Authentes, meaning “slayer of oneself or others,” appears in Wisdom of Solomon 12:6, as authentas. The Greek αὐθέντας γονεῖς ψυχῶν ἀβοηθήτων translates as “Parents, slayers of helpless souls.” In keeping with this meaning of authentes, should there not also be a connection with killing in the word authentia in 3 Macc 2:29?
There is a strongly supporting piece of literature by Cassius Dio Cocceianus, 155-235 AD whose single use of authentia is in his Historiae Romanae Book 30-35, Chap 102, which says:
The son of Marius, by his authority to execute, having put to death a certain one of the tribunes, sent his head to the consuls, and another he hurled down from the Capitol…
The semantic shift towards “absolute sway” from this judicial licence for execution is evident. Could this definition of authentia, written three centuries earlier, also apply in Ptolemy’s decree, but for killing animals in sacrifice?”
3) Questions of Grammar
“With these limited rights” has been given as the translation of εἰς τὴν προσυνεσταλμένην αὐθεντίαν
eis taking the acc, should not mean “with”, but into/unto/for.
Authentian is acc, fem, singular, not plural of authentia, later translated as “absolute sway or authority”. To give it a plural meaning as “rights” is inconsistent.
This is quite a fine point, but nevertheless, does contribute something important, although difficult to explain. Prosunestalmenen is a verbal perfect participle active, acc fem, sg, describing authentia as restricted/limited/made conditional. The perfect tense indicates that the effect of an accomplished past act continues into the present, ie something had happened in the past which caused the restriction to now exist. It could be best expressed as “now, having been limited” in some way. The perfect tense always defines that a change has happened.
As it reads in the current translation, using a perfect participle, it would be more logical, that “these rights” ought to be “now reinstated”, not “now restricted/limited.” It cannot be saying that they are to be returned to their original (authentic) limited rights, because the perfect participle defines that they are “NOW limited rights” – they have changed! The “rights” cannot be simultaneously further limited and original! Authentia if it were to connote “original rights” simply does not apply. Through fulfilling the conditions, there would have been actually NO change in the already existing limitations as a conquered people. A simple adjective would have been employed for “limited” e.g. prosunestelikan, rather than the perfect participle that has been used.
Furthermore, it’s NOT TRUE that their rights are unchanged. They are NOT in their “original rights”, limited as they already were, and I shall explain in the next section what has changed.
4) Questions of Translation
I believe that the whole of verse 28 should be reviewed.
28a: μηδένα τῶν μὴ θυόντων εἰς τὰ ἱερὰ αὐτῶν εἰσιέναι
This has been translated as “That entrance to their own temple was to be refused to all those who would not sacrifice.”
It COULD be understood as “those who will not make the following sacrifices of themselves”, but here, τῶν μὴ θυόντων should be literally translated as “those not offering by burning.” In other words, “those not making burnt offerings.”
However, I question the translation as it stands, since it makes no sense. It reads that Ptolemy prohibits those who don’t want to sacrifice and welcomes those who do! The Jews WISHED to sacrifice to YHWH, so why is Ptolemy stipulating a prohibition which is exempted if they do what they wish to do, anyway? This is not a punitive measure at all!
