Septuagint

sep'tu-a-jint, a Latin word meaning seventy. According to tradition, about 270-280 B. C., Ptolemy II (Philadelphus), a Greek king of Egypt, sent a letter to the Jewish high priest at Jerusalem requesting that six men from each tribe be sent to Alexandria to provide the library with a Greek translation of the Old Testament. This the high priest did. The delegation of seventy, or to be exact, seventy-two, learned men repaired to Alexandria and completed their work in seventy-two days. This translation, so the legend states, was accepted both at Jerusalem and at Alexandria as the official text. As a matter of fact, the Greek version of the Old Testament was the work of many hands, extending through many years. By whomsoever the work was done, it must have been done well, however, for the differences between the Greek and Hebrew versions of the Old Testament Scriptures are very slight indeed. See Bible