Jewish philosopher of the first century CE
Philo of Alexandria
A later witness to the Alexandrian community: he describes the diaspora communities as colonies, as well as the annual Septuagint festival. He seems to have known little Hebrew.
What the sources say
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3 statements
The Hebrew term galut ('exile') presupposes that living outside the land is an imposed punishment. Many Jews, however, moved voluntarily; Philo of Alexandria describes the communities outside Palestine as colonies rather than exiles. For this reason many scholars prefer diaspora, from the Greek for 'dispersion'. The appropriate term depends on each community's history.
The Jews of Alexandria held a yearly festival in honor of the Septuagint on the island of the city's lighthouse; Philo describes the island as the site from which the 'light' of this version of the Bible first shone toward the world.
At its height, the Jewish community of Alexandria probably ran to hundreds of thousands of people, and it produced Philo of Alexandria, a first-century CE philosopher. It declined in late antiquity, and its literature has reached us only because Christians preserved it.