The Origins of Islam by writingNabataioi Arabes.^41 In any case, his identification of the descen-
dants of Ishmael is, as we have seen, quite specific in relating them to the
geographical area now calledNabatēnē.
We can be reasonably confident that this very concrete identification was
original to Josephus; as towhyhe should have chosen to emphasise so strongly
this conception of a common descent and common source of religious ob-
servances as between Jews and (Nabataean) Arabs, I can see no immediate
explanation. But even if, as it seems, this very specific conception was his
alone, there may of course have been a wider presupposition, within Juda-
ism, that Arabs in general were to be understood as descendants of Ishmael
and as sharing with Jews a common genealogy and religious inheritance. In
the nature of the case, it would be impossible to prove a negative here, not
least because only fragments of an originally very considerable post-biblical
Jewish literature, in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, survive.^42 But it can at least
be said that explicit expressions of any conception of a significant relation-
ship between Jews and Arabs are extremely rare outside Josephus. It plays
no part in Maccabees, in spite of the centrality in both books of the ques-
tion of Jewish relations with the peoples living around them.^43 It remains
paradoxical that among Hellenistic sources the common descent of Jews and
Arabs is represented most clearly by a pagan writer, Apollonius Molon (text
to n. above).
So far as I can determine, the question of the genealogy and religious af-
filiation of Arabs does not arise anywhere in the surviving intertestamental
Jewish literature, with the sole exception of a passage inJubilees. This work,
whose original Hebrew version certainly belongs to the Hellenistic period,
retells the story of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, and Ishmael, the Covenant, and
the circumcision of Isaac. It also records that Ishmael was then circumcised
too, though without specifically mentioning his age at that moment. But it
continues by proclaiming with great emphasis that the Covenant was to be
solely for those circumcised at eight days, and categorically excludes Ishmael
and his descendants: ‘‘For Ishmael and his sons and his brothers and Esau,
the Lord did not cause to approach him.’’^44 Consistency is however, not one
. Macc. :—Ant. , .
. The most detailed survey is that by G. Vermes and M. D. Goodman in Schürer,
Vermes, and Millar,HistoryIII.–.
. See the passing references to ‘‘Arabes’’ in Macc. :; : (see n. ); : (‘‘against
the Arabes who are called Zabadaioi’’); Macc. : (‘‘to Aretas, thetyrannos] of the Arabs’’—
the first reference to the Nabataean dynasty); :–.
.Jubilees–, trans. of : from R. H. Charles,Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the
Old TestamentII ().