Septuagint in the context of Psalm 10

Hellenistic Judaism was a form of Judaism in classical antiquity that combined Jewish religious tradition with elements of Hellenistic culture and religion. Until the early Muslim conquests of the eastern Mediterranean, the main centers of Hellenistic Judaism were Alexandria in Egypt and Antioch in Syria (modern-day Turkey), the two main Greek urban settlements of the Middle East and North Africa, both founded in the end of the 4th century BCE in the wake of the conquests of Alexander the Great. Hellenistic Judaism also existed in Jerusalem during the Second Temple Period, where there was a conflict between Hellenizers and traditionalists.

The major literary product of the contact between Second Temple Judaism and Hellenistic culture is the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible from Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic to Koine Greek, specifically, Jewish Koine Greek. Mentionable are also the philosophic and ethical treatises of Philo and the historiographical works of the other Hellenistic Jewish authors.

The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally written in Hebrew (with some parts in Aramaic) and Koine Greek. The texts include instructions, stories, poetry, prophecies, and other genres. The collection of materials accepted as part of the Bible by a particular religious tradition or community is called a biblical canon. Believers generally consider it to be a product of divine inspiration, but the way they understand what that means and interpret the text varies.

The religious texts, or scriptures, were compiled by different religious communities into various official collections. The earliest contained the first five books of the Bible, called the Torah ('Teaching') in Hebrew and the Pentateuch (meaning 'five books') in Greek. The second-oldest part was a collection of narrative histories and prophecies (the Nevi'im). The third collection, the Ketuvim, contains psalms, proverbs, and narrative histories. Tanakh (Hebrew: תָּנָ״ךְ‎, romanized: Tanaḵ) is an alternate term for the Hebrew Bible. The Masoretic Text is the medieval version of the Tanakh—written in Hebrew and Aramaic—that is considered the authoritative text of the Hebrew Bible by modern Rabbinic Judaism. The Septuagint is a Koine Greek translation of the Tanakh from the third and second centuries BCE; it largely overlaps with the Hebrew Bible.

The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (US: /tɑːˈnɑːx/, UK: /tæˈnæx/ or /təˈnæx/; Hebrew: תַּנַ״ךְ, romanized: tanaḵ; תָּנָ״ךְ, tānāḵ; or תְּנַ״ךְ, tənaḵ), also known in Hebrew as Miqra (/miːˈkrɑː/; מִקְרָא, miqrāʾ), is the canonical collection of Hebrew scriptures, comprising the Torah (the five Books of Moses), the Nevi'im (the Books of the Prophets), and the Ketuvim ('Writings', eleven books). Different branches of Judaism and Samaritanism have maintained different versions of the canon, including the 3rd-century BCE Septuagint text used in Second Temple Judaism, the Syriac Peshitta, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and most recently the 10th-century medieval Masoretic Text compiled by the Masoretes, currently used in Rabbinic Judaism. The terms "Hebrew Bible" or "Hebrew Canon" are frequently confused with the Masoretic Text; however, the Masoretic Text is a medieval version and one of several texts considered authoritative by different types of Judaism throughout history. The current edition of the Masoretic Text is mostly in Biblical Hebrew, with a few passages in Biblical Aramaic (in the books of Daniel and Ezra, and the verse Jeremiah 10:11).

The modern form of the Hebrew Bible that is authoritative in Rabbinic Judaism is the Masoretic Text (7th to 10th centuries CE), which consists of 24 books, divided into chapters and pesuqim (verses). The Hebrew Bible developed during the Second Temple Period, as the Jews decided which religious texts were of divine origin; the Masoretic Text, compiled by the Jewish scribes and scholars of the Early Middle Ages, comprises the 24 Hebrew and Aramaic books that they considered authoritative. The Hellenized Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria produced a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible called "the Septuagint", that included books later identified as the Apocrypha, while the Samaritans produced their own edition of the Torah, the Samaritan Pentateuch. Both of these ancient editions of the Hebrew Bible differ significantly from the medieval Masoretic Text.

Jewish Koine Greek, or Jewish Hellenistic Greek, is the variety of Koine Greek or "common Attic" found in numerous Alexandrian dialect texts of Hellenistic Judaism, most notably in the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible and associated literature, as well as in Greek Jewish texts from the Levant. The term is largely equivalent with Greek of the Septuagint as a cultural and literary concept rather than a linguistic category. The minor syntax and vocabulary variations in the Koine Greek of Jewish authors are not as linguistically distinctive as the later language Yevanic, or Judeo-Greek, spoken by the Romaniote Jews in Greece.

The term "Jewish Koine" is to be distinguished from the concept of a "Jewish koine" as a literary-religious—not a linguistic—concept.

The personification of wisdom, typically as a righteous woman, is a motif found in religious and philosophical texts, most notably in the Book of Proverbs in the Hebrew Bible and other Jewish and Christian texts.

The Greek Septuagint, and both the Qumran and Masada Hebrew versions of Ben Sira conclude with a first-person character speaking in Wisdom's voice as in the Book of Proverbs, though it is not certain that this was not appended to Ben Sira from another work. A less clear personification of Wisdom is also found in the Cave 11 Psalm Scroll.

The Codex Vaticanus (The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209), is a manuscript of the Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament and the majority of the New Testament. It is designated by siglum B or 03 in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts, and as δ 1 in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts. It is one of the four great uncial codices. Along with Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Sinaiticus, it is one of the earliest and most complete manuscripts of the Bible. Using the study of comparative writing styles (palaeography), it has been dated to the 4th century AD.

The manuscript became known to Western scholars as a result of correspondence between textual critic Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (known usually as Erasmus) and the prefects of the Vatican Library. Portions of the codex were collated by several scholars, but numerous errors were made during this process. The codex's relationship to the Latin Vulgate and the value Jerome placed on it is unclear. In the 19th century AD transcriptions of the full codex were completed. It was at that point that scholars became more familiar with the text and how it differed from the more common Textus Receptus (a critical edition of the Greek New Testament based on earlier editions by Erasmus).

The Anaphora (/əˈnæfərə/), Eucharistic Prayer, or Great Thanksgiving, is a portion of the Christian liturgy of the Eucharist in which, through a prayer of thanksgiving, the elements of bread and wine are consecrated. The prevalent historical Roman Rite form is called the "Canon of the Mass".

"Anaphora" is a Greek word (ἀναφορά) meaning a "carrying up", thus an "offering" (hence its use in reference to the offering of sacrifice to God). (This sense is distinct from the usage of "anaphora" in rhetoric and linguistics to mean a "carrying back".) In the sacrificial language of the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible known as the Septuagint, προσφέρειν (prospherein) is used of the offerer's bringing the victim to the altar, and ἀναφέρειν (anapherein) is used of the priest's offering up the selected portion upon the altar (see, for instance, Leviticus 2:14, 2:16, 3:1, 3:5).

The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; Hebrew: נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה, romanized: Nussāḥ ham-Māsorā, lit. 'Text of the Tradition') is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocalization and accentuation known as the masora. Referring to the Masoretic Text, masora specifically means the diacritic markings of the text of the Jewish scriptures and the concise marginal notes in manuscripts (and later printings) of the Tanakh which note textual details, usually about the precise spelling of words. It was primarily copied, edited, and distributed by a group of Jews known as the Masoretes between the 7th and 10th centuries of the Common Era (CE). The oldest known complete copy, the Leningrad Codex, dates to 1009 CE and is recognized as the most complete source of biblical books in the Ben Asher tradition. It has served as the base text for critical editions such as Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and Adi.

The differences attested to in the Dead Sea Scrolls indicate that multiple versions of the Hebrew scriptures already existed by the end of the Second Temple period. Which is closest to a theoretical Urtext is disputed, as is whether such a singular text ever existed. The Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to as early as the 3rd century BCE, contain versions of the text which have some differences with today's Hebrew Bible. The Septuagint (a compilation of Koine Greek translations made in the third and second centuries BCE) and the Peshitta (a Syriac translation made in the second century CE) occasionally present notable differences from the Masoretic Text, as does the Samaritan Pentateuch, the text of the Torah preserved by the Samaritans in Samaritan Hebrew. Fragments of an ancient 2nd–3rd-century manuscript of the Book of Leviticus found near an ancient synagogue's Torah ark in Ein Gedi have identical wording to the Masoretic Text.

Jerome (/dʒəˈroʊm/; Latin: Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; Ancient Greek: Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; c. 342–347 – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was an early Christian priest, confessor, theologian, translator, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome.

He is best known for his translation of the Bible into Latin (the translation that became known as the Vulgate) and his commentaries on the whole Bible. Jerome attempted to create a translation of the Old Testament based on a Hebrew version, rather than the Septuagint, as prior Latin Bible translations had done. His list of writings is extensive. In addition to his biblical works, he wrote polemical and historical essays, always from a theologian's perspective.

Shechem (/ʃəˈkɛm/ shə-KEM; Biblical Hebrew: שְׁכֶם, romanized: Šəḵem, Biblical pronunciation: [ʃəˈxɛm]; Samaritan Hebrew: ࠔࠬࠥࠊࠝࠌ, romanized: Šăkēm), also spelled Sichem (/sɪˈkɛm/ sik-KEM; in the Septuagint, Koine Greek: Συχέμ, romanized: Sykhém) and other variants, was an ancient city in the Southern Levant. Mentioned as a Canaanite city in the Amarna letters, it later appears in the Hebrew Bible as the first capital of the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) following the split of the United Monarchy. According to Joshua 21:20–21, it was located in the tribal territorial allotment of the tribe of Ephraim. Shechem declined after the fall of the Kingdom of Israel. The city later regained its importance as a prominent Samaritan center of Hellenistic Palestine.

Traditionally associated with the city of Nablus, Shechem is now identified with the nearby site of Tell Balata in Balata village in the West Bank, Palestine.

The Book of Chronicles (Hebrew: דִּבְרֵי־הַיָּמִים Dīvrē-hayYāmīm, "words of the days") is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Chronicles) in the Christian Old Testament. Chronicles is the final book of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the third section of the Jewish Tanakh, the Ketuvim ("Writings"). It contains a genealogy starting with Adam and a history of ancient Judah and Israel up to the Edict of Cyrus in 539 BC.

The book was translated into Greek and divided into two books in the Septuagint in the mid-3rd century BC. In Christian contexts Chronicles is referred to in the plural as the Books of Chronicles, after the Latin name chronicon given to the text by Jerome, but is also referred to by its Greek name as the Books of Paralipomenon. In Christian Bibles, they usually follow the two Books of Kings and precede Ezra–Nehemiah, the last history-oriented book of the Protestant Old Testament.

A pseudepigraph (also anglicized as "pseudepigraphon") is a falsely attributed work, a text whose claimed author is not the true author, or a work whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past. The name of the author to whom the work is falsely attributed is often prefixed with the particle "pseudo-", such as "pseudo-Aristotle" or "pseudo-Dionysius." These terms refer to the anonymous authors of works falsely attributed to Aristotle and Dionysius the Areopagite, respectively.

In biblical studies, the term pseudepigrapha can refer to an assorted collection of Jewish religious works thought to be written c. 300 BCE to 300 CE. They are distinguished by Protestants from the deuterocanonical books (Catholic and Orthodox) or Apocrypha (Protestant), the books that appear in extant copies of the Septuagint in the fourth century or later and the Vulgate, but not in the Hebrew Bible or in Protestant Bibles. In Catholic usage, the Old Testament books accepted by the Catholic Church are referred to as the deuterocanonical books, and Catholic writers commonly reserve the word apocrypha for spurious or noncanonical writings rather than for the deuterocanon. In addition, two books considered canonical in the Orthodox Tewahedo churches, the Book of Enoch and Book of Jubilees, are noncanonical in Catholic and Eastern Orthodox canons and are classified by most scholars among the Old Testament pseudepigrapha.

The Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates is a Hellenistic work of the 3rd or early 2nd century BC, considered by some Biblical scholars to be pseudepigraphical. The letter is the earliest text to mention the Library of Alexandria.

Josephus, who paraphrases about two-fifths of the letter, ascribes it to Aristeas of Marmora and to have been written to a certain Philocrates. The letter describes the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible by seventy-two interpreters sent into Egypt from Jerusalem at the request of the librarian of Alexandria, resulting in the Septuagint translation. Some scholars have since argued that it is fictitious.

The history of the Jews in Alexandria dates back to the founding of the city by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE. Jews in Alexandria played a crucial role in the political, economic, cultural and religious life of Hellenistic and Roman Alexandria, with Jews comprising about 35% of the city's population during the Roman era.

In the Ptolemaic period, Alexandrian Jews played a central role in the development of Hellenistic Judaism and were instrumental in the translation of the Torah from Hebrew to Koine Greek, which produced the Septuagint. Many important Jewish writers and figures came from or studied in Alexandria, such as Philo, Ben Sira, Tiberius Julius Alexander and Josephus. The position of Alexandria's Jewry began deteriorating during the Roman era, as deep antisemitic sentiment began developing amongst the city's Greek and Egyptian populations. This led to the subsequent Alexandrian pogrom in 38 CE and the Alexandria riot in 66 CE, which was in parallel with the outbreak of the First Jewish–Roman War. Alexandria's Jewry began to diminish, leading to a mass immigration of Alexandrian Jews to Rome, as well as other Mediterranean and North African cities. It appears that the Jewish community of Alexandria was completely eradicated by the end of the Diaspora Revolt in 117 CE, with various rabbinic legends associated with the final destruction of the community.

The Samaritan Pentateuch, also called the Samaritan Torah (Samaritan Hebrew: ‮ࠕࠦ‎‎‬ࠅࠓࠡࠄ‎, Tūrā), is the sacred scripture of the Samaritans. Written in the Samaritan script, it dates back to one of the ancient versions of the Torah that existed during the Second Temple period. It constitutes the entire biblical canon in Samaritanism.

Some 6,000 differences exist between the Samaritan and the Jewish Masoretic Text. Most are minor variations in the spelling of words or grammatical constructions, but others involve significant semantic changes, such as the uniquely Samaritan commandment to construct an altar on Mount Gerizim. Nearly 2,000 of these textual variations agree with the Koine Greek Septuagint, and some are shared with the Latin Vulgate. Throughout their history, Samaritans have used translations of the Samaritan Pentateuch into Aramaic, Greek, and Arabic, as well as liturgical and exegetical works based upon it.

The Book of Daniel is a 2nd-century BC biblical apocalypse with a 6th-century BC setting. It is ostensibly a narrative detailing the experiences and prophetic visions of Daniel, a Jewish exile in Babylon. The text features prophecy rooted in Jewish history as well as a portrayal of the end times that is cosmic in scope and political in its focus. The message of the text intended for the original audience was that just as the God of Israel saves Daniel from his enemies, so too he would save the Israelites in their present oppression.

The Hebrew Bible includes Daniel as one of the Ketuvim ("Writings"), while Christian biblical canons group the work with the major prophets. It divides into two parts: a set of six court tales in chapters 1–6, written mostly in Biblical Aramaic, and four apocalyptic visions in chapters 7–12, written mainly in Late Biblical Hebrew; the Septuagint contains three additional sections in Koine Greek: the Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon.