Pseudepigrapha in the context of "Letter of Aristeas"

The Septuagint (/ˈsɛptjuədʒɪnt/ SEP-tew-ə-jint), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (Koine Greek: Ἡ μετάφρασις τῶν Ἑβδομήκοντα, romanized: Hē metáphrasis tôn Hebdomḗkonta), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek title derives from the story recorded in the Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates that "the laws of the Jews" were translated into the Greek language at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–247 BC) by seventy-two Hebrew translators—six from each of the Twelve Tribes of Israel—though this story is considered to be pseudepigraphical by some scholars.

Biblical scholars agree that the first five books of the Hebrew Bible were translated from Biblical Hebrew into Koine Greek by Jews living in the Ptolemaic Kingdom, centred on the large community in Alexandria, probably in the early or middle part of the 3rd century BC. The remaining books were presumably translated in the 2nd century BC. Some targums translating or paraphrasing the Bible into Aramaic were also made during the Second Temple period.

Leviathan (/lɪˈvaɪ.əθən/ le-VIE-ə-thən; Hebrew: לִוְיָתָן, romanized: Livyāṯān; Greek: Λεβιάθαν) is a sea serpent demon noted in theology and mythology. It is referenced in the Hebrew Bible, as a metaphor for a powerful enemy, notably Babylon. It is referred to in Psalms, the Book of Job, the Book of Isaiah, and the pseudepigraphical Book of Enoch. Leviathan is often an embodiment of chaos, threatening to eat the damned when their lives are over. In the end, it is annihilated. Christian theologians identified Leviathan with the demon of the deadly sin envy. According to Ophite Diagrams, Leviathan encapsulates the space of the material world.

In Gnosis, it encompasses the world like a sphere and incorporates the souls of those who are too attached to material things, so they cannot reach the realm of God's fullness beyond, from which all good emanates. In Hobbes, Leviathan becomes a metaphor for the omnipotence of the state, which maintains itself by educating children in its favour, generation after generation. This idea of eternal power that 'feeds' on its constantly self-produced citizens is based on a concept of conditioning that imprints the human's conscience in a mechanical manner. It deals in a good and evil dualism: a speculative natural law according to which man should behave towards man like a ravenous wolf, and the pedagogically transmitted laws of the state as Leviathan, whose justification for existence is seen in containing such frightening conditions.

"Son of man", "son of Adam", or "as a man", are phrases used in the Hebrew Bible, various apocalyptic works of the intertestamental period, and in the Greek New Testament. In the indefinite form ("son of Adam", "son of man", "like a man") used in the Hebrew Bible, it is a form of address; or it contrasts humans with God and the angels; or it contrasts foreign nations (like the Sasanian Empire and Babylon), which are often represented as animals in apocalyptic writings (bear, goat, or ram), with Israel which is represented as human (a "son of man"); or it signifies an eschatological human figure.

The phrase is used in its indefinite form in the Septuagint, Biblical apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. The Greek New Testament uses the earlier indefinite form while introducing a novel definite form, "the son of man."

Cleinias of Tarentum (Ancient Greek: Κλεινίας; fl. 4th-century BCE), Magna Graecia, was a Pythagorean philosopher, and a contemporary and friend of Plato, as appears from the story (perhaps otherwise worthless) which Diogenes Laërtius gives on the authority of Aristoxenus, to the effect that Plato wished to burn all the writings of Democritus which he could collect, but was prevented by Cleinias and Amyclus of Heraclea. In his practice, Cleinias was a true Pythagorean. Thus, we hear that he used to assuage his anger by playing on his harp; and, when Prorus of Cyrene had lost all his fortune through a political revolution, Cleinias, who knew nothing of him except that he was a Pythagorean, took on himself the risk of a voyage to Cyrene, and supplied him with money to the full extent of his loss.

Two fragments of Pythagorean pseudepigrapha are attributed to Cleinias, one preserved by Stobaeus, the other in the Theology of Arithmetic attributed to Iamblichus.

The Testament of Solomon is a pseudepigraphical composite text ascribed to King Solomon but not regarded as canonical scripture by Jews or Christian groups. It was written in the Greek language, based on precedents dating back to the early 1st millennium AD, but was likely not completed in any meaningful textual sense until sometime in the Middle Ages. In its most noteworthy recensions, the text describes how Solomon was enabled to build his temple by commanding demons by means of a magical ring that was entrusted to him by the archangel Michael.