Flavius Josephus: Against Apion

✍ Scribed by John M. G. (RTL) Barclay

• Publisher: Brill Academic Publishers
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 503
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This volume contains a fresh English translation of Josephus' apologetic treatise "Against Apion", based on the new critical text established by H. Schreckenberg. It also provides the first English commentary on this treatise, with comprehensive treatment of the historical, literary, and rhetorical features of Josephus' most engaging literary product. "Against Apion" contains the most important evidence for hostility to Judeans in antiquity, as Josephus responds to both Egyptian and Hellenistic slurs on the Judean people, their origins and character. Josephus' robust defense of his people, with his striking account of the Judean constitution ("theocracy"), also constitutes the finest example of Judean apologetics from antiquity. The commentary will provide a richly-documented resource for the many readers of this treatise - those who study and teach early Judaism, early Christianity, and the cultural politics of antiquity. It also offers the first "postcolonial" reading of Josephus, in his attempt to present his Judean tradition under the cultural hegemony of the Greek intellectual tradition and the political power of Rome.

✦ Table of Contents

CONTENTS......Page 8
SERIES PREFACE THE BRILL JOSEPHUS PROJECT......Page 10
ABBREVIATIONS AND SIGLA......Page 14
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......Page 16
INTRODUCTION......Page 18
JOSEPHUS, AGAINST APION......Page 74
BOOK ONE......Page 76
BOOK TWO......Page 240
APPENDIX 1: MANETHO......Page 408
APPENDIX 2: PSEUDO-HECATAEUS......Page 411
APPENDIX 3: EXODUS NARRATIVES IN CULTURAL CONTEXT......Page 414
APPENDIX 4: THE JUDEANS AND THE ASS......Page 423
APPENDIX 5: THE SOURCES OF THE APOLOGETIC ENCOMIUM (2.145-286)......Page 426
APPENDIX 6: JUDAISM IN ROMAN DRESS?......Page 435
BIBLIOGRAPHY......Page 444
INDEX OF ANCIENT TEXTS......Page 464
PLACES AND NAMES MENTIONED BY JOSEPHUS......Page 494
GREEK AND LATIN WORDS......Page 497
MODERN SCHOLARS......Page 498