The New International Encyclopædia/Aristeas (court officer)

ARIS'TEAS (Gk. Άριστέας). An officer at the court of Ptolemy Philadelphus. He is said to have been sent by the latter to Jerusalem (B.C. 273), where he obtained from the high-priest Eleazar a genuine copy of the Pentateuch and a body of seventy-two elders who could translate it into Greek. See Hody, De Bibliorum Textu Originali (Oxford, 1705); Dale, Dissertatio super Aristea (Amsterdam, 1705) . See Bible.