Peter Kirby

I have been reading through the Letter of Aristeas.

http://www.ccel.org/c/charles/otpseudepig/aristeas.htm



295 I have written at length and must crave your pardon, Philocrates. I was astonished beyond measure at the men and the way in which on the spur of the moment they gave answers which really needed a long time to devise. 296 For though the questioner had given great thought to each particular question, those who replied one after the other had their answers to the questions ready at once and so they seemed to me and to all who were present and especially to the philosophers to be worthy of admiration. And I suppose that the thing will seem incredible to those who will read my narrative in the future. 297 But it is unseemly to misrepresent facts which are recorded in the public archives. And it would not be right for me to transgress in such a matter as this. I tell the story just as it happened, conscientiously avoiding any error. I was so impressed by the force of their utterances, that I made an effort to consult those whose business it was to make a record of all that happened at the royal audiences and banquets. 298 For it is the custom, as you know, from the moment the king begins to transact business until the time when he retires to rest, for a record to be taken of all his sayings and doings—a most excellent and useful arrangement. 299 For on the following day the minutes of the doings and sayings of the previous day are read over before business commences, and if there has been any irregularity, the matter is at once set right. 300 I obtained therefore, as has been said, accurate information from the public records, and I have set forth the facts in proper order since I know how eager you are to obtain useful information.



Can I get some comments on this? I am curious as to how people would treat a document such as this, and what implications this has for historiography.

best,
Peter Kirby

exile

We need some background. Who was he? When did he live? Who was he writing to?

Chris Weimer

It's the story of the Septuagint... Peter, you really shouldn't be so afraid to show off your website...

http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/letteraristeas.html

Vorkosigan

As total bullshit, of course. Every sentence overexplains how conscientious the writer is. The claim that the King's every word was taken down is absurd on its face. It's self-consciously legendizing.

Vorkosigan

Bede

Hi Peter,

The passage is usually dated to about 100 - 150BC and from Alexandria. I doubt anyone who knows the material questions this - certainly it does not date from 250BC when the action is set.

Contra Vork, of course all the king's public pronouncements were recorded as they had force of law. The Ptolemies were pharoahs and absolute monarchs of the most extreme kind. Also, at the time the letter was written the Ptolemy's still reigned and he was quoting current practice. Parapyri in Egypt contain countless royal decrees of every shape and size.

The fact that 'Aristeas' claims that his account can be verified in public records is, ipso facto, evidence for the genuiness of the account. Otherwise we would have to claim that a fully annotated paper which ostentaciously sourced all its arguments was less reliable than an unreferenced paper. But it is not the only evidence and the letter fails in many other respects. These means that we are entitled to re-interpret the passage you quote as apologetics. To cintune my anology, the Jesus Mysteries is supplied with copious notes and is fantasy from start to finish. But if the rest of Aristeas's letter appeared genuine then the appeal to records would be further evidence of authenticity.

So in the end, you just have to access all evidence and accept it isn't all going to point the same way.

The letter is of great interest to me as it is the ONLY reference to the Great Library of Alexandria dating from a time when the library might actually exist. Thus it is the source of not one, but two of the most attractive myths of the anceint world.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Peter Kirby

Thank you for your responses (thanks especially to Bede).

I have another historiographical question.

I have a Professor Rietvelt, a Dutchman who is teaching Church History at CSU Fullerton this semester. At the age of 16, the young Rietvelt knew a very elderly man (in his 80s or 90s) who claimed to know Abraham Lincoln. This elderly man had tended to the White House garden as a lad. Although Rietvelt did not receive any exact conversation, he heard a few stories that the old man remembers about Abraham Lincoln. One of them went like this: while the young man was tending to the White House gardens and picking figs off the fig trees, Abraham Lincoln came up to him and teased him about stealing figs. Abe was, apparently, given to teasing.

How reliable is this story (my story now) about the figs?

best,
Peter Kirby

Bede

Peter,

Let me change to a 'real' historical example as this makes the question more interesting and avoids the possibility that you are pulling our legs for arguments sake.

In a famous passage in his Annals of Oxford, repeated almost as often as the Hittites not existing, Anthony a Wood writes (in c.1680) regarding the Edwardian reformers of 1549:

In a footnote Wood says he heard the story from John Wilson relating something heard from Thomas Allen, the long-lived and famous Oxford mathematician, who saw it happen. Do we believe this example of oft cited (misattributed and misquoted as applicable) of Christian book destruction?

Prof Rietveld was born about 1938 as far as I can tell, was 16 in in 1554, Lincoln was shot in 1865. Go figure...

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Amaleq13

It doesn't appear to be an inherently unlikely story but, given known problems with memory, I wouldn't put any money on the details. We've got significantly old recollections of the recollections of an old man which are, themselves, significantly old. Lots of room for unintentional exaggeration, inaccurate recall, etc. from both sources. Then it is all filtered through you, Peter, which adds another layer. A quick google reveals that you may have introduced faulty information since this website claims that the original source is the son of the gardener.

So the original story is somewhere around 80 years old when the Professor first hears it around 50 years ago. Given that a flaw has crept into the story just between the Professor and Peter, unless we've got the kid's diary where he describes his day's experience with President Lincoln, I'm taking the fig story with a grain of salt.

Peter Kirby

Right. His father was the paid gardener, but his son (whom Rietveld met) would also tend to the gardens when he visited. I did leave that detail out.

best,
Peter Kirby

spin

In a historical analysis it's not reliable at all, even though it may have happened -- the operative word being "may" and we can't get beyond it.


spin