Contents
The work takes its starting point from a skeptical reception ofAntiquities,
as some reportedly doubted Josephus’s claims for the extreme antiquity of
the Judean nation (seeAg. Ap.1.1-5). Josephus’s first major task (1.6-218) is
to prove this antiquity, primarily through the provision of “witnesses” to
the existence (and achievements) of Judeans from non-Judean sources. An
initial prolegomenon (1.6-56) discusses the methods and sources of histo-
riography, in particular the deficiencies of the much heralded Greek histo-
rians, whose apparent ignorance of Judeans cast doubt on Judean claims to
antiquity. Josephus turns the tables on such critics by undermining all
trust in Greek historiography, and praising the accuracy of Judean records
(notably their scriptures, 1.28-56). After a brief explanation of Greek igno-
rance of Judeans (1.60-68), he then marshals his main witnesses, Egyptian,
Phoenician, Chaldean, and even Greek (1.69-218). The Egyptian evidence,
drawn from Manetho (1.73-105), concerns the “Hyksos,” whose violent rule
of Egypt Josephus artificially takes to refer to Joseph and the Israelite so-
journ in Egypt. Phoenician evidence (1.106-27), from Dios and Menander,
concerns the legendary connection between Solomon and Hiram of Tyre.
The chief Chaldean witness (1.128-60) is Berossus, whose account of
Nebuchadnezzar made passing reference to “Syrian” captives transported
to Babylon. Finally, seven authors are collected in a medley of Greek wit-
nesses (1.161-214): Hermippus (on Pythagoras’s interest in Judean cus-
toms), Theophrastus (on the Korban oath), Herodotus (on the “Syrian”
use of circumcision), Cheorilus (on a race of warriors from the “Solyman
hills”), Clearchus (on Aristotle’s encounter with a philosophical Judean),
Hecataeus (on Jerusalem and Judeans in the early Hellenistic era), and
Agatharchides (on the capture of Jerusalem by Ptolemy I). In several cases,
Josephus has to force the evidence to find some reference to Judeans, and
the long quotations from “Hecataeus” probably derive not from the genu-
ine Greek historian but from a Judean author writing under his name
(Bar-Kochva 1996). Even the genuine material concerns Judeans of no
great antiquity, and Josephus often changes the topic of discussion to
Greek admiration of Judeans. Nonetheless, the accumulation of evidence
encourages him to think he has proved to any reasonable person’s satisfac-
tion that Judean history stretches back, as he claims, to a period well before
the Trojan War.
In the second part of the treatise (1.219–2.286), Josephus takes on a dif-
ferent task, the refutation of a large number of “slanders” that have been309JosephusEERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
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