Book 1 — Sections 1–18
I believe, Epaphroditus, that in the work I wrote on our Antiquities I already made sufficiently clear to those who read it what kind of people the Yehudim are: that our nation is very ancient; that from the beginning it possessed its own …
Book 1 — Sections 19–40
Among the Greeks, disagreements over the most elementary matters are notorious. Ask about the birth of a city, the succession of rulers, the chronology of wars, or the origin of institutions and one finds historians opposing historians. …
Book 1 — Sections 41–72
The reliability of our record can also be tested by the organization of the priesthood. Among other nations anyone may sometimes enter a priestly office because of wealth, favor, or political appointment. Among us genealogy matters. A …
Book 1 — Sections 73–105
I begin with the writings of the people of Mitsrayim. I cannot reproduce their sacred records directly, but Manetho was a man of Mitsrayim by birth who participated in Greek learning and wrote in Greek the history of his native land, …
Book 1 — Sections 106–138
Manetho further tells of later rulers of Mitsrayim and of the return of royal authority after the expulsion of the shepherds. He gives reigns and successions that can be compared with other chronologies. I do not need to accept every …
Book 1 — Sections 139–170
The Chaldeans supply another independent line of evidence. Berossus, a Chaldean by birth, was known to Greek readers and wrote from the ancient records of his own nation. He describes the kings of Babylon and among them Nebuchadnezzar. …
Book 1 — Sections 171–205
Hecataeus of Abdera, a philosopher and historian associated with the age of Alexander and the successors, wrote at considerable length concerning us. He described the steadfastness of the Yehudim toward their laws and the endurance with …
Book 1 — Sections 206–235
We have now established antiquity positively. I turn therefore to the slanders of those who contradict the evidence. Some of these writers cannot even agree with one another. Their accusations differ in the name of the ruler, the reason …
Book 1 — Sections 236–265
The laws attributed to Osarseph also reveal the writer's polemical method. He makes the leader command his followers not to worship the deities of Mitsrayim and to slaughter animals considered sacred there. From this the hostile reader is …
Book 1 — Sections 266–296
Lysimachus exceeds the others in shamelessness. He claims that in the reign of Bocchoris the people of the Yehudim, afflicted with disease, took refuge in temples and begged for food, causing scarcity. An oracle supposedly commanded the …
Book 1 — Sections 297–320
I have set these accusations beside one another so the reader may judge them by ordinary standards of historical consistency. Manetho, when using old records, confirms a migration of shepherds from Mitsrayim to the region of Yerushalayim. …
Book 1 — Sections 297–320 — Continuation 1
chronology is internally continuous, the point at which Hiram intersects Shelomoh is not floating free. Another Phoenician writer, Dios, likewise reports Hiram's building activity and the exchange of riddles with Shelomoh. Independent …
Book 1 — Sections 297–320 — Continuation 2
There is another point about the Greek habit of treating their own literature as the beginning of reliable memory. Cadmus, if the traditional account is followed, brought letters from Phoenicia. The very story by which Greeks explain the …
Book 1 — Sections 297–320 — Continuation 3
they did, dependence or copying would be suspected. What matters is convergence of persons, places, sequences, and events. The Egyptian, Phoenician, and Chaldean witnesses each touch a different stage of our national history. Their very …