Subject Peoples and Civilizational Priority: Competition among Babylonians, Egyptians, and Judeans in the Hellenistic Era

Abstract

This article proceeds on the principle that we need to decenter dominant ethnic groups—primarily Greeks and Greco-Macedonians in the early Hellenistic era—in order to understand other marginalized viewpoints and experiences, including but not limited to those of Judeans (Jews). An analysis of the Babylonian author Bel-re’ushu helps to provide a new angle on Judean (e.g., Artapanus) and Egyptian (e.g., Manetho) participation within ethnic discourses that include claims to civilizational priority. I would suggest that the rhetoric of ethnic superiority in writings by subject peoples can be viewed as a symptom of ethnic interactions and not merely as a literary response to elite Greek claims regarding the inferiority of supposedly “barbarian” peoples. So it is not always the currently hegemonic Greeks that are the principal interlocutors in these ethnic discourses.

Concerning the antiquity of their kinship group, not only do Greeks make claims but many barbarians as well, with everyone saying that they are the original people and the first of all humanity to discover the things which are useful in life. (Diodorus of Sicily, Library of History 1.9.3)¹

Introduction

Diodorus’s comment in the mid-first century BCE brings us promptly into the field of ethnic relations in the ancient context and illustrates a recurring debate that took place: whose civilization is the most ancient, and what does this indicate about the relative superiority or inferiority of specific peoples? Diodorus’s words also show that claims to cultural priority were made not just by dominant Greeks or Romans but also by subject peoples (“barbarians” from the Hellenocentric view). Despite seeing things through Greek eyes, Diodorus offers us a picture of ethnic relations on the ground, a picture that is confirmed by materials produced by conquered peoples themselves in earlier centuries as well. This article turns to similar materials from the first two centuries following Alexander’s conquests (ca. 331–100 BCE) in order to suggest that subject peoples’ claims to civilizational priority were not simply abstract literary discourses separate from local social contexts. Rather, these materials in literary form should be understood as instantiations of the sorts of ethnic discourses and competitive claims that took place in everyday social encounters in various places. In a separate case study focused on epigraphic and papyrological evidence for the Arsinoite district (nome) of Egypt, I fill in more fully the ways in which oral traditions and legends (sometimes echoed in literary sources) played a role in local ethnic relations and claims of superiority.² But there are some cases here in this piece where these connections between literature and oral culture, between elite representations and social life, are evident as well.

Despite their elite status and adoption of the Greek language to express their views,³ the Babylonian Bel-re’ushu (Berossus),⁴ the Egyptian Manetho,⁵ and the Judean (Jew) Artapanus may be understood to reflect how subject peoples under Hellenistic hegemony could actively express who—and how important—they thought they were. Processes of ethnic identification could take place not only in relation to a hegemonic group, like the Greco-Macedonians but also in competition with other ethnic groups. In fact, when approached in a way that carefully decenters Hellenistic power-holders, literary evidence and other materials pertaining to the colonized can provide glimpses into experiences of subject peoples and into processes of ethnic identification and differentiation.⁶

When scholars consider literature produced by nondominant peoples, there is often a (conscious or unconscious) tendency to put Greeks at the center, explaining marginalized perspectives and literary or cultural products in Hellenistic terms.⁷ In considering Berossus and Artapanus, for instance, John J. Collins claims that the “writings of the Greeks about the East prompted some of the native peoples to explain their own culture to the Greek world. Their attempts were inevitably influenced by Greek prototypes, but they were diverse in kind.”⁸ Although aware of the problematic effects of cultural imperialism on classical scholarship in other respects,⁹ Amélie Kuhrt claims that the force of Berossus’s approach is to consolidate Seleucid rule and to “reshape Babylonian records in accordance with the principles of Hellenistic historiography.”¹⁰ Geert de Breucker is part of a resurgence in the study of Babylonian culture (of this era) in recent decades, and yet he similarly argues that, overall, Berossus was typically Hellenistic and that he “tailored his work to the Greek way of thinking.”¹¹ For John Dillery, Berossus and Manetho are significant primarily as “Clio’s other sons,” in other words, as inspired by the muse of Greek “historiography.”¹² Also problematic in my view are recent studies that take at their word Tatian and Eusebius (writing hundreds of years later and with conflicting stories), who claim Berossus wrote his work for some Seleucid king, with these scholars using this Babylonian work primarily as a means to access literary and ideological productions of the Seleucid court.¹³

While making contributions in other areas, this scholarly framing of sources produced by conquered peoples in terms of Hellenistic ideologies, viewpoints, and genres of literature (especially “historiography”), with its implicit—if not explicit—centering of Greek culture, leads our attention away from important issues in social and cultural history and in some cases erases non-dominant perspectives. Recent studies by Ian Moyer on the limits of Hellenism in Egypt and by Kathryn Stevens on cross-cultural intellectual history in Babylonia, although not focused on our topic of ethnic relations, provide hope for alternative approaches in some respects.¹⁴ The more traditional Hellenocentric procedure, on the other hand, often does not pay enough attention to the perspectives of subject peoples of the Near East as reflected in available evidence and misses important corollaries for ethnic relations and colonial experiences in the process. There is a tendency to presume that educated Greeks are the originators of any discourses in which they participate, simply because they are culturally dominant or because some among the colonized adopt the new lingua franca (Greek) to express themselves. Quite often there is a rush to explain literature produced by conquered peoples primarily as a response to writings by Greek authors, rather than as potential reflections of social interactions and ethnic relations: elite Greeks write and elite subject peoples respond in writing in a way that mirrors or, less so, challenges Greek positions.¹⁵ There is something to be gained from firmly rooting these authors in their local or regional social and cultural worlds rather than treating them as generic responses to, or reflections of, Hellenistic culture. Furthermore, the emphasis on “literature” or “intellectual culture” in scholarship means there is less attention to connections between ideologies expressed by the literary elites, on the one hand, and social interactions among peoples of various social strata, on the other.¹⁶

This article proceeds on the principle that we need to decenter dominant ethnic groups in order to understand alternative viewpoints and experiences among Babylonians, Egyptians, Judeans, and others. I suggest that the rhetoric of ethnic superiority and civilizational priority in writings by subject peoples can often be viewed as a symptom of ethnic interactions and not merely as a literary response to elite Greek assertions regarding the inferiority of supposedly “barbarian” peoples. Nor are subject peoples’ claims merely an adoption of Greek contrapuntal notions of the “wise barbarian,” even if these discourses of foreign wisdom certainly overlap and may sometimes reflect active conversations between Greeks and conquered peoples.¹⁷ So it is not always the currently hegemonic Greeks or Greco-Macedonians (or, later, the Romans) that are the principal interlocutors in—or originators of—the ethnic discourses I explore here.

As I argue, Bel-re’ushu, Manetho, and Artapanus illustrate well how members of nondominant ethnic groups could engage not only with current power-holders (or local colonists associated with power-holders) but also with other subjugated or minoritized peoples in the societies where they lived. The archaeological, epigraphic, and papyrological evidence for a significant degree of ethnic diversity where our authors lived their lives draws attention to local possibilities regarding encounters between different peoples, even though these cuneiform tablets, inscriptions, papyri, and ostraca rarely offer any details about cross-cultural conversations. In light of this, I propose that the sorts of ethnic discourses and competitively expressed ancestral traditions we find in writings by figures like Bel-re’ushu, Manetho, and Artapanus may carefully be considered as instantiations or reflections of those that would be deployed by participants in actual social encounters in ethnically mixed settlements in places like Babylonia and Egypt.

Ethnic Hierarchies and Discourses

Social scientific studies of ethnic identification emphasize an interplay between internal self-understanding by members of an ethnic group and external categorizations or stereotypes held by other peoples.¹⁸ One of the products of these processes is what Louk Hagendoorn and other social psychologists call “ethnic hierarchies,” with different groups being ranked (often in similar ways) by participants from “superior” to “inferior” or “civilized” to “uncivilized.”¹⁹

Research in this area suggests there are two common responses by minorities or subordinated peoples, depending on the situation.²⁰ In one response, nondominant groups may struggle with one another to establish a more favorable position on the lower rungs of a current hegemonic ladder. For our period, Greeks or Greco-Macedonians were frequently positioned at the top and all other peoples below, as “barbarians.” But Greek authors might offer more specific rankings that distinguished among various “barbarian” peoples.²¹ Those groups placed in a low position by a particular person or group might seek to rise on lower parts of the ladder by attempting to climb up, but they might also put another denigrated group down. In a second style of reaction, subordinated groups reject prevalent categorizations and assume an entirely different ladder in which their own ethnic group takes top rung, with all other peoples below, including apparent power-holders. These two main responses are generally not mutually exclusive, as each could play some role, depending on social or rhetorical situations. It is this second strategy that is more prevalent with regard to the sorts of claims to civilizational priority that I investigate here.

With either type of response, an important factor to consider are circulating ideologies that served to mitigate legitimizing ideologies and categorizations of dominant ethnic groups. Beyond studies of ethnic hierarchies specifically, such attenuating ideologies are also a concern of “social dominance theory” as developed by Jim Sidanius and others, which informs the discussion here.²² In this article, I approach such attenuating ideologies by investigating just one theme that consistently emerges within ethnic discourses in the Hellenistic era: namely, concepts and narratives (whether written or oral) centered on the notion that members of a nondominant ethnic group were, in fact, founders of human civilization or at least key contributors to theoretical and practical advancements in human culture. This evidence provides a new angle on more than just subject peoples’ responses to categorizations by then-dominant ethnic groups. This material may point to common strategies employed in interactions between various peoples in different places, as participants engaged or adjusted existing hierarchies or constructed alternative ones.

Bel-re’ushu on Babylonians

Babylonian Matters (Babyloniaka = BNJ 680) by Bel-re’ushu, which was written in Greek around 300 BCE but only partially survives in citations by others, illustrates well how subordinated peoples might assert or seek to establish a favorable position for their own group—in this case Babylonians—in current ethnic hierarchies.²³ Likely a priest of Marduk, born in the time of Alexander of Macedon, Bel-re’ushu is a culturally hybrid figure, though the precise intended audience of the work—whether Greeks or bilingual Babylonians or, as I think more likely, both—is difficult to pin down.²⁴

Regarding Bel-re’ushu’s social context in Babylonia, the presence of foreign settlers (whether forced or otherwise) from Egypt, Judea, Ashkelon, Byblos, Tyre, Armenia, Caria, Elam, Persia, and elsewhere in the centuries (sixth–fourth) leading up to our period suggests the continuing normalcy of interactions between ethnic groups and between temple personnel and foreigners like merchants.²⁵ Settled ethnic minorities were active in a variety of occupations and at various levels of society,²⁶ and they were by no means isolated from one another: sixth-century cuneiform tablets found at Sippar, for instance, show that there were regular economic interchanges between Judeans, Egyptians, and personnel of the Ebabbar temple of Shamash, and even intermarriage.²⁷ Persian-era contracts in the Murashu archive (455–403 BCE) provide glimpses into regular economic transactions between Babylonians, Persians, Medes, Egyptians, and Judeans at Nippur.²⁸

The establishment of Seleucid rule does not seem to have suddenly and drastically changed many aspects of social and cultural life in Babylonia and, despite the dearth of material evidence for this period, it is reasonable to assume that there would be some continuity in ethnic diversity and cross-cultural interactions into the early Hellenistic era. Along with this would be the added element of an increase in the presence of Greco-Macedonians in some locales such as Babylon.²⁹ Arrian of Nicomedia later reports that Alexander left behind soldiers there, and an inscribed pottery fragment (ostracon) of the early third century shows that there was a garrison of Greco-Macedonian soldiers at Babylon; but the new foundation of Seleucia on the Tigris (about 60 km north of Babylon) was the Seleucid center, and it seems that only in the time of Antiochus IV (175–164 BCE) was there a larger influx and organization of Greco-Macedonian settlers and the creation of a community of “citizens” (politai) at Babylon itself.³⁰ Cuneiform tablets discovered further south in Babylonia at Uruk suggest that Greeks lived side-by-side with the indigenous population at least by the late third century, as there is evidence of intermarriage between elite native populations and Greco-Macedonians.³¹ Clearly, then, ongoing contacts between peoples at the local level are by no means hypothetical, and it is in these social encounters that, I propose, circulating ancestral traditions and ethnic discourses such as the ones I am about to outline could be deployed in a variety of ways, and not only by literate priestly figures like Bel-re’ushu.

The most noteworthy section of Bel-re’ushu’s Babylonian Matters for our purposes is in book one. Here, for the first time, we encounter an elaborated claim by a member of a people under Seleucid rule that virtually all aspects of human civilization came from ancestors of his own ethnic group and not, therefore, from any other people, Egyptians, Judeans, Syrians, Persians, Greeks, and Macedonians presumably included.³² The work apparently began with a description of the first inhabitants of Babylonia who “lived in an uncivilized manner, like wild animals.” This was interrupted by a revelation to these wild humans by a fish-man figure sent by the gods, named Oannes, and with civilizing results. According to Syncellus’s summary of Polyhistor, Bel-re’ushu then explains that the fish-man Oannes:

transmits to humanity knowledge of letters, of calculations (μαθημάτων), and of skills (τεχνῶν) of all types. It also teaches the founding of cities, the establishment of temples, and the introduction of laws and land measurement, as well as showing them seeds and the gathering of fruits. In general, it transmits to humanity all that pertains to civilized life. From that time, nothing else has been discovered. With the setting of the sun, this creature Oannes again submerges into the sea, and spends the nights in the sea.³³

Beyond these areas of practical wisdom, Oannes also reveals the origins of the cosmos itself along the lines of what is preserved in the creation epic, Enuma elish, with Babylon’s patron deity (Marduk in Babylonian terms) creating the universe from the carcass of the sea-monster goddess (Tiamat).

Bel-re’ushu’s depiction of the origins of civilization here is heavily indebted to Mesopotamian traditions that circulated—both orally and in written form—for centuries leading up to this time. So it would be problematic to argue that it is primarily a Hellenized picture of a cultural hero or lawgiver, as Geert de Breucker and Jeremy McInerney do in quite different ways.³⁴ The Oannes figure is a clear instance of the fish-men sages (apkallu) attested in Sumerian and Akkadian traditions. The notion of these pre-flood sages is very old, but roughly contemporary with Bel-re’ushu there are two main versions listing seven sages—one a king list from Uruk and the other a protective incantation from Uruk. These lists begin with the figure Uan (Sumerian) or Adapa (Akkadian) as the first sage, the equivalent of our Oannes.³⁵

Key components in early versions of the story of the first wise man, Adapa, demonstrate how closely linked Bel-re’ushu’s tale of Oannes is to these old traditions. In published Akkadian fragments of the story “Adapa and the South Wind,” Adapa, as “the seed of humankind” (D, line 12), is made wise by Ea, god of wisdom, whose home is in the waters.³⁶ A summary statement in a surviving fragment (A, line 3) dating to the seventh century BCE emphasizes how Adapa then instructs other humans regarding this knowledge: “He [Ea] perfected him [Adapa] with great intelligence, to give instruction about the ordinance of the earth. To him, he [Ea] gave wisdom, but he did not give eternal life” (fragment A, lines 3–4).³⁷ The story then outlines Adapa’s activities that flow from this newly acquired wisdom, including his engagement in baking, navigating by boat, and fishing (lines 5–15). As the god of wisdom, Ea, or Enki, was of course frequently associated with instituting key components of civilization long before Bel-re’ushu’s time. In the Sumerian poem “Enki and the World Order,” for instance, Enki (Ea’s Sumerian equivalent) installs a god over each of the most important crafts or skills, including agriculture, bricklaying, building, animal-keeping, measuring, and weaving.³⁸ But a mythical fish-man is not involved as mediator in that particular tale. So these notions of Babylonians being the first to engage in civilized forms of life were fully established and circulating long before Greco-Macedonians were ruling Babylon.

In Bel-re’ushu’s story, the wisdom acquired by the earliest Babylonians in this way was then preserved by Ziusudra/Xisouthros (the Atrahasis- or Noah-like figure), who in anticipation of the flood buries at Sippar all writings concerning the revelation of Oannes for future generations (BNJ 680 F4b = Syncellus, Chronography 31–32). With rediscovery, these writings then become the basis for reconstructing Babylonian and subsequent societies. The entire picture here seems more to reflect existing Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian traditions concerning the origins of civilized life, traditions that could be deployed by other Babylonians (or nearby peoples) familiar with them beyond just Bel-re’ushu.³⁹

In this way, Babylonian ancestors are portrayed as the specially chosen recipients and carriers of all major areas of human culture. Long circulating traditions could nonetheless be utilized to counter other peoples who claimed that their own group was responsible for the origin or transmission of civilization. This competitive function seems clear in Bel-re’ushu’s emphasis on nothing significant being discovered after this revelation to early Babylonians. The fact that he places this revelation to Babylonians “in the first year”—an incredible 432,000 years before the flood—helps to ensure that no other people, including Egyptians, Assyrians (or Syrians), and the now ruling Greco-Macedonians, could claim an older origin for the organization of human society generally.⁴⁰

Nonetheless, Bel-re’ushu also relates subsequent teachings by other wise figures, whether fish-men or humans (e.g., Syncellus, Chronography 39–40). Josephus cites Bel-re’ushu as placing in the tenth generation after the flood an important “just man” who was particularly knowledgeable about astrological phenomena, with Josephus claiming this was actually the Hebrew Abraham (Ant. 1.158). Bel-re’ushu emphasizes important contributions to civilization by subsequent Babylonian kings as well, particularly Nebuchadnezzar II (605–562 BCE).⁴¹ Nebuchadnezzar advances Babylonian civilization through widespread building programs, renovating the temple of Bel, reinforcing the protective walls of Babylon, and building a very impressive palace (according to a passage preserved in Josephus, Ag. Ap. 1.135–141).⁴²

In regard to Nebuchadnezzar’s achievements, Josephus claims that Bel-re’ushu’s narrative here specifically aims at “critiquing Greek authors for wrongly thinking that Babylon was founded by the Assyrian Semiramis” (Ag. Ap. 1.142). A good early candidate (ca. 400 BCE) for such a Greek author would be Ctesias of Cnidus, who held this alternative view that privileged an Assyrian figure over a Babylonian one.⁴³ Geert de Breucker’s study of Babylonian cuneiform historical traditions in the Persian and Hellenistic eras emphasizes how scholars associated with the temple of Marduk may have critiqued current regimes by relating incidents in which a Babylonian king of the past “successfully fought against foreign domination,” including against the Assyrians. One of these earlier traditions that is shared both by the “Epic of Nabopolassar” and by Bel-re’ushu is the presentation of Nabopolassar (626–605 BCE) as a liberator who successfully stops the Assyrian king as foreign aggressor.⁴⁴ So these traditions appear in Bel-re’ushu’s writing in a context of rivalries with other peoples, including the formerly ascendant Assyrians. Similarly, Kuhrt suggests that Bel-re’ushu sometimes presents Babylonian kings as a “counterbalance” to the image of an idealized Egyptian king Senwosret, to whom we will return soon in connection with Artapanus.⁴⁵ So it seems Bel-re’ushu is concerned to position his own people in relation to those such as Assyrians and Egyptians and not merely the recently ascendant Greco-Macedonian power-holders.

Manetho on Egyptians

Biographical information regarding Manetho claims he was born in Sebennytos and was active as a priest in Heliopolis in the Delta region of Egypt, about thirty or so kilometers north of the capital of Memphis.⁴⁶ Although we lack evidence for ethnic diversity and other matters at Heliopolis, the long-term presence in nearby Memphis of Ionians (Greeks) and Carians since the sixth century and the large influx of Greeks and Greco-Macedonians with the establishment of a Ptolemaic center make the presence of Greeks in the region assured.⁴⁷ There was a Persian satrapal palace at Memphis itself, and Judean military settlers are also attested in the Persian era, at least further south at Elephantine.⁴⁸ And the later evidence for Syrians, Judeans, Idumeans, and others at Memphis is suggestive of potential options for ethnic interactions in nearby places like Heliopolis.⁴⁹ Wherever Manetho was from in Egypt, however, the potential for ethnic diversity in this period is significant, particularly in main centers or in rural areas where soldiers were settled. Further south, in villages of the Arsinoites, for instance, there were Greeks, Thracians, Lycians, Carians, Mysians, Syrians, and Judeans—many of them soldiers or ex-soldiers in the Ptolemaic army—settled alongside one another beginning in the third and second centuries BCE.⁵⁰ So once again it makes good sense to consider the scenario that claims to civilizational priority in elite sources may sometimes reflect discourses within interactions among different peoples on the ground in a variety of social settings.

Manetho was writing just decades after Bel-re’ushu (perhaps after 256 BCE), but not likely with Babylonian Matters in hand (as sometimes believed);⁵¹ the surviving evidence regarding Manetho’s claims for his own people on the origins of civilization seem less comprehensive than the tale of Oannes and the Babylonians.⁵² There are some clear assertions by Manetho regarding historical Egyptian contributions to society nonetheless.

If we want to find something similar to the Babylonian story of Oannes but with Egyptians as recipients of civilization, it is not to Manetho that we need to turn but to the expressly made-up tradition in Plato regarding the Egyptian deity Thoth (Theuth) teaching the king Thamos. In other words, we need to turn to Greek imaginations regarding Egyptians, which may or may not have some relation to Egyptian tales.⁵³ Plato has Socrates playfully engage Phaedrus with an expressly phony story in which the god Thoth introduces to the king and then to all Egyptians key aspects of civilization: numbers, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, dice, and writing.⁵⁴ It is true that in Egyptian literature itself the lunar deity Thoth was credited with introducing temple-cult and the divine words to regulate ritual, and he was sometimes referred to as “lord of writing.”⁵⁵ But the list of other contributions in Socrates’s talk do not seem central in early Egyptian concepts of this deity. Isocrates’s sarcastic discourse on the Egyptian king Busiris (perhaps dating to the 370s BCE) attributes a similar list of inventions to Busiris, again reflecting Greek characterizations of Egypt.⁵⁶ Whether Plato or Isocrates had reliable information about similar tales that circulated among Egyptians themselves at the time (beyond the connection of Thoth with writing) remains unclear. To my knowledge, no such story of Thoth as inventor of so many Hermes-like things is preserved in the fragments of Manetho or in any other relatively early source.⁵⁷

When it comes to the priority of Egyptian culture, Manetho’s Egyptian Matters does trace Egyptian rulers back to the gods, and this suggests the great antiquity and therefore superiority of Egypt (BNJ 609). As a reader of Manetho’s intact work, Syncellus also complains that Manetho, like Bel-re’ushu, “wishes to glorify his own people” (Chronography 17.10–20). And it is possible that Manetho’s perspective was comparable to the Egyptians from Thebes who (according to Diodorus, at least) “say that they are the earliest of all humans, and that among them were the first people to discover love of wisdom (φιλοσοφίαν) and study of the stars” (Diodorus, Library 1.50). Yet, in the surviving fragments of Manetho there are no substantial narratives claiming that the earliest Egyptians were the source of civilization in a way that is comparable to the legend of Oannes or to Socrates’s story (in Plato) about the Egyptian origins of all civilization. Of course, it remains a possibility that lost portions of Manetho’s work did contain such myths or claims of superiority for Egyptians over against Greeks or other peoples.

Josephus does highlight the fact that Manetho critiques some Greek characterizations of Egypt, and two later sources refer to a work in which Manetho engaged in Criticism of Herodotos (if this was a separate work).⁵⁸ So this may indicate Manetho’s active attempts to directly counter at least some Greek perspectives on Egyptians.

Although there is no thoroughgoing Oannes- or Thoth-like revelatory episode in the surviving portions of Manetho’s work, it is still noteworthy that the remains do present specific Egyptian gods or kings as the originators of important aspects of civilization and human knowledge. So, for instance, in one fragment, an Egyptian god that is the son of Ammon and labeled “Dionysos” introduces the vine to humanity. Several early Egyptian kings make important advancements: the second king of the first dynasty (Athothis = Djer [?]) contributes to medical knowledge (BNJ 609 F2 and F3b), and the second king of the third dynasty (Tosorthros = Djoser, ca. 2667–2648 BCE) advances medicine, building techniques, and writing (BNJ 609 F2). Manetho also relates the military feats of a king, Senwosret (Sesostris in this transliteration), who is said to have conquered all of Asia and Europe as far as Thrace. Manetho’s account stresses just how important this Senwosret was, claiming that the king was considered second only to the pharaoh-god Osiris himself (BNJ F2 and F3b). Tales that circulated in oral and written form around figures like the king Senwosret take us well beyond educated circles where Manetho was active and provide a glimpse into the popular side of native perspectives among Egyptians, as I explore in another piece.⁵⁹

Artapanus and Others on Judeans

Alongside Babylonians and Egyptians, Judeans were among those who developed their own tales of great achievements and could employ them in interaction with competing claims of other peoples. Here, we are still concerned with the first two centuries following Alexander of Macedon rather than in later developments in Josephus or others. Scholarly discussions of alternative tales of the “exodus” or expulsion of the ancestors of Judeans (some of them clearly anti-Judean tales), for instance, show how important it is to consider local Egyptian settings where such competing tales circulated among Judeans, Egyptians, and Greeks rather than imagining that such discourses only took place at a literary level.⁶⁰ It is not always the current Greco-Macedonian power-holders that are the focus of ethnic rivalries when Judeans are involved, and local situations among various strata of the population must be kept in mind when approaching Judean tales of the origins of civilization as well.

Artapanus’s work comes to us from Polyhistor via Eusebius’s Preparation for the Gospel from the fourth century CE.⁶¹ It seems Artapanus wrote some time after the production of the Septuagint Greek translation of the Judean scriptures around 250 BCE and before Polyhistor’s summary in the mid-first century BCE.⁶² But Artapanus perhaps fits best some time soon after the early second century—about a century or so after Bel-re’ushu and Manetho—in light of several details that seem to pertain to the time of Ptolemy IV Philopator (221–204 BCE) and to a temporarily successful rebellion that instated Chaonnophris as native pharaoh at Thebes from 199 to 186 BCE.⁶³

There is no direct evidence that would allow us to identify Artapanus with certainty as a Judean settled in Egypt. But the overall focus of the fragments and the knowledge of Egyptian events in them does suggest that both Artapanus and his implied audience would primarily be Greek-speaking Judeans settled in Egypt, likely in connection with a family history of service in the Ptolemaic army.⁶⁴ Because we cannot locate him with precision, it is difficult to be specific about the ethnic groups he would have encountered in his life beyond the general picture we get from Ptolemaic Egypt overall: this once again points to a mixture of Greco-Macedonians, Thracians, Judeans, Carians, Lycians, Phoenicians, and others, many of them soldiers or former soldiers (particularly beginning with the army formed by Ptolemy I Soter, from 305 to 282 BCE).⁶⁵Artapanus’s depiction of figures from the biblical narratives illustrates the competitive atmosphere in which stories of one’s own cultural heroes might be remembered, retold, and transformed in social interactions with other peoples. Our focus here needs to remain on the question of what evidence there is for Judeans echoing or actively constructing ideologies that cut against alternative notions that Greeks, Egyptians, Babylonians, or other peoples were the instigators of the most civilized forms of wisdom and societal arrangements. However, we should not presume the primacy of written sources when considering the origins of Artapanus’s tales, as some scholars do.⁶⁶ Instead, as both Tessa Rajak and Donna Runnalls recognize with respect to Moses material, it is likely that Artapanus and later authors such as Josephus are sometimes building their presentations on more widely circulating oral traditions, traditions which could therefore be employed in other social situations on the ground.⁶⁷

Polyhistor presents the portion of Artapanus’s work that deals with Abraham, Joseph, and Moses. Each of these figures is depicted as introducing or developing important aspects of human civilization, and Artapanus sets all of this in Egypt itself. In this way, any claims that Egyptians were the oldest source of human civilization could more readily be shifted to “Hebrews,” and to their Israelite and Judean heirs specifically. Artapanus has Abraham travel to Egypt to teach the Egyptian king “astrology,” staying there for thirty years and leaving behind Hebrew settlers.⁶⁸ So the story overcomes potential Babylonian or Chaldean claims to preeminence in astrological knowledge. Abraham, who in the Genesis narrative is from Ur of the Chaldees (i.e., a Babylonian context), is represented as possessing this kind of knowledge so often claimed by Babylonians. Ongoing debates concerning who was responsible for introducing knowledge of the stars (with Egyptians often competing with Chaldeans or Babylonians in the discourse) is reflected in the Egyptian astrological handbook attributed to Petosiris and Nechepso (ca. 150–100 BCE) and, later, in the work of the Egyptian priest Chairemon (writing ca. 30–65 CE).⁶⁹ In this way, such tales of Abraham could serve to counter both Egyptian and Babylonian claims of cultural importance.

Before continuing with Artapanus, a few more words are in order regarding alternative Abraham stories which circulated in this same period. Competition with still further peoples is integral to stories presented in a work attributed to Eupolemus (again from Polyhistor = BNJ 723), who may have been writing around 158 BCE.⁷⁰ In this version, Abraham was expressly born in Babylonia and therefore learned the “Chaldean craft” there in the tenth generation. Further on in Eupolemus’s passage, however, it is clarified that earlier—in the seventh generation after Adam—Enoch himself was the source of that same astrological understanding. This information then disseminated within Babylonia from Enoch. This once again places figures from Israelite traditions at the forefront of civilization. Abraham then brought this knowledge deriving from Enoch first to the Phoenicians and then to the Egyptians, with the latter two cultures therefore being seen as derivative of cultural achievements elsewhere. Furthermore, Eupolemus positions the story in relation to Greek claims that astrological knowledge came from Atlas, who, Eupolemus states, was in fact Enoch himself.

Eupolemus seems to be working with stories similar in some respects to those that were employed in the so-called Book of Watchers (especially 1 En. 6–11), at least with a prominence for Enoch as the recipient of heavenly wisdom.⁷¹ In this part of 1 Enoch (ca. 200 BCE or earlier), many aspects of human civilization do indeed result from revelations by the fallen angels (led by Azazel, or Asael) to the human women, but in this case (unlike Eupolemus’s alternative story) they are wrongly revealed and lead to the decline—not advancement—of human civilization.⁷² In particular, the angels’ revelations concerning metalwork (disseminating war), ornamentation for women (disseminating lust), roots (for sorcery and magical healing), and the heavenly bodies (astrology) ultimately result in the Israelite god’s judgment with the flood (as reworked from Gen 5–6).⁷³ Although not stated clearly, this negative portrayal of certain kinds of astrology in 1 Enoch could function to portray Babylonians or Egyptians negatively.⁷⁴ While such peoples may have claimed the superiority of their own astrological knowledge, that knowledge could now be attributed to the fallen angels or their demonic offspring (the spirits of the giants) by apocalyptic Judeans familiar with these traditions. In 1 Enoch itself, of course, this improper revelation by fallen angels is thankfully followed by Enoch’s own heavenly tour, resulting in a legitimate source of wisdom concerning the universe.

As the seventh antediluvian figure in the Genesis narrative who is later seen as the recipient of heavenly secrets regarding the stars, Enoch was comparable to the seventh king in the Sumerian king list, Enmeduranki of Sippar. Andrei Orlov’s recent work renews attention to the potential competitive dimension to these traditions.⁷⁵ In some Mesopotamian legends and ritual materials, Enmeduranki was the first to receive from the gods knowledge regarding divination (discerning information from deities by observing oil on water and by examining attributes of the livers of sacrificed animals) and mathematical calculations regarding heavenly bodies.⁷⁶ So the competitive aspect of employing these Babylonian (previously Akkadian and Sumerian) and Israelite figures seems quite clear in other respects as well. Yet it is noteworthy that the currently hegemonic Greeks or Greco-Macedonians are not expressly in the competition here. Other ethnic groups seem to be in mind. Different Judeans might be aware of variant stories and utilize them or transform them in different ways. They could do so in a manner that still engaged either directly or indirectly with other peoples and in a way that asserted the preeminence of figures within their own ancestral traditions. This might serve to place Judeans at the top of an ethnic hierarchy with respect to contributions to civilization.

In Artapanus’s story of the ancestors of the Judeans, the figure of Joseph is presented as someone who excelled in wisdom and, after his brothers plotted against him, sought the aid of Arabians to be brought to Egypt. There Joseph becomes an administrator of the land and brings order to what was previously a disorganized Egyptian agricultural system. This reorganization of Egypt into districts then works against a system that had previously advantaged the more powerful over the lower strata of the population. Joseph also introduces measurements (Preparation 9.23.1–4). Here, Joseph is credited with achievements that are also associated with the Egyptian king Senwosret, a figure I return to below in connection with Artapanus’s Moses. Once again, there is an emphasis on the settlement of more Hebrews, including those at the important sites of Heliopolis and Sais. All of this sets the stage for a portrayal of Hebrews specifically, more so than Egyptians, as key contributors to the betterment of Egypt overall. Civilization was introduced by foreigners who immigrated to Egypt—Hebrews, as predecessors of Israelites and Judeans.

Artapanus finally goes into much more detail regarding the great achievements of Moses. As in the biblical narrative, Moses was adopted by a daughter of Egyptian royalty as an infant (Preparation 9.27.1–37). As an adult, Moses—expressly identified with the Greek mythical figure Mousaios, the teacher of Orpheus—“transmitted many useful things to humanity.” Moses introduced or invented boats, devices for stone construction, military implements, irrigation methods, and the raising and use of oxen for agriculture. Importantly, he introduced “sacred letters” (i.e., hieroglyphs) and “philosophy.” It is here in the narrative that the currently hegemonic Greeks seem to be among the competitors for a moment. Still, Artapanus seems far more concerned to attribute supposedly Egyptian advancements to Judeans throughout his tales, and the Greeks do not seem at the forefront. Artapanus emphasizes that Moses was “loved by the populace,” who wanted to offer him god-like honors.

Military feats are added to Moses’s great accomplishments too. Artapanus portrays the local Egyptian king (Chenephris) as envious of Moses’s cultural achievements. The king therefore sends Moses to lead a military campaign against the ostensibly undefeatable Ethiopians, hoping that Moses would die in battle. Instead, Moses succeeds in this incredible feat and even gains the love of the conquered Ethiopians, who adopt the Judean custom of circumcision from Moses.⁷⁷ Furthermore, Moses is credited with founding Heliopolis, making the ibis a sacred bird, and generally identifying all the creatures of Egyptian cults as sacred. Artapanus then narrates Moses’ leadership in freeing the slaves, apparently based on something close to the Septuagint version of the exodus narrative.

David Lenz Tiede convincingly argues that the list of Moses’s contributions to human civilization echoes those in circulating legends associated with an Egyptian king, Senwosret.⁷⁸ And so the main civilizational competitors for Judeans remain Egyptians, not Greeks, in this case. Yet Tiede proposes that Artapanus himself created the link to Moses rather than reflecting oral or written traditions that had already made this connection, which is another very good possibility. Similarly, Holger M. Zellentin goes on a hunt for a hypothetical written source on Senwosret, or Sesoosis (a proto-Diodorus source), which both Diodorus and Artapanus are supposed to have employed for different purposes.⁷⁹ Such scholarly theories leave out a scenario in which Artapanus was (alongside possible written materials) familiar with circulating oral traditions concerning Senwosret or concerning a Judean presentation of Moses that had already incorporated Senwosret-like accomplishments.⁸⁰ In another article, I extensively explore the deployment of circulating traditions regarding pharaohs like Senwosret in connection with ethnic relations in a case study of the monumental hymns set up by one Isidorus in a temple at Narmouthis in the Arsinoite district.⁸¹ Scholarly theories that presume the primacy of written sources (hypothesized or otherwise) also do not take full account of the context explored here regarding common ethnic discourses aimed at bettering the position of one’s own group on the hierarchy within local or regional settings. For similar reasons, it does not seem probable that Artapanus was specifically refuting narratives written by Manetho or pseudo-Manetho concerning an “exodus” or expulsion of the ancestors of Judeans, if these narratives already existed in Artapanus’s time and context.⁸² Yet the point remains that Artapanus’s positive assertion of Judean primacy via the contributions of these Hebrew figures to the advancement of Egyptian—and therefore human—civilization could certainly be deployed to counter alternative, negative characterizations of Judean activities by Egyptians on the ground.⁸³

Conclusion

As subjects under Hellenistic hegemony, Babylonians, Egyptians, Judeans, and others could express their own ethnic self-understanding and sense of superiority by, in part, telling stories about their own people’s contributions to the advancement of civilization overall. While appearing in literary form, it is realistic to propose that these narratives reflect strategies employed in various social contexts and at different levels of society in order to better the position of one’s own ethnic group in relation to other peoples.

Due to the limits of our ancient evidence, we are not able to go further in order to confirm or disconfirm that a variation of any specific tale related by, say, Bel-re’ushu or Artapanus was actually employed in social encounters between peoples on the ground. Yet we have already witnessed references to such local encounters and competitive claims in Diodorus’s discussion of Egyptians at Thebes in a later era, for instance (Library of History 1.28–19; cf. 1.9.3; 1.50). Furthermore, in a still later period (ca. 165 CE), Lucian of Samosata, who sometimes self-identifies as “Syrian” or “Assyrian” (and somewhat subversively even as a “barbarian”), presents a dialogue which suggests from another angle that the general scenario of ethnic interactions I propose is realistic.⁸⁴ In the dialogue Toxaris, Lucian presents as believable a social encounter between a Greek-speaking Scythian immigrant (Toxaris) and a Greek (Mnesippos) in a city outside of Athens (Toxaris 21).⁸⁵ In this meeting, each of the men relates five tales (in this case about “friendship” rather than the origins of civilization) that circulate among his own people regarding Scythians or Greeks. Overall, the purpose of relating these tales orally—as with the tales in our literary sources by Bel-re’ushu and Artapanus—is to demonstrate the superiority of one person’s ethnic group over the other’s: “Now listen, you extraordinary person, and learn how much more reasonably we ‘barbarians’ distinguish good men than you Greeks do,” states the Scythian in the conversation.⁸⁶

One common corollary of this competitive situation among nondominant peoples was an active engagement with, and refutation of, the imagined or real claims of other peoples in a way that positioned one’s own group in a higher position. While current power-holders like the Greco-Macedonians were among the sparring partners, they were not always as central as they themselves (or some scholars) would have liked.

The subtle reorientations I offer in this piece—moving Greeks and Greek interpretations temporarily to the side in order to consider the perspectives of subject peoples—change our picture of ethnic relations in significant ways. These reorientations also provide hope for reconstructions of some aspects of the social histories of nondominant peoples even though our evidence for them is often limited. Then again, the notion that evidence is limited has often been the alibi in historical studies generally for neglecting nondominant or marginalized populations and segments of populations (e.g., colonized or minoritized peoples, women, lower social strata) and, problematically, for continuing to frame our understanding of the past mainly by means of dominant interests, assumptions, and perspectives.