In the mid-3rd century BC, King Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Egypt ordered a translation of the ancient Israelite scriptures for the Library of Alexandria, which resulted in the creation of the Septuagint. The original version, published circa 250 BC, only included the Torah, or in Greek terms, the Pentateuch. The Torah is composed of the five books traditionally credited to Moses, circa 1500 BC: Cosmic Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The first of these five books was known as Cosmic Genesis in Greek, however, known as Bereshít in Hebrew, which translates as approximatly ‘In the begining’ the first few words of the book.
In 140 BC, the Hasmonean Dynasty of the Kingdom of Judea adopted the Hebrew language for religious texts, however, Aramaic continued to be the primary language used by the Judean people. Records from the time, including the Letter of Aristeas, report the Septuagint was translated from Aramaic source texts, which were likely the same sources the Hebrew translators used a century later. The primary reason for the adoption of the Hebrew language by the Hasmoneans appears to have been to force everyone to update their scriptures, as the Hasmoneans supported a group of scribes in Jerusalem, whose task was to update the scriptures that the Judeans brought to them.
The earliest Christians, in the 1st century AD, along with the major Jewish minds of the time, all considered the Greek translation equal to, or preferable to, the Hebrew translation by Simon the Zealous. Nevertheless, the Hebrew translation was adopted by Rabinnical Jews after the Romans destroyed the Second Temple, and was subsequently adopted by the Catholic Church during the medieval period, and inherited by the Protestant Churches during the reformation. This translation attempts to restore and translate the original Septuagint's book of Genesis as it would have appeared circa 250 BC.
