Becoming Christ, Part 1: The Jews from Alexandria

Around 250 BC, a book issued forth from the Library of Alexandria that has defined world history ever since. Called the Septuagint or “Seventy”, it was the first edition of the Jewish bible, generally equivalent to the Christian old testament and the Hebrew Tanakh. The great library itself had only recently been finished, probably by Ptolemy II of Alexandria, who ruled from 285-247 BC. Scholars believe that only the first five books of the Jewish bible were published under Ptolemy II, with the remaining books published in the following century. Ptolemy II was only four degrees removed from Plato: he was the son of Ptolemy I, who was the bodyguard of Alexander the Great, who was the pupil of Aristotle, who was the pupil of Plato.

Alexandria was an excellent location for a new world library due to the abundance of papyrus that could be used as a writing medium. Under the bearded visage of the new Ptolemaic god Serapis, and with the Jewish bible freshly written in Greek, Alexandria became a hotbed of Jewish activity in the centuries before Christ, with Jews reaching perhaps 40% of the city’s population in their heyday. According to official history, the first edition of the Jewish bible was translated from Hebrew language scriptures. There’s only one problem with this received history of translation: archaeologists have never discovered any scriptures in the Hebrew language that predate the Septuagint. Even the Dead Sea Scrolls date later.

The supposed antiquity of the Jewish scriptures cannot be redeemed by their content either. No trace of Solomon’s magnificent temple has ever been found, and even the “second” temple worshipped today is the site of a ruined Roman fort. Nebuchadnezzar may have abducted Judeans and or Israelites and imprisoned them in Babylon, however it takes a serious leap of faith to believe that they possessed Hebrew language scriptures and prophesied about YHWH’s future king at that time. Real history offers the framework for the Bible’s mythology; for example, the Exodus appears to be based on the Apiru conquest of Canaan in the 14th century BC, and Moses appears to be based on Akhenaten, the concurrent pioneer of monotheism.

I am not learned enough to thoroughly compare the Greek and Hebrew versions of the bible, but I have seen enough to raise serious concerns. It’s well known that the Jewish bible, though supposedly revealed by God, has some glaring precedents in ancient literature, such as the flooding of the Earth by the Gods in the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. The god Ea (homophonous with YHWH) warns one man of the coming flood and tells him to build a boat and “make all living beings go up into the boat” (Epic of Gilgamesh XI). Storms rage for six days and clear up on the seventh. Like Noah, Utanapishtim the boat builder sends out a dove and a raven to see if the flood has ended. So do these parallels between the Sumerian and Jewish flood myths reflect a “shared tradition”? Or are they evidence of a late imitation?

As another example, the word “Lebanon” occurs as “Antilebanon” throughout the first 5 books of the bible, but in the 6th book (Joshua) it becomes simply Lebanon. This textual reversal only exists in the Greek version; in the Hebrew text, it’s Lebanon all the way through. Joshua pulls a similar trick with the “Golgol” of Deuteronomy, changing it to “Galgal” in the Greek text. This led to my thesis that the book of Joshua is an anti-Celtic polemic written against Galatian influence. Following the theories of Russell Gmirkin,

Rurik Skywalker

has undertaken a powerful series arguing that the Pentateuch is based on the utopian social engineering ideals of Plato. (See links at the end of this page). But for now we will focus specifically on the development of Jesus Christ—or as we could also call him, King Joshua.

Almost 600 years after the publication of the Septuagint, the emperor Constantine famously dreamed of the Chi Ro—the first two letters of Christ’s name in Greek. This same monogram appears on some of the coins of Ptolemy III. Since the word Christ or “Xristos” appears some 40 times in the Septuagint in reference to YHWH’s priests and kings, it would not be surprising for a Ptolemy to adopt the title, although it could also be short for the Greek word for “good”. Even if Ptolemy’s Chi Ro stands for something else, we must understand that both words “Jesus” and “Christ” were made famous by the Jewish bible 250 years before Christ. Jesus is the same name as Joshua, the Hebrew superstar who ethnically cleanses the promised land when the Jews return from Egypt. Thus when Paul first introduces us to Jesus Christ in his letters, he draws on both the terminology and prophecy of much older literature.

Christianity hinges on the prophecies of Isaiah et al about a king who will restore the righteous to Jerusalem and rebuild the destroyed temple. However the Jewish scriptures explicitly say that those prophecies were fulfilled by Cyrus the Great after he freed the Jews from Babylon. The Jews were only supposed to be down and out for 70 years before assuming their world throne. From the beginning, the Jewish prophecies were about an event that already happened: the triumphant restoration of YHWH’s chosen people by a foreign king. Herodotus also tells us much about Cyrus in his History. Yet Herodotus makes no mention of Jews or Jerusalem in his magnum opus, circa 430 BC, only the “Syrians of Palestine”. In fact no historian mentions Jews before 300 BC! It’s as if Judaism was born alongside Serapis in Alexandria.

When it comes to the history of the time of Christ, we will ever return to Philo and Josephus, our two main authorities on ancient Judaism and two important forerunners of Christian theology. Philo stands alone as the great link between BC and AD. Not surprisingly, Philo is the first to recount the “translation” of the Jewish scriptures into Greek. But Philo’s value as a historical witness is dubious. The main corpus of his writing deals with allegorical interpretations of Jewish scripture. When he does venture into journalism, Philo is mostly preoccupied with the emperor Caligula, who officially ruled the Roman Empire from 37 to 41 AD. Let us take a closer look at what at what Philo and Josephus say about the “translation” of the Septuagint.

Ever aggrandizing Judaism, Philo says that the translation of the bible “was entrusted to kings and to the most illustrious of kings”. He calls Ptolemy II Philadelphus, “third in succession after Alexander”, “the most excellent sovereign, not only of all those of his time, but of all that ever lived”. It’s only natural that the greatest book of all time should be translated by the greatest king of all time. Philo continues with his superlatives, saying Ptolemy II sent ambassadors to Jerusalem, where the high priest “with great care selected the most respectable of the Hebrews whom he had about him, who in addition to their knowledge of their national scriptures, had also been well instructed in Grecian literature” (Philo, Life of Moses 32).

Philo emphasizes that the translation from “Chaldaic” (ie Aramaic) to Greek was infallible, contradicting what we currently know about the major differences between the Septuagint and the Hebrew text of the Jewish bible. Philo says the purpose of the project was “to translate laws which had been divinely given by direct inspiration, since they were not able either to take away anything, or to add anything, or to alter anything, but were bound to preserve the original form and character of the whole composition”. God helps the translators to do their work perfectly so that “the universal race of mankind might be benefited, by using these philosophical and entirely beautiful commandments for the correction of their lives” (Life of Moses 36).

The end result, “proving” the divine perfection of the translation, was that every translator “employed the self-same nouns and verbs, as if some unseen prompter had suggested all their language to them.” One wonders then why they chose to replace the proper name of the Jewish God, YHWH, with the Greek word for Lord. Today the Septuagint is altogether rejected by Hebrew authorities, and the differences between it and the official Hebrew text are legion. But the historical priority of the Septuagint is massive, since the Hebrew text was not codified until about 1050 AD!

Philo concludes “In this way those admirable, and incomparable, and most desirable laws were made known to all people, whether private individuals or kings”. Consider the unremitting grandiosity of his claims: perfect scriptures made available to the whole world thanks to divinely guided translation of the texts under the guidance of the greatest king ever. Perfect parallelism between the “Hebrew” and the Greek versions, preserving the inerrant word of God. It flies in the face of the incredibly messy paper trail, the scrum of competing editions we know today. As in other matters, Philo is more interested in mythologization than reportage.

We can illustrate the reality surrounding the Septuagint, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Masoretic text by examining one of the most popular tales of Israeli derring-do: the legend of David and Goliath. Fragments of this text from the Dead Sea Scrolls more closely match the Septuagint than the Masoretic text. The Masoretic text is significantly longer, with additional details and dialogue, thus invalidating claims of an infallible word-for-word translation. Details also vary: the Masoretic text gives Goliath’s height as 6 cubits and 1 span - about 9 feet 9 inches tall. The Septuagint gives the much more plausible figure of 4 cubits and 1 span - about 6 foot 9. Conversely, the Septuagint text is sometimes longer than the Masoretic, as in the Book of Esther, which contains six additional chapters.

Josephus prefaces the tale of the translation of the Jewish bible, explaining that in the wake of Alexander the Great, Ptolemy took captives from Judah and Israel and “led them all into Egypt, and settled them there”. Josephus says Alexander “distributed many of them into garrisons, and at Alexandria gave them equal privileges of citizens with the Macedonians themselves” (Antiquities 12.1.1). Thus we can see that Josephus claims that the Jews were brought from Jerusalem to Alexandria by Alexander and Ptolemy. Remember that Alexandria was then a brand new city. Is it really believable that large numbers of Jews were deliberately settled there by the same Hellenic rulers who commissioned the publication of the Jewish Bible a few years later? Or were the original bible thumpers in fact Hellenes?

I believe this question is best answered by examining the very meaning of the Bible, by distilling its message and asking cui bono? It is certainly not the history of natives of Jerusalem. Instead, through the curse of Ham promising Canaan to the Semites, it is the history of a people justifying the military occupation of the promised land. Abraham is a foreigner from Chaldee, or in other words Babylonia, when he makes his covenant with YHWH. His seed, through the loins of King David, are promised eternal kingship not only of Jerusalem, but of the entire Earth. The book of Isaiah concerns YHWH’s revenge upon the nations when his anointed Cyrus restores the Jews to their everlasting Semitic birthright.

The historical backdrop of the publication of the Jewish Bible is one of warfare between the successors of Alexander the Great. Ptolemy I claimed control of the promised land in 301 BC even though it had been allocated to his ally Seleucus, and after their deaths, their heirs went to war. From 274 BC, the Ptolemies were defending Jerusalem against Babylon from their seat in Alexandria. And this is the context in which they produced a book saying that its bearers were the rightful inhabitants of Jerusalem. Judaism, unlike Christianity, does not posit a future revolution in Jerusalem; it claims an established (but still foreign) authority. In 200 BC, the Ptolemies were defeated near Gaulonitis by Antiochus III and control of Jerusalem shifted to the Seleucids. Then the Maccabees gained Jewish independence in 160 BC.

The real drama started with Rome. In 63 BC, Pompey besieged and conquered Jerusalem and violated the temple, establishing the Roman province of Judea. Within two decades, Julius Caesar laid the groundwork for the Roman Empire. According to Philo, the initial reigns of Augustus and Tiberius were completely peaceful and gave Jews full rights to practice their religion throughout the realm, and according to Josephus, Julius Caesar was no less beneficent. But under Caligula, things took a turn for the worse. In Flaccus, Philo writes that Caligula’s Alexandrian governor became extremely anti Semitic and precipitated the Alexandrian riots in 38 AD. Christ had only been dead for a few years, although Philo never mentions him. The Jewish quarter in Alexandria is besieged by angry Romans, precisely anticipating the conditions described by Josephus at the later siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD. As we shall see in the next chapter, Christian motifs appear unexpectedly throughout Philo. One of these is the martyrdom of Jews by Romans, as if they were Christians under Nero.

Finally we will consider the “Letter of Aristeas” the purported primary source document that corroborates the testimony of Philo and Josephus regarding the “translation” of the Jewish scriptures. Generally recognized as a historical fraud not really belonging to the 3rd century BC, it is instead conventionally dated as late as 100 BC. Philo tells us about the translation of the scriptures without relying on Aristeas. But in Josephus’ Antiquities (93 AD), he very clearly names Aristeas and relies on the letter to inform his writing. The letter of Aristeas shares a common goal with Philo, Paul, Josephus, and the Septuagint itself: marketing Judaism to a Hellenic audience.

Josephus says Ptolemy II “set free those that were come from Jerusalem into Egypt, and were in slavery there, who were a hundred and twenty thousand” as part of his deal to get the Jewish bible translated. (Antiquities 12.2.1). Josephus says “Demetrius Phalerius, who was library keeper to the king, was now endeavoring, if it were possible, to gather together all the books that were in the habitable earth”, soon to number 500,000 volumes. Josephus says of the Jewish documents, “the character in which they are written seems to be like to that which is the proper character of the Syrians, and that its sound, when pronounced, is like theirs also; and that this sound appears to be peculiar to themselves.” Thus Josephus claims the Jewish language looks and sounds like Aramaic, but is very different therefrom.

The best evidence of pre-Septuagint Judaism comes from the Elephantine Papyri, but these are written in Aramaic instead of Hebrew, and they do not attest to any biblical knowledge, instead reflecting polytheistic worship among early Jews (5th century BC). One of the innovations that followed the Septuagint was the adaptation of the Aramaic “square script” to replace the Paleo-Hebrew script of Israel. Thus it was only after the Septuagint that the “Hebrew” language was written in an Aramaic script (this is what we observe in the Dead Sea scrolls). But we have Philo telling us that the language of the Jews was Chaldaean, and Josephus claiming that it looked and sounded like Syrian (Aramaic). Thus both Philo and Josephus are talking about original “Hebrew” scriptures in a script that did not actually exist until later.

The closest we get to verifying the existence of biblical scripture before the Septuagint are the Ketef Hinnom amulets discovered in 1979. However, these are only dated by writing style, written in Paleo-Hebrew and not the Aramaic square script. They are also not biblically verbatim. They are written on silver so they cannot be carbon dated. Assuming they are genuine (which is a significant assumption, since many people have a vested interest in “proving” the antiquity of the bible, as amply demonstrated by hoaxes such as the Jehoash inscription about repairing Solomon’s temple, the Ivory Pomegranate also supposedly inscribed in the same tample, the Heliodorus stone trying to historicize Chanukah, and any number of other amateurish fantasy artifacts that have been examined by scientists and declared forgeries).

Perhaps the most provocative connection we can make is that Alexander’s mother was a princess of Epirus, and Alexander represents the union of Epirote and Macedonian political power. The name Epirus bears more than a passing resemblance to the historical Apiru, a loosely defined group of outsiders attested to by the kingdoms of Anatolia and the Middle East since about the 18th century BC. In the 14th century BC, the Apiru worked for the inventor of monotheism, Akhenaten, fighting for him and helping to build his monuments. According to the Amarna letters, the Apiru then began to conquer the city-states of Canaan. They appear to be the namesake of the biblical Hebrews. Meanwhile Aristotle calls Epirus the very birthplace of the Hellenes (and Homer, in the Iliad, places Argos in Epirus). Could the Jewish bible, by tying Judeans and Israelites to the “Hebrews”, actually be a “noble lie” on behalf of the Hellenic Epirotes? And was Ptolemy III the first to claim the title of Christ?

Read more:

II. The Great Metaphysics Conspiracy