The Josippon (Zëna Ayhud, 'History of the Jews') is a medieval historical chronicle composed in southern Italy around 953 CE, anonymously attributed to Joseph ben Gurion (identified with the historian Josephus). Unlike all other books in the Ethiopian canon, the Josippon has no native division into chapters and verses in its manuscript tradition. It was translated from Arabic into Ge'ez around 1300 CE and added to the Scriptures of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. In this digital edition, each 'verse' represents one complete paragraph of the continuous text.
Josippon
Chapter 12 — Translation of the Septuagint
Ptolemy the Makedonian, who was made king over the kingdom of Egypt, was a wise and prudent man who loved reading books. He commanded two of his chiefs to collect many books. These are the names of the chiefs: Aristeas and Andreas. They collected the books of Media and Persia and books in all the languages. The king said to them: "How many books do you have?" They said to him: "995." Ptolemy laughed and said: "Come, let us add another five and make it a thousand!" Aristeas and Andreas said to him: "Please, my Lord, we have labored in vain on these books because there is nothing of value in them. If it please the king, let him write to Jerusalem to the high priest, and let him send you some of the sages in Jerusalem who know the Greek language, and they will translate their Torah for you, for it is holy writ, while all the writings and books that we have written are worthless."
The king sent letters and an offering to the officiating priest and inquired about this matter. The priest sent seventy priests with Elazar at their head (this was the Elazar who was tested in the days of Antiochus and killed for the Lord his God). When Elazar came with seventy priestly translators to Egypt, Ptolemy gave them seventy houses and separated them from each other, assigning to each a skilled scribe. The priests translated all of the Torah, and the rest of the scriptures, twenty-four books in all, which the seventy elders rendered from the holy tongue to the Greek language. Elazar brought their work to the king, who read each man's translation, and behold, all the translators understood and explained the text in exactly the same way.
The king was very happy and, bringing forth much silver and gold, gave it to Elazar and the seventy sages and sent them to Jerusalem. On that day, he also set at liberty 150,000 Judaeans and gave to each one 150 gold drachmas. The king sent an offering to the house of our God, a pure gold table, its weight one thousand talents, on which was engraved the land of Egypt and the River Shihor-Ye'or (Nile), which is in Egypt, and how it flows and waters the whole of Egypt. Into the table, he set every kind of precious stone: no table like this was seen in the entire world. King Ptolemy sent it as an offering to the great and terrible God, Lord of the world.