Against Apion Totally Explained

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Against Apion was a polemical work written by Flavius Josephus as a defense of Judaism as a classical religion and philosophy, stressing its antiquity against what he perceived as more recent traditions of the Greeks. It also defines which books he viewed as being in the Jewish Scriptures: ť "For we've not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another, [asthe Greeks have,] but only twenty-two books, (8) which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine; and of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand years; but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets, who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life. It is true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time; and how firmly we've given credit to these books of our own nation is evident by what we do; for during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to add any thing to them, to take any thing from them, or to make any change in them; but it's become natural to all Jews immediately, and from their very birth, to esteem these books to contain Divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if occasion be willingly to die for them."

Some anti-Semitic allegations attributed by Josephus to Apion (who Josephus states isn't Greek), and myths as old as Manetho's are exposed there as well, though there was apparently some confusion between Manetho's references to the Hyksos, and the Hebrews. Assuming that Josephus was completely familiar with Manetho's points, Manetho may have simply written a blanket condemnation of all Semitic peoples. The Hyksos were possibly Semites of Western Asian origin. Their exact ethnic or national identity is unknown.

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