Judean Ethnic Identity In Josephus’ Against Apion
Abstract
This chapter discusses the manner in which Josephus defends the Ioudaioi against various attacks by the writer Apion by comparing and contrasting them with other peoples in the environment. This involves both demonstrating that ethnicity is a suitable etic framework for analysing the data in the text and also that the key to Josephus rhetorical strategy is his assumption that the Ioudaioi share broad categories of identity with other peoples in his world, but that the particular form these take among Ioudaioi results in their having a superior identity to that of other groups. This feature of Josephus approachhis acknowledgment that Ioudaioi fall into the same broad class of identity but that they are the most impressive instance of the classprobably constitutes the most noteworthy feature of his argument. Keywords: Apion; Ioudaioi ; Josephus; Judean ethnic identity; rhetorical strategy
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
There is strong evidence, especially in Josephus's Contra Apionem, that the Ioudaioi were like other peoples of the ancient Mediterranean world, members of an ethnic group in the self-ascriptive and interactional sense of Fredrik Barth.
“There is strong evidence, however, especially in the Contra Apionem of Josephus (Esler 2009), that the Ioudaioi were like other peoples of the ancient Mediterranean world, members of an ethnic group (understood in the self-ascriptive and interactional sense of Fredrik Barth).”
From Intergroup Conflict and Matthew 23: Towards Responsible Historical Interpretation of a Challenging Text (2015) · cites this paper as Esler 2009
In Josephus' Contra Apionem, γένος along with λαός and ἔθνος denote the various ethnic groups in the Mediterranean world of his time, including the Judeans.
“The word appears, for example, in Josephus' Contra Apionem, along with λαός (laos) and ἔθνος (ethnos), to denote the various ethnic groups in the Mediterranean world of his time, including the Judeans (see Esler 2009: 78-80 for the relevant data in the Contra Apionem).”
From Intergroup Conflict and Matthew 23: Towards Responsible Historical Interpretation of a Challenging Text (2015) · cites this paper as Esler 2009: 78-80
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Esler, P. F. (2015) · Biblical Theology Bulletin: Journal of Bible and Culture · doi:10.1177/0146107914564824 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
Self-citation
- Authors
- Esler, P. F.
- Corresponding author
- Esler, Philip F.
- ORCID
- Esler, Philip F.
- Venue
- A Wandering Galilean: Essays in Honour of Seán Freyne
- Publisher
- BRILL
- Published
- 2009-01-01
- Pages
- 73-91
- OpenAlex
- W574215797
- Cited by
- 27
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2025: 22 · 2020: 1 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 1 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 8.92
- Type
- book chapter
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- BRILL eBooks (publishedVersion)
- St Mary's University Repository (ULCC) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Religious studies › Biblical Studies and Interpretation
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Classical Antiquity Studies
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Classical Studies and Philology
- Keywords
- Josephus, Against Apion, Apion, ethnicity, rhetorical strategies, classical antiquity
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
