The Origins of Islam of history from the Creation to the fall of the Temple which was offered by
Josephus.^54
Given what was said above about the nature of Josephus’ retelling of the
story of Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael in theAntiquities, there were two rather
different ways in which it might have been exploited by Christians. The
first was to take up Josephus’ specific identification of the descendants of
Ishmael with the Nabataeans, the population of the kingdom whose capi-
tal was Petra. In , however, when hardly any Christian literature outside
the New Testament had been written, Nabataea was absorbed by Rome, and
became the Roman province of ‘‘Arabia,’’ covering approximately the same
geographical limits: the Negev and Sinai, the northern Hedjaz, and the en-
tire habitable zone east of the Jordan rift from Aqaba to the southern Hauran.
Here, in the area of the Decapolis, the province extended further north than
had the kingdom, to include the Greek cities of Philadelphia and Gerasa. In
the steppe to the east both the Nabataean and then the Roman presence ex-
tended at least to the oasis of Duma or Dumatha ( Jawf ).^55 The early history
of Christianity within this quite extensive Roman province cannot however
be written. We have indeed no certain evidence of Christian bishops and
congregations there until the third century. The earliest of whom we hear in
Eusebius is Beryllus, bishop of Bostra, apparently in office for several decades
in the first half of the century. It is however worthy of note that Eusebius
introduces him by saying ‘‘he was bishop of the Arabs at Bostra.’’^56
Christian observers might thus, as suggested above, have taken the op-
portunity to characterise the inhabitants of this province as ‘‘Ishmaelites,’’
already practising circumcision, and with a special claim to the inheritance
of Abraham. In theEpistle of Barnabasindeed, it is claimed that ‘‘every Syrian
and Arab’’ is circumcised, as well as all the (Egyptian) priests—but the author
immediately states that that doesnotbring them within the Covenant.^57 It
does not seem, however, even though observers could describe the Chris-
tians of the province of ‘‘Arabia’’ as ‘‘Arabs,’’ that their status as such presented
either any particular problems or any particular opportunities for Christian
. On this much-studied question, see H. Schreckenberg,Die Flavius—Josephus—Tra-
dition in Antike und Mittelalter();Rezeptionsgeschichtliche und textkritische Untersuchungen
zu Flavius Josephus(); M. E. Hardwick,Josephus as a Historical Source in Patristic Literature
through Eusebius().
. See G. W. Bowersock,Roman Arabia().
. Eusebius,HE,,.Cf.,,andA.vonHarnack,Die Mission und Ausbreitung des
Christentums^4 II (), ff.
.Barnabas, .