Fact-Checking -- Josephus and Aristeus

So a long time ago I pointed out that the Aristeus letter about the origin of the Septuagint is known to be a forgery and can't be anything but an urban legend in the first place.

I refer to Josephus there and since I'm at loose ends just now, I thought I owed you chapter and verse.

It's Book XII of Josephus' Antiquities, Chapter 4. You can read the English here.

But as you know, translations are useless. Translations of Classical Greek are just as bad as translations of Biblical Hebrew, as I told you on my Greek thread.

And the problem is that while Aristeios is a name that appears in Josephus' Antiquities, Book XII, the chapter 4 designation is an invention of the translator, William Whiston. Book XII of Josephus refers to Aristeios in section 17, 19, and 53, none of which have to do with the Septuagint. Whiston's reference is in a footnote in the English; it's not in the Greek.

The footnote is even worse because it refers to Philo. As we all know, Philo is almost entirely urban legend.

I have said this over and over. If you want to know what ancient sources say, you must learn the language. Even then, you have to suspect that they have been doped to say what later fans wanted them to say. So you have to know the history of the culture, and you have to know the provenance of whatever you are reading. This includes whether it is a record of an oral tradition, for which there will be indications in the text, or invented in writing. Unless you're willing to do all that work, you don't really know anything about what you are reading.