
Consider evidence which, if true, would contradict your views.
This is proof for the LXX as a translation. It is explicit and Philo saw the event. It was in the most public place in Alexandria. Everyone saw it. Not just Philo. Unless of course Philo was lying or hallucinating. Some hypothesis.
A hypothesis like this benefits from only specialists in the field knowing about evidence like the festival at Pharos. Yes Gmirkin mentions it. But this is akin to arguing that America never separated from Great Britain and that, again, July 4th was something other than a festival of independence.
So let's say that this festival was enacted within a decade of the translation of the LXX. I am in the festival business. So they attract 100 people the first year. By the tenth year let's say 1000 people had been there (of course its more). The hundredth year 100000 people directly engaged with the festival. The two hundredth year 500000 direct witnesses. The three hundredth year 1 million direct witnesses. Then there are all the Jews in Alexandria which Philo puts at 1 M and all their descendants and the proselytes. What's that now 10 million witnesses. Plus all the pagans who heard something about this festival. Let's say 20 million witnesses. Something like that. Plus all the people who used the LXX and understood it to be a translation.
