Zusammenfassung
Zusammenfassung von Gegen Apion
Für wen es gedacht ist
For readers who love ancient history, Jewish and early Christian studies, or exploring the roots of prejudice and how people answered it. Josephus offers a defense of Jewish history, identity and faith through records, arguments and a portrait of Jewish law.
Worum es in diesem Buch geht
Against Apion is a defense of the Jewish people, written in Greek by Flavius Josephus, a Jewish priest and historian who lived in Rome. It comes in two books and is also known by the title On the Antiquity of the Jews. Josephus wrote it after his long history, Jewish Antiquities, and addressed it to a patron named Epaphroditus. Some readers had sneered at that history. They said the Jews were a new and unimportant people, with no real past worth telling.
So Josephus answers in two steps. First he shows that Jewish records are older and better kept than most Greek ones. Then he takes on the slanders of Apion, a scholar from Alexandria, and of other writers who made up stories about Jewish origins and worship. Along the way he gives a short, clear portrait of Jewish law and daily life. You will meet the old charge, the proofs offered against it, and one of the earliest outlines of what Judaism stood for. Let us begin with the claim that the Greeks are the real keepers of ancient history.
In dieser Zusammenfassung
- 1Greek Historians Are Younger Than Jewish RecordsFree
- 2Priests Guarded the Jewish Scriptures With Care
- 3Foreign Writers Confirm the Jews Are Ancient
- 4Apion's Slanders Are Answered One by One
- 5The Jewish Law Shapes a Whole Way of Life
- 6Moses Outdoes the Greek Philosophers
Punkt 1 von 6
Greek Historians Are Younger Than Jewish Records
Josephus begins by facing the main complaint. Critics said that no Greek historian mentioned the Jews, so they must be a recent people. He replies that this proves little. The Greeks, he says, were late to writing and to careful history. Their oldest authors came long after the great kingdoms of the East had already kept records for centuries.
He points out how often Greek historians disagree with each other. They quarrel over the same wars, the same dates and the same founders, and some openly call their rivals liars. Josephus argues that a people who cannot agree about their own past are poor judges of anyone else's. Many Greek writers, he says, cared more for style and for pleasing a crowd than for truth.
By contrast, he says, the older peoples of the East took record keeping seriously. The Egyptians, the Babylonians and the Phoenicians all kept written annals, and they gave the task to trusted officials. The Greeks, in his view, learned much from them. So the absence of the Jews from Greek books says only that the Greeks lived far away and wrote late.
This part sets the rule for the whole treatise. A people should be judged by the strength of its own records and by the word of neutral witnesses, not by silence. Josephus is arguing as a lawyer would, weighing sources and asking who had the means and the motive to tell the truth. For a modern reader, it is also a lesson in how to judge a claim about the past. Ask who wrote it, how close they stood, and what they stood to gain.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
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About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 42,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 2 h 45 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 14 other languages
Questions about Gegen Apion
What is Against Apion about?
It is a two part defense of the Jews by Josephus. He shows that Jewish history is ancient and well recorded, answers slanders by Apion and others, and describes Jewish law and belief as a sound way of life.
Who was Apion?
Apion was a scholar and teacher from Alexandria in Egypt who wrote against the Jews. He repeated stories that they were descended from lepers, worshipped an ass's head and kept hostile customs. Josephus answers him in the second book.
Why did Josephus write Against Apion?
He wanted to answer critics who called the Jews a recent and unimportant people, and to refute slanders about their origins. He addressed it to a patron named Epaphroditus as a follow up to Jewish Antiquities.
Is Against Apion also called Contra Apionem?
Yes. Contra Apionem is the Latin title and means Against Apion. The work has also been known as On the Antiquity of the Jews, a title that points to its first aim of proving Jewish antiquity.
Is Against Apion hard to read?
It is fairly short and clear, with a plain, direct voice. Josephus answers one charge at a time.