Jacob, Who ? – 1

Manetho and Josephus Flavius

By vocation Manetho was an Egyptian priest associated with the cult of Serapis. He was not only well versed in the high Greek culture of his day, but he was also thoroughly familiar with Egyptian lore and could read hieroglyphics. He was the first Egyptian to write a history of his country in Greek.

Manetho was also, like so many of the well-educated Hellenistic Egyptians, anti-Jewish. Indeed, he figured prominently in the Egyptian emergence of anti-Jewish polemical literature in the third century BC, especially in Alexandria. Ironically, a Jewish historian was responsible for preserving most of the fragments of Manetho’s writing. Josephus (a.k.a Flavius / Mattetiahu), the famous Jewish historian of the first century AD, quotes extensively from Manetho, and it is primarily in this way that Manetho’s work has come down to us. Aside from what Josephus quotes, only a mere scrap or two of Manetho’s works are quoted in other ancient writings.

Another irony: Josephus liberally quotes Manetho because of another anti-Semite, named Apion. Apion played a leading role in spreading anti-Jewish propaganda in first-century Alexandria. He wrote a polemic referred to as “Against the Jews,” in which he relies heavily on Manetho, suggesting, among other things, that the Jews were expelled from Egypt as lepers. According to Apion the Jews worship a golden ass that is enshrined in the holy of holies of their Jerusalem temple.

In response to Apion and others of his ilk, Josephus wrote his powerful defense of Judaism, Against Apion, or Contra Apionem. It is here that he quotes a lengthy series of extracts from Manetho. He argues that even an anti-Semite like Manetho concedes the antiquity of the Jews and that they once ruled Egypt.

From Manetho we first learn of the Hyksos, an Asiatic people who came from the area of Palestine and ruled Egypt until they were expelled by the Egyptians. According to Manetho, the Hyksos initially swooped down from the north and achieved a quick victory, in which they burned cities, destroyed temples and massacred the population of Egypt. The Hyksos then set up their capital in conquered Memphis and made Salitis, their ruler.

Later they founded Avaris in the Saite nome, or district, and Salitis ruled from there. Ultimately, the Hyksos were driven out of Avaris—and out of all Egypt—with their possessions and households. They then journeyed over the desert. According to Manetho, the Hyksos feared the rulers of Canaan, whom Manetho identifies as the Assyrians. The Hyksos built a fortified city in the land Manetho says is now called Judea, large enough to hold all their thousands of people. They named their city Jerusalem. Manetho was thus the first one to connect the origins of Israel with the Hyksos.

What is the historical value of this third-hand account of Manetho? Josephus himself apparently did not even have a copy of Manetho, but instead drew on extracts from Manetho quoted by Hellenistic historians. More important, Manetho himself was writing about events that occurred about 1,400 years before he wrote, and, in addition, he was writing from a polemical rather than an objective viewpoint.

Yet there is no doubt that an Asiatic people existed, often referred to by scholars as the “Hyksos,” and that they exercised political control over Egypt from approximately 1670 BC to 1570 BC.  Their relationship to the Israelites is another question. However, the existence of Semites in Egypt who once controlled the country cannot be doubted.

During the past 30 years, our knowledge of the Hyksos, and of the Second Intermediate period—between the Middle Kingdom and the New Empire of Egypt—has increased enormously. We now know a great deal more about the settlement of West Semitic people in the eastern Delta during the Second Intermediate period, thanks to intensive archaeological explorations and excavations, especially at Tell ed-Dab’a and Tell Maskhuta. Tell ed-Dab’a has now been identified positively as Avaris, the capital of the Hyksos rulers in Egypt. This settles a long historical-geographical debate and clarifies the process of the settlement of West Semitic elements in the eastern Delta. The results of these excavations also point to the origins and homeland of these Semitic people in the Syro-Palestinian region.

These results concur very well with the idea that the XVth Egyptian Dynasty originated in the Syro-Palestinian area, since its population base came from the same region.

Establishing the existence of the Hyksos and their dominance of Egypt for about a century does not of course mean that all the details in Manetho’s account are accurate. Yet even here there are surprises.

Manetho lists five Hyksos kings who ruled after Salitis in Avaris: Bnon, Apachnan, Apophis, Iannas and Assis—altogether six Hyksos kings of the XVth Dynasty. During the past 80 years, scholars have tried to establish the sequences of kings during the XVth and the contemporaneous XVIth Dynasty, the Hyksos dynasties in Egypt. Scholars’ efforts were grounded in Manetho’s list as well as in the king-list of the Turin Papyrus (column X, line 20). Interestingly enough, the Turin Papyrus lists six Hyksos kings, the same number as does Manetho. Moreover, the total number of years of the Hyksos reign in the Turin Papyrus and in Manetho’s list are quite close. In The Turin Papyrus, the total number of years seems to be 108. In Manetho, it is 103. On this basis, the beginning of the XVth (Hyksos) Dynasty in Egypt has been fixed at 1670 BC Additional inscriptions have now identified four of the six Hyksos kings mentioned by Manetho; this evidence indicates that Manetho mixed up the order of their rule. When one considers how Manetho’s history has come down to us, it is really rather amazing that his work does contains some accurate detail.