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The Library

Forty Centuries of Christian Writing

1693 works catalogued century by century, from the literature the Bible was written among to the present — each with a note on what it is, why it lasted, and where to read it.

300–201 BC

The Third Century BC

1 work

begun c. 250 BC, completed over two centuries

Greek

The Septuagint

The translators of Alexandria

The Hebrew scriptures rendered into Greek at Alexandria, beginning with the Torah under Ptolemy II and extending over generations to the rest. Its readings often differ from the Hebrew that later became standard, and its Jeremiah is a seventh shorter.

Hellenistic Jewish · TranslationGenesisIsaiahPsalmsJeremiah

200–101 BC

The Second Century BC

1 work

c. 150–100 BC

Greek

The Letter of Aristeas

Pseudo-Aristeas

The story of how the Torah came to be translated: Ptolemy releases a hundred thousand Jewish slaves, sends gifts to the temple, and receives seventy-two elders who answer a philosophical question each over seven banquets and then complete the work in seventy-two days on the island of Pharos.

Hellenistic Jewish · LetterLeviticusDeuteronomyExodus

1–100

The First Century

1 work

c. AD 30–45

Greek

On the Life of Moses

De Vita Mosis

Philo of Alexandria · c. 20 BC – c. AD 50

Two books making Moses king, lawgiver, priest, and prophet at once, written plainly enough for readers who had never opened the Pentateuch, and including the story of how the Seventy produced identical translations in separate cells.

Hellenistic Jewish · BiographyExodusNumbersDeuteronomy

201–300

The Third Century

2 works

c. 236

Greek

Letter to Julius Africanus

Origen of Alexandria · c. 185 – c. 253

Africanus had written to say that the story of Susanna cannot be genuine, since its wordplay works only in Greek. Origen concedes the philological point and argues for keeping the book anyway, on the ground that the churches read it and providence has provided for the churches.

Alexandrian · LetterDanielJeremiahPsalms

c. 235–245; survives in fragments

Greek

The Hexapla

Origen of Alexandria · c. 185–c. 253

The Old Testament laid out in six parallel columns — Hebrew, Hebrew in Greek letters, and four Greek versions — with marks showing where the Septuagint added to or omitted from the Hebrew.

Alexandrian · Critical edition

601–700

The Seventh Century

1 work

615–617

Syriac

The Syro-Hexapla

Paul of Tella

A word-for-word Syriac rendering of the fifth column of Origen's Hexapla, made at Alexandria and keeping the asterisks and obeli that marked where the Greek differed from the Hebrew.

Syriac · TranslationGenesisPsalmsIsaiahDaniel