King Solomon is arguably the most famous of all ancient Israelite kings, with several books in the Septuagint dedicated to him, or about him, or even by him, yet, to date, no archeological evidence for his life has been found. Additionally, the Testament of Solomon has survived from the Second Temple era which displays another side of King Solomon. The lifetime of King Solomon falls during the Third Intermediate Period (dark age) in Egyptian history, and therefore are no records of Solomon within the very limited Egyptian records from the time. Egyptologists believe the Kingdom of Egypt collapsed at the beginning of the time period, and by the time that Solomon would have lived, in the early-9th century BC, the king of Egypt only controlled the northern region, while the rest of Egypt was under the rule of the High Priest of Amen (Amun). The various books associated with Solomon that made it into the Septuagint, include 3rd Kingdoms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom of Solomon, and Psalms of Solomon, als of which have been retranslated into modern English. The first book in this collection is 3rd Kingdoms, which tells the life of Solomon, likely from Ezra the Scribe's perspective, 500 years later. The book likely dates to before the reign of King Josiah, circa 700 BC, but is believed to have been redacted by Ezra the Scribe, or someone else in his era. The second book, Proverbs, also called Proverbs of Solomon, is generally attributed to King Solomon, who is explicitly referred to as the author of some of the proverbs. A number proverbs are known to have been copied from older collections of proverbs, most notably the Wisdom of Amenemope, which was apparently written by Amenemope son of Kanakht sometime before Pharaoh Akhenaten, circa 1350 BC. The third book, Ecclesiastes is generally also attributed to King Solomon, however, he is not mentioned anywhere by name. The idea that King Solomon was the author, is found in the introduction to the text. At some point before the Greek translation was made, someone added an introduction and conclusion to the text, in which the author is described as being the 'son of David,' and a 'King in Jerusalem.' The fourth book, Song of Songs, also called the Song of Solomon, is a song about King Solomon theoretically written in his time, circa 950 BC. The book does not list its author, but it was clearly written by a woman in love with Solomon. She is believed to have been referring to herself as a Shulamite in chapter 7, which suggests she was Abishag the Shulamite, King David's youngest concubine. The fifth book, Wisdom of Solomon was added to the Septuagint sometime between 250 and 132 BC, and while it was traditionally attributed to King Solomon, today scholars generally believed to have been composed in Greek, shortly before it was added to the Septuagint. The Wisdom of Solomon itself appears to have been redacted before the Greek translation, as the first half is about the spirit of wisdom, Sophia in Greek, who is credited with actually doing most of what the Lord (Iaw/Yahweh) was credited with doing in the Septuagint and Masoretic Texts, however, this changes abruptly to crediting the Lord in chapter 11, and Sophia disappeared entirely from the rest of the book. The sixth book, Psalms of Solomon, is also called Psalms of Salomon in many of the surviving manuscripts, although it is not clear why. At this time, it is universally agreed that the Psalms of Solomon is a pre-Christian work, as early Christian writers referred to it even though it is clearly not about the life of Jesus as described in the gospels. The seventh book, Testament of Solomon, was widely used by Christian and Gnostic astrologers in the first few centuries of the Christian era.

The Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of Jewish sacred writings) is of great importance in the history of both Judaism and Christianity. The first translation of the books of the Hebrew Bible (plus additions) into the common language of the ancient Mediterranean world made the Jewish scriptures accessible to many outside Judaism. Not only did the Septuagint become Holy Writ to Greek speaking Jews but it was also the Bible of the early Christian communities: the scripture they cited and the textual foundation of the early Christian movement. Translated from Hebrew (and Aramaic) originals in the two centuries before Jesus, the Septuagint provides important information about the history of the text of the Bible. For centuries, scholars have looked to the Septuagint for information about the nature of the text and of how passages and specific words were understood. For students of the Bible, the New Testament in particular, the study of the Septuagint's influence is a vital part of the history of interpretation. But until now, the Septuagint has not been available to English readers in a modern and accurate translation. The New English Translation of the Septuagint fills this gap.

The story of the Voyage of Wenamen, also called the Report of Wenamen, or the Misadventures of Wenamen, is considered one of the earliest surviving adventure tales. Unlike many of their neighboring cultures, the Egyptians did not write historical narratives, the text must have started as an autobiography of Wenamen circa 1065 BC. The one partially surviving copy appears to have been excerpted from the original autobiography, copied for one of the Meshwesh (Berber) Pharaohs that ruled the late 21ˢᵗ Dynasty after Osorkon the Elder seized the throne in 992 BC. It appears as if only the sections about Canaan were copied, which suggests the Pharaoh in question was looking for information on Canaan, likely as a prelude to an invasion. The surviving text includes the beginning of Wenamen's voyage, but not the beginning of his biography, which would have included his titles and honors and the story of how he became a priest of Amen. The surviving text covers Wenamen's voyage from his departure from Thebes, through his stops in the Egyptian capital of Tanis, and the coastal Canaanite cities of Dor, Tyre, and Byblos, before his ship was blown off course to Cyprus, and the story abruptly ends. The section that covers the stop in Tyre is in the damaged section, in the middle of the story, and only survives in fragments. The abrupt ending of the story is clearly not the end of Wenamen's Biography as it does not include his return to Egypt, which must have taken place or his story would never have been known to the Egyptians.

This monograph deals with the problem of the text-historical relation between two versions of the Solomon Narrative: the Hebrew version preserved in the Masoretic Text of the book of Kings and the Greek version handed down in the Septuaginta of 3 Regum. Over the years, text critics have taken divergent approaches to this complex issue. This study reviews and evaluates their arguments. It does so on the basis of an independent analysis of the main differences between the two versions. The contents of this book are relevant for everyone interested in the composition and textual history of the book of Kings.

The Analytical-Literal Translation of the Old Testament (Septuagint): Volume II: The Historical Books (ALT) is a companion to the Analytical-Literal Translation of the New Testament. Both are translated by Gary F. Zeolla (www.Zeolla.org). The ALT: Old Testament is being published in five volumes. Most Old Testaments are based on the Hebrew text. But this Old Testament (OT) is based on the Greek Septuagint (LXX). The LXX is a third century B.C. Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. The name and abbreviation comes from the tradition that 70 (or 72) Jewish scholars worked on its translation, six from each of the 12 tribes of Israel. The importance of the LXX is that it was THE Bible of the early Church. The purpose of the ALT is to provide a translation of the Greek Septuagint that will enable the reader to come as close to the Greek text as possible without having to be proficient in Greek.

"Examines the origins, language, textual history, and reception of the Greek Old Testament"--

Most readers do not know about the Bible used almost universally by early Christians, or about how that Bible was birthed, how it grew to prominence, and how it differs from the one used as the basis for most modern translations. Although it was one of the most important events in the history of our civilization, the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek in the third century BCE is an event almost unknown outside of academia. Timothy Michael Law offers the first book to make this topic accessible to a wider audience. Retrospectively, we can hardly imagine the history of Christian thought, and the history of Christianity itself, without the Old Testament. When the Emperor Constantine adopted the Christian faith, his fusion of the Church and the State ensured that the Christian worldview (which by this time had absorbed Jewish ideals that had come to them through the Greek translation) would leave an imprint on subsequent history. This book narrates in a fresh and exciting way the story of the Septuagint, the Greek Scriptures of the ancient Jewish Diaspora that became the first Christian Old Testament.