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reinterpretation of the Torah emphasizing care of the poor, respect for one’s parents, brotherly love, and endogamy. The manifestation of God’s saving power and the reward of the righteous with wealth, posterity, and a long, happy life take place in the here-and-now. Messianic expectations are absent. Pagan ideas from medicine and magic are integrated into the Jewish world by the angel Raphael.

      The book shows that God hears the prayers of the Judeans deported to Mesopotamia, guiding them in their time of danger and sustaining them in their misfortune, if they remain faithful to him and keep his commandments.

      The Letter of Aristeas²⁶ is a pseudepigraphal epistolary novel in elevated Greek. It presents an apology for Hellenistic Judaism, giving a legendary account of the emergence of a Greek translation of the Pentateuch. Its author, who professes to have been present at the events narrated, claims not to be Jewish, but he nonetheless comes from the upper echelons of Hellenized Alexandrian Judaism.

      The fictional account goes back to the second half of the second century BCE. This date is supported by the titles and formulaic phrases which are not attested in Ptolemaic documents until after 150 BCE (§§ 32, 37, 40 etc.), historical errors by the narrator (§ 9), and the emphasis on the author’s distance from the narrative time (§§ 28, 182). The Letter of Aristeas was known already to Philo of Alexandria (De vita Mosis II 25–44) and is extensively paraphrased by Josephus (Ant XII 11–118). The writing is similar in genre to contemporary Hellenistic »Mirror of Princes«, which represent the model image of a ruler and his rights, duties, and powers. Sources include biblical traditions (Ezek 40–48; Ezra 6–8; Neh 2; 8) as well as numerous Hellenistic texts. The documents quoted in the Letter of Aristeas are fabrications, the intention being to lend authenticity to the work.

      The Letter of Aristeas²⁷ describes the circumstances of the translation of the Torah into Greek during the time of the Egyptian king Ptolemy II Philadelphos (282–246 BCE) and presents an idealized description of the city of Jerusalem and its Temple.

      The significance of the legendary depiction of the inspired translation of the Torah into Greek should not be overestimated, given the propagandistic religious and political stance of the writing. It is not the main focus of the account, either by text length or subject matter. The Letter of Aristeas is marked first and foremost by an apologetic concern to present Jewish commandments and the Jewish cult not only as inviolable and venerable, but also as sensible and reasonable. The ano­nymous Jewish writer viewed the commandments of the Torah as the ideal embodiment of the Hellenistic doctrine of virtue. His prime concern was to stress the cultic position of Jerusalem and the close relations between this city and the Alexandrian community.

      The Book of Jubilees²⁸ claims to contain the account of the revelation to Moses on Sinai, communicated by an angel. In genre, it is a continuous narrative retelling of Gen 1 to Ex 20.

      Its full text has come down to us only in an Ethiopic version translated from the Greek. The discovery of Hebrew fragments of the book of Jubilees at Qumran, the oldest of which are dated to the last years of the second century BCE, shows that it was read there, and originally written in Hebrew. The author’s involvement in the crisis under Antiochus IV indicates that the emergence of the work can be confidently situated in Palestine in the second half of the second century BCE. Similarities in content with 1 Enoch 1–36 point to the fact that its author was at home in the priestly circles that were behind this part of the Enoch literature.

      Jubilees presents itself as a revelation given to Moses of the world order and the course of world history (1:26). The book divides salvation history into successive »jubilees« (periods of 49 years) by means of a symbolically charged scheme of sevens. Within this history, the connection between deeds and consequences seems to have been rendered inoperative, for the present, despite all pious efforts, was oppressive. The divine plan of history was an eschatological new creation and the dawn of the universal reign of God. The idea was a correspondence between paradise of long ago and eschatological salvation in the future.

      Yet Jubilees has little interest in future events. It seems much more interested in the perfect times of distant memory. So, it constantly inserts controversial provisions and customs into the time of Israel’s patriarchs. The hoped-for future time of salvation is presented as this-worldly, and within history. It is similar to writings that fall squarely within apocalyptic literature.

      References in Jubilees to the certainty of salvation have the function of tightening-up Torah observance. To understand its ethics, it is therefore necessary to appreciate the indissoluble connection between ethics and eschatology. For the author, the keeping of the Mosaic law was the condition for participation in the coming time of salvation.

      In Jubilees, securing the Jewish identity threatened by Hellenism, and answering the question of theodicy occurs less by depicting a radical reversal of earthly conditions than by reminding people of the lost time of perfection. The pious priestly milieu in which the book was written justified its anti-Hellenistic self-understanding, backed by the authority of Moses.

      The third or fourth-century CE Christian account of the prophet Isaiah’s ascension to heaven, Ascensio Isaiae, transmitted in Greek since Jerome, preserved in full only in the Ethiopic version, is described as the Martyrdom of Isaiah (Ascen. Isa. 1.1–2a, 6b–13a; 2.1–3.12; 5.1b–14).²⁹ This Jewish »hagiography« with Christian interpolations and supplements was apparently authored in Hebrew in Palestine, by the first century CE at the latest. It fills in the missing information about the background and circumstances surrounding the death of the prophet. The parallels between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the martyrdom of Isaiah (dualism, designation of God’s opponent as Beliar, critique of the temple cult, wilderness typology) indicate that some of the traditions preserved were familiar to circles that produced the scrolls.

      The legendary martyrdom account tells of Isaiah’s proclamation to King Hezekiah and his son Manasseh, whose special wickedness (cf. 2 Kgs 21:16) and devotion to Beliar, Samael, and Satan caused him to persecute the prophets of God. The prophets withdraw to the rocky desert of Judea to live there in purity in accordance with the commandments of God. Based on his betrayal and accusation by the lying prophet Balkira, Isaiah is finally executed in a hollow tree trunk by being sawn in half, the narrator emphasizing his exemplary perseverance and resilience. The martyr story reassured and encouraged its Jewish addressees during an oppressive situation.

      A sequel to Gen 3–5 has been handed down as a Life of Adam and Eve (Latin)³⁰ or Apocalypse of Moses (Greek).³¹ Both versions, which date from the third to the fifth century CE, display differences in form and content, but still draw from a common source, no longer extant. This source came into being no later than the beginning of the second century CE in a probably Greek-speaking Jewish Palestinian environment. The story unfolds the conflict between the fallen creation based on a haggadic development of the life of the first two humans after their expulsion from Paradise, with some flashbacks to the seduction of the first man and woman. It is especially interested in the end of the earthly life of Adam and Eve.

      The Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, the »Book of Biblical Antiquities,« retells biblical history from the creation to the death of Saul.³² It is regarded as an important witness to the way scribes handled the biblical tradition in ancient Judaism. This work, falsely ascribed in the Middle Ages to Philo of Alexandria, was originally written in Hebrew, and later translated into Greek and from thence into Latin. Support for a Hebrew original is found in the fact that quotations from the Bible in the book almost never follow the LXX against the Masoretic textual tradition and that the Hebrew place names and personal names are retained. LAB is preserved in a series of Latin text witnesses from the 11^th to the 15^th century. The terminus a quo for the final version is generally thought to be the first century CE; whether it should be dated before or after the destruction of the temple in 70 CE is a matter of dispute. Palestine is assumed to be the place of composition.

      The author picks up numerous haggadic traditions that are also found elsewhere in ancient Jewish literature. He presents the relationship between the biblical text and such traditions

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