Talk:Against Apion

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Jewish history

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Expansion needed![edit]

Isn’t this book important not only for the history of Judaism but also for the history of Egypt, for the complex relationships between Jews and Egyptians, and for the links between both these nations with others such as Phoenicians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks/Macedonians and finally Romans? Shouldn’t the article recognise and explore these much wider contexts? Also, doesn’t the closing eulogy of Jewish theology and ethics illumine some of the diversity of beliefs flourishing in the first century CE? --Hors-la-loi (talk) 19:48, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure that much can be said of relations between Jews and Egyptians in general during that period. Probably it was mostly Hellenized or semi-Hellenized Egyptians in the major northern cities who would have been likely to have sustained contact with Jews. After the translation of the Septuagint Pentateuch into Greek during the second century B.C., some Greek-literate Egyptians would have become aware of the Exodus narrative, and might have been annoyed by its portrayal of their ancestors, or been motivated by the fact that they were aligned with the Greek side in Greek-Jewish tensions in Alexandria, and so came up with a counter-narrative... AnonMoos (talk) 11:27, 13 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The translation of the quotes[edit]

To my layman's ear, the two quotes are more likely by Whiston than a twentieth or twenty-first century translator. Why? Why not use the most recent -- and hence, the most widely comprehended -- one? (There are three haths in one sentence!) It could be justified if it were widely agreed to be more accurate than any other, but not, I would say, for the pleasure eighteenth century English brings, or the elegance. Is there any reason to believe the original was elegant, rather than comprehensible? If one is seeking elegance or pleasure from eighteenth century English, there is a place for that, but not in an article about a first century work from the Levant. Nick Barnett (talk) 13:02, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that there's any more recent complete translation of Josephus which is out of copyright than William Whiston's... AnonMoos (talk) 19:42, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]