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Aristeas the Exegete
Excerpt from the Lexham Bible Dictionary, the most advanced Bible dictionary.
A Jewish author writing between the third and first centuries bc whose work included a summary of the life of Job. His work is often grouped with the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, since it is nonbiblical Jewish writing from the same period.Only one excerpt of Aristeas’ work has been preserved. It was paraphrased by Alexander Polyhistor in the first century bc, and this paraphrase was then quoted and thus preserved by Eusebius of Caesarea (Preparation for the Gospel 9.25.1–4). The surviving excerpt is a brief summary of the life of Job, based on the Septuagint translation of the book. It focuses on Job’s patience rather than his questioning, and portrays Job’s visiting friends as providing comfort, not condemnation. What Aristeas’ work contained besides this brief life of Job is unknown. The date of the work is likewise uncertain, but it was clearly after the Septuagint version of Job was translated (third century bc at the earliest) and before Alexander Polyhistor paraphrased it in the middle of the first century bc.
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The Lexham Bible Dictionary
Aristeas the Exegete
Aristeas the Exegete A Jewish author writing between the third and first centuries bc whose work included a summary of the life of Job. His work is often grouped with the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, since it is nonbiblical Jewish writing from the same period.Only one excerpt of Aristeas’ work has
The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary
Aristeas the Exegete
ARISTEAS THE EXEGETE. A Jewish author who flourished prior to the mid-1st century b.c.e. whose work On the Jews treated, at the very least, the biblical figure Job. To what extent he treated other matters is not known. He is generally designated “exegete” or “historian” because of his interest in the
The Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible, Volume 1, A–C
Aristeas the Exegete
Aristeas the Exegete. Also referred to as Aristeas the Historian. Our knowledge of this Jewish writer, who lived perhaps around 100 b.c., comes solely from a brief summary of part of his work, Concerning the Jews, preserved by Eusebius (Praep. Ev. 9.25.1–4, quoting Alexander Polyhistor). This summary
The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Volumes 1–5
ARISTEAS THE EXEGETE
ARISTEAS THE EXEGETE. Eusebius (Praep. ev. 9.25.1–4) quotes ALEXANDER POLYHISTOR, who cites Concerning the Jews by Aristeas the Exegete, a work otherwise unattested. The fragment discusses Job, and the Septuagint’s supplement to Job provides the same information. If Aristeas used the LXX, he must have