Septuagint

The Septuagint is the first Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, made in Alexandria between the third and first centuries BC. The traditional story was that Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-246BC) organised the project and gathered together 72 Jewish scholars on Pharos Island so that they could concentrate on the task in isolation. Modern scholars no longer believe that this was the case and think it was translated in stages over a longer period of time. The books within the Septuagint are not in the same order as those of today's Old Testament and it contains some of the apocrypha, including the Books of Tobit and Judith.