The Antiquities of the Jews. Josephus

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СКАЧАТЬ Since Josephus, in his preface, sect. 4, says, That Moses wrote some things enigmatically, some allegorically, and the rest in plain words; since in his account of the first Chapter of Genesis, and the first three verses of the second, he gives us no hints of any mystery at all; but when he here comes to ver. 4, &c., he says that Moses, after the seventh day was over, began to talk philosophically. It is not very improbable that he understood the rest of the second and the third chapters in some enigmatical, or allegorical, or philosophical sense. The change of the name of God, just at this place, from Elohim to Jehovah Elohim—from God to Lord God—in the Hebrew, Samarian, and Septuagint, does also not a little favour some such change in the narration or construction.

      2 ↑ We may observe here, that Josephus supposed man to be compounded of spirit, soul, and body with St. Paul, 1 Thess. v. 23, and the rest of the ancients: he elsewhere says, also, that the blood of animals was forbidden to be eaten, as having in it soul and spirit. Antiq. b. in., chap, xi., sect. 2.

      3 ↑ Whence this strange notion came, which yet is not peculiar to Josephus, but, as Dr. Hudson says here, is derived from older authors, as if four of the greatest rivers in the world, running two of them at vast distances from the other two, by some means or other watered Paradise, is hard to say. Only, since Josephus has already appeared to allegorize this history, and take notice that these four names had a particular signification: Phison for Ganges, a multitude; Phrath for Euphrates, either a dispersion or a flower. Diglath for Tigris, what is swift, with narrowness; and Geon for Nile, what arises from the east,—we perhaps mistake him when we suppose he literally means those for rivers; especially as to Geon or Nile, which arises from the east, while he very well knew the literal Nile arises from the south, though what farther allegorical sense he had in view, is now, I fear, impossible to be determined.

      4 ↑ By the Red Sea is not here meant the Arabian Gulf, which alone we now call by that name, but all that South Sea, which included the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, as far as the East Indies, as Reland and Hudson here truly note from the old geographers.

      5 ↑ Hence it appears that Josephus thought several, at least, of the brute animals, particularly the serpent, could speak before the fall; and I think few of the more perfect kinds of those animals want the organs of speech at this day. Many inducements there are also to a notion that the present state they are in is not their original state; and that their capacities have been once much greater than we now see them, and are capable of being restored to their former condition. But as to this most ancient, and authentic, and probably allegorical account of that grand affair of the fall of our first parents, I have somewhat more to say in way of conjecture, but being only a conjecture, I omit it: only thus far, that the imputation of the sin of our first parents to their posterity, any farther than as some way the cause or occasion of man's mortality, seems almost entirely groundless; and that both man, and the other subordinate creatures, are hereafter to be delivered from the curse then brought upon them, and at last to be delivered from that bondage of corruption, Rom. viii. 19-23.

      6 ↑ St. John's account of the reason why God accepted the sacrifice of Abel, and rejected that of Cain, as also why Cain slew Abel, on account of that his acceptance with God, is much better than this of Josephus: I mean, because "Cain was of the evil one, and slew his brother." And "wherefore slew he him? Because his works were evil, and his brothers righteous." 1 John iii. 12, Josephus's reason seems to be no better than a pharisaical notion or tradition.

      7 ↑ From this Jubal, not improbably, came Jobel, the trumpet of jobel or jubilee; that large and loud musical instrument, used to proclaiming liberty at the year of jubilee.

      8 ↑ The number of Adam's children, as says the old tradition, was thirty-three sons, and twenty-three daughters.

      9 ↑ What is here said of Seth and his posterity, that they were very good and virtuous, and at the same time very happy, without any considerable misfortunes, for seven generations [see ch. il. sect, 1, before; and c. iii. sect, 1, hereafter), is exactly agreeable to the state of the world and the conduct of Providence in all the first ages.

      10 ↑ Of Josephus's mistake here, when he took Seth the son of Adam, for Seth or Sesostris, king of Egypt, the erecter of this pillar in the land of Siriad, see Essay on the Old Testament, Appendix, pp. 159, 160. Although the main of this relation might be true, and Adam might foretell a conflagration and a deluge, which all antiquity witnesses to be an ancient tradition; nay, Seth's posterity might engrave their inventions in astronomy on two such pillars, yet it is no way credible that they could survive the deluge, which has buried all such pillars and edifices far under ground, in the sediment of its waters; especially since the like pillars of the Egyptian Seth or Sesostris were extant after the flood, in the land of Syriad, and perhaps in the day, of Josephus also, as is shewn in the place here referred to.

      11 ↑ This notion, that the fallen angels were, in some sense, the fathers of the old giants, was the constant opinion of antiquity.

      12 ↑ Josephus here supposes that the life of these giants, for of them only do I understand him, was now reduced to 120 years; which is confirmed by the fragment of Enoch, sect. 10, in Authent. Rec. Part i. p. 268. For as to the rest of mankind Josephus himself confesses their lives were much longer than 120 years, for many generations after the Flood, as we shall see presently; and he says they were gradually shortened till the days of Moses, and then fixed [for some time] at 120. Chap vi. sect. 3. Nor indeed need we suppose that either Enoch or Josephus meant to interpret these 120 years for the life of men before the Flood, to be different from 120 years of God's patience [perhaps, while the ark was preparing] till the Deluge; which I take to be the meaning of God, when he threatened this wicked

      ​BOOK II.

      Containing The Interval Of Two Hundred And Twenty Years.

      From The Death Of Isaac To The Exodus Out Of Egypt.

      CHAPTER 1.

      How Esau And Jacob, Isaac's Sons Divided Their Habitation; And Esau Possessed Idumea And Jacob Canaan.

      1. After the death of Isaac, his sons divided their habitations respectively; nor did they retain what they had before; but Esau departed from the city of Hebron, and left it to his brother, and dwelt in Seir, and ruled over Idumea. He called the country by that name from himself, for he was named Adom; which appellation he got on the following occasion : - One day returning from the toil of hunting very hungry, (it was when he was a child in age,) he lighted on his brother when he was getting ready lentile-pottage for his dinner, which was of a very red color; on which account he the more earnestly longed for it, and desired him to give him some of it to eat: but he made advantage of his brother's hunger, and forced him to resign up to him his birthright; and he, being pinched with famine, resigned it up to him, under an oath. Whence it came, that, on account of the redness of this pottage, he was, in way of jest, by his contemporaries, called Adom, for the Hebrews call what is red Adom; and this was the name given to the country; but the Greeks gave it a more agreeable pronunciation, and named it Idumea.

      2. He became the father of five sons; of whom Jaus, and Jalomus, and СКАЧАТЬ