Aristeas, which at a later date accompanied the Greek Bible, there is a legend that the Septuagint was the result of a royal command of Ptolemy II of Egypt who gave the task of translation into the hands of 72 ‘elders’. In later forms of the story the number is given as 70. These men carried out their work of translation in separate rooms and produced results which were all exactly alike! It is most likely, however, that the Septuagint came into existence as a Greek Targum1 just as in Palestine