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Amenophis Wanted Gods and Blamed the Lepers

An Egyptian priest named Manetho wrote that a king had to drive out 80,000 sick men to see the gods. Josephus read the story and called it a lie.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. A King Who Wanted to See Gods
  2. Avaris and the Shepherd Lie
  3. Brothers, Crowns, and a Familiar Betrayal
  4. Josephus Breaks the Timeline
  5. Why the Fable Still Tries to Live
  6. Antiquity as a Battlefield
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A King Who Wanted to See Gods

Manetho, Egyptian priest and storyteller for a later age, gave Amenophis a hunger no altar could feed. The king desired to see the gods. Not to serve them. To see them. Josephus, reading the tale in Greek for a Roman audience, refused to let the absurdity pass. Which gods? The animal faces Egypt already bowed to, or the powers of heaven? And since when do gods arrange audiences for a king with a craving?

A prophet entered the story, called wise. If he was wise, Josephus asked, why did he not say the desire was impossible? The prophet instead spoke of a purge. Gather the unclean. Clear the land. Eighty thousand lepers, as if a census of the maimed could be finished in a day. Amenophis, who claimed he wanted purity, sent the afflicted to the quarries. Labor first. Vision later. The prophet, seeing wrath ahead, killed himself. A seer who could not foresee his own rope.

Avaris and the Shepherd Lie

The lepers were not left in the stone pits forever. They were given Avaris, a city once tied to the "shepherds," a word Manetho used the way a man uses a slur with a history. Into that city the story poured enemies of Egypt and named their leader in ways meant to stain Moses and the people who left with him. The Exodus became, in Egyptian ink, a deportation of the diseased and the hated. Jerusalem became the place the purge spilled toward.

Josephus heard the shape of the lie. He had written the Antiquities already. Now, in Against Apion, he answered men who preferred Greek notebooks to Jewish records when they hunted the oldest times. Why trust the late-coming Greeks, he asked, over peoples who kept books while Greece was still learning to write its own past? Manetho's king-lists ran careful as a ledger, month by month, while his theology ran like a tavern rumor.

Brothers, Crowns, and a Familiar Betrayal

Manetho also told of Sethosis and his brother Armais. The king left a navy and an army under trust. He forbade the diadem. He ordered respect for the queen and distance from the concubines. Then he marched on Cyprus, Phoenicia, Assyria, Media. In his absence Armais put on the crown, touched what was forbidden, and made the palace a revolt. The tale echoes other brother-wars, and Josephus lets the echo stand. Even Egypt's own stories know how power eats kinship. That does not make Manetho's slander of Israel true. It only shows that the priest could write drama when he wanted, and poison when he needed a villain.

Josephus Breaks the Timeline

Line by line Josephus presses. Gods do not flee bodily sores the way they flee wickedness. A wise prophet does not counsel the impossible and then die surprised. A king who needs quarry hands is not purifying a land. A people counted as lepers on one page and conquerors of Syria on another is a people invented to carry Egyptian shame. The shepherds who leave for Jerusalem in one fragment are the same nation Manetho will not call by its true name, because the true name would force him to admit antiquity he resents.

Josephus is not gentle. He is a survivor of a ruined Temple writing under empire, and he will not let a priest of the Nile turn Israel's exit into a medical deportation. The records of Tyre, the books of the Jews, the agreement of Jewish minds on their own past, these weigh more for him than a fable polished for Greek ears.

Why the Fable Still Tries to Live

Slander lasts when it flatters the powerful. Egypt preferred a story in which the Hebrews were filth expelled by a pious king. Rome preferred Greek historians who arrived late and spoke with confidence. Josephus stands between them with a hard laugh and a harder archive. Amenophis never saw the gods. He saw a labor shortage and a chance to rename a people. Manetho wrote the rename. Josephus tore the page.

Antiquity as a Battlefield

Josephus opens his larger argument with astonishment at readers who will trust only Greek books for the oldest events. Greece came late to writing, he insists. Other nations kept records while Greek cities were still young. To prefer the latecomer is not scholarship. It is fashion. Manetho's tale rides that fashion. It offers Egyptians a flattering mirror and Greeks a spicy foreign scandal, and it costs the Jews their dignity as an ancient people with their own exits and their own God.

He presses the logistics until they squeak. How does anyone assemble eighty thousand afflicted in a day? Why does a king who fears pollution put the polluted to work in stone? Why does a prophet of doom miss his own death? Why do gods care about skin when the text of Israel's own prophets spends its fire on injustice? Every question is a pry bar under Manetho's floorboards.

The shepherd vocabulary does double duty. It remembers the Hyksos trauma Egypt never forgot, and it smears that trauma onto Israel. Josephus will grant Egypt its wounds. He will not grant Egypt the right to rename the Exodus as a medical deportation. Moses is not a leper-king. The people who left with matzah and a promise are not a quarantine that wandered east until it found a hill to defile.

By the time Josephus is done, Amenophis looks less like a mystic and more like a manager short on labor and long on excuses. The desire to see gods becomes a pretext. The quarries become the point. The suicide of the prophet becomes theater. And the Jews, reading their own scroll of going out from Egypt, recognize a counterfeit written by someone who needed villains more than he needed truth.

JosephusManethoExodusEgyptApionPolemic
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From the tradition

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The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Against Apion 28:1Against Apion

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.Against Apion, trans. William Whiston · Public Domain

Our story comes to us, indirectly, from Flavius Josephus, the 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian. In his work Against Apion, Josephus is defending Judaism against its detractors. One of those detractors was Manetho, an Egyptian priest and historian from the 3rd century BCE. Manetho spun a wild tale about the origins of the Jews, and Josephus, quite understandably, wasn't having it.

Manetho's version, as relayed by Josephus, begins with a king named Amenophis who, for some reason, "desired to see the gods." Now, Josephus is quick to point out the absurdity of this. What gods are we talking about? The animal deities the Egyptians already worshipped? Or the heavenly ones? And if the latter, what made Amenophis think he could just see them? Had another king done it before?

Then comes the prophet, supposedly a wise man. But if he was so wise, why didn't he tell the king his desire was impossible? Josephus rightly asks: since when do gods care about bodily ailments? Aren't they more concerned with wickedness? Plus, how do you even gather eighty thousand lepers in one day?

The king, instead of expelling these afflicted people as the prophet supposedly advised, sends them to work in quarries. It's as if he needed laborers more than he wanted to "purge his country". And the prophet? He kills himself, predicting the gods' wrath. But wait, if he was such a seer, why didn't he foresee his own demise?

But the story doesn't end there. The king, despite the dire warnings, allows these "maimed" people to inhabit Avaris, a city formerly belonging to the shepherds (a term often associated with foreigners and sometimes used pejoratively). Here, they choose a priest from Hellopolis named Osarsiph, who then changes his name to Moses. Yes, that Moses.

According to Manetho, this Moses forbids the people from worshipping Egyptian gods and encourages them to kill and eat the sacred animals. He forms a pact with them, builds a wall around Avaris, and then… declares war on the king.

And it gets even more fantastical. Moses sends a message to Jerusalem, inviting "that people" (the Jews) to come to his aid, promising them Avaris, claiming it once belonged to their ancestors. They arrive, and together they wage war against Egypt, burning cities and temples, committing all sorts of atrocities.

The Egyptian king, Amenophis, supposedly flees to Ethiopia, leaving the sacred animals in the care of the priests. But thirteen years later, he returns with a massive army, defeats the "shepherds" and the "polluted people," and drives them all the way back to Syria.

Josephus is incredulous, and for good reason. He meticulously dismantles Manetho's narrative, pointing out its inconsistencies and absurdities. It's a clear attempt to slander the Jewish people and distort their history. The idea that Moses was a defrocked Egyptian priest who led a band of lepers and committed atrocities simply doesn't hold water.

What's fascinating about this story is how it highlights the power of narrative. Manetho crafted a tale designed to demonize the Jews, playing on existing prejudices and fears. And while Josephus effectively refutes it, the fact that such a story existed in the first place is a reminder of how easily history can be twisted and manipulated. It reminds us to be critical of the stories we hear, to question their sources, and to always seek a deeper understanding of the truth.

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Against Apion 15:1Against Apion

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.Against Apion, trans. William Whiston · Public Domain

One such fragment, courtesy of Flavius Josephus, the first-century Romano-Jewish scholar. He's quoting an Egyptian historian named Manetho in his work Against Apion.

Josephus is trying to demonstrate the antiquity of the Jewish nation, and he does so by bringing Manetho into the conversation. Manetho, writing centuries earlier, offers a version of events surrounding the Exodus, the pivotal moment when the Israelites left Egypt.

In Manetho, the Exodus involved "this people or shepherds" leaving Egypt and heading to Jerusalem. The Egyptian king who expelled them, Tethtoosis, reigned for a bit, followed by a succession of rulers. Manetho meticulously lists them: Chebron, Amenophis, Amesses, Mephres, Mephramuthosis, and so on. Each king gets their reign length noted, down to the month! It's like a royal ledger.

Things get really interesting. The narrative focuses on Sethosis and his brother Armais. Sethosis, a powerful king with both a land army and a navy, appoints Armais as his deputy in Egypt. He gives him authority, but with some clear boundaries: no diadem (crown), respect the queen (mother of Sethosis' children), and leave the king’s concubines alone. Sethosis then embarks on a campaign, conquering Cyprus, Phoenicia, Assyria, and Media.

But, as these stories often go, power corrupts. Armais, left in charge, disregards his brother's instructions. He violates the queen, indulges in the king's concubines, and, urged by his friends, even puts on the diadem, effectively rebelling against his brother. Sound familiar?

The priests of Egypt, loyal to Sethosis, write to him about Armais's betrayal. Sethosis rushes back to Pelusium and reclaims his kingdom. And here's the kicker: Manetho claims that Sethosis was also known as Egyptus, giving the country its name, while Armais was called Danaus.

It's important to remember, this is just one version of the story, filtered through the lens of Egyptian history and recounted by Josephus. We have to consider the potential biases and agendas at play. Was Manetho trying to diminish the Israelite narrative? Was Josephus trying to bolster it?

What we do know is that the narratives surrounding the Exodus are complex and many-sided. They appear in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), in Egyptian accounts, and in the writings of historians like Josephus. Each offers a unique perspective on this defining moment in Jewish history. And each invites us to dig a little deeper, to ask a few more questions, and to appreciate the richness of the story.

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Against Apion 2:1Against Apion

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.Against Apion, trans. William Whiston · Public Domain

Josephus begins by expressing his astonishment at those who insist on relying solely on Greek sources when seeking information about the most ancient events. Why, he asks, should we prioritize Greek accounts over our own or those of other ancient peoples? To him, it simply doesn't make sense. If we're truly after the truth, shouldn't we be looking at all the evidence, not just what the Greeks have to say?

He argues that, when we examine the facts, we discover that most of what concerns the Greeks is relatively recent. He points out that the construction of their cities, the development of their arts, and the codification of their laws occurred not so long ago. And the practice of recording their histories? Well, that was almost an afterthought.

Who does have a claim to deeper historical roots? Josephus says the Greeks themselves acknowledge that it was the Egyptians, the Chaldeans (ancient Babylonians), and the Phoenicians, and, he pointedly adds, "I will not now reckon ourselves among them", who have preserved the most ancient and enduring traditions of humankind.

Why these civilizations in particular? Well, Josephus observes that these nations inhabit regions less prone to destruction. the fertile crescent, the Nile valley – cradles of civilization, relatively sheltered from the constant upheaval that plagued other areas. These cultures, he says, also took great care to meticulously record their history, regarding it as sacred. These records were then inscribed on public tablets, penned by their wisest scholars.

The contrast with Greece, in Josephus's view, is stark. He paints a picture of a land repeatedly ravaged by countless destructions, each one obliterating the memory of past deeds. As a result, the Greeks were constantly starting anew, each generation believing itself to be the origin of their civilization.

So, what’s the takeaway? Josephus isn't dismissing the Greeks entirely. He's making a crucial argument about perspective and the dangers of historical bias. He urges us to look beyond the dominant narratives, to seek out the voices and the stories of those often overlooked. Because sometimes, the most profound truths are found not in the loudest voices, but in the whispers of those who have quietly preserved the past.

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