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Lysimachus Claimed Jerusalem Was Named for Temple Robbery

Lysimachus wrote that Egypt wrapped its lepers in lead and sank them in the sea. Josephus read the story as a forgery and took it apart.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. Lead in the Sea, Fire in the Desert
  2. A City Named for Theft
  3. Manetho and Cheremon Had Already Lied
  4. Josephus Breaks the Name

Lysimachus did not merely dislike the Jews. In Josephus's judgment he hated them with a craftsman's care, and he built a city name out of that hate.

Lysimachus Claimed Jerusalem Was Named for Temple Robbery Click for full size

The story he told began in the days of a king named Bocchoris. Egypt, he said, filled with leprous and scabby people who fled into the temples and lived by begging until famine rose behind them. Bocchoris sent to an oracle. The answer came back hard: purge the temples of impure men, drive them into desert places, and drown the leprous in sheets of lead so the sun would stop its indignation and the land would fruit again.

Lead in the Sea, Fire in the Desert

Priests and altar-attendants gathered the impure. Soldiers took the rest. The leprous, in Lysimachus's invention, were wrapped in lead and lowered into the sea. The others were marched into empty country to die of thirst and sun.

They did not die on schedule. Night came. They kindled fires and lamps and kept watch. They fasted the next night and begged whatever gods they still had for a road. In the morning a man named Moses stood up among them, not as lawgiver, not as servant of the Holy One, but as Lysimachus needed him: a counselor of cruelty.

Travel together, Moses told them. Show kindness to no one. Give no one good counsel. Always advise the worst. Overturn every temple and altar you meet. The crowd, Lysimachus says, praised him with one voice and set out across the sand.

A City Named for Theft

When the hard miles ended, the band reached inhabited country. They abused the people there. They plundered and burned temples. Then they came into the land called Judea, built a city, and lived in it.

They named the city Hierosyla.

In Greek the word points to robbery of temples. Lysimachus wants anyone present to hear the name as confession. Later, he says, when fortune turned softer, shame found them. They changed the name to Hierosolyma, Jerusalem, and called themselves Hierosolymites, as if a softer ending could wash the theft out of the first syllables.

Josephus reads that paragraph the way a man reads a forged seal. The venom is not hidden. It is the point.

Manetho and Cheremon Had Already Lied

Josephus does not meet Lysimachus in a clean field. He has already walked through Manetho's Amenophis, the eighty thousand in the quarries, Osarsiph of Heliopolis who steals Moses' name, the flight into Ethiopia, and the thirteen-year occupation. He has already set Cheremon beside Manetho and watched their numbers, seers, and dreams refuse to match. Isis dream against desire to see the gods. Phritiphantes against Amenophis son of Papis. Two hundred fifty thousand against eighty thousand. Joseph dead four generations before Moses, yet marched out in the same column.

Lysimachus, Josephus says, takes the same topic of falsehood and goes further into the incredible. Lead-wrapped drownings. A Moses who preaches universal malice. A capital city that brags, in Greek, of temple robbery, then renames itself when the joke turns sour. The pattern is no longer clumsy history. It is hate wearing a chronicle's mask.

Josephus Breaks the Name

Josephus answers with the stubbornness of a man who has watched his people die rather than curse their own books. How did a multitude survive the desert after mass drowning and exposure? How did they build a city and a Temple famous among the nations with no account of tools, law, or origin for their leader beyond a bare name? If they were Egyptians, why shed every custom overnight? If foreigners, why no ancestral law of their own? Hatred of the men who expelled them might be human. A vow of war against all mankind while still needing the help of all mankind is not the madness of a people. It is the madness of the writer.

Then the name. Hierosyla is a Greek insult, not a Hebrew foundation stone. Robbery of temples is not said with that word among the Jews. The builders of Jerusalem, Josephus insists, did not honor their city by branding it a theft in a language that was not their mother tongue. The forger's unbounded urge to reproach outran even his grammar.

Josephus set the scroll aside with contempt still hot in his hand. He had more work. Apion still waited. But the city that was never named for robbery had been pulled back out of Lysimachus's mouth. The lead sheets, the desert fires, and the false Moses lay where forgeries belong: under the weight of a history that will not wear them. Outside his window, Rome went on talking. Inside the room, Jerusalem kept its true name.

JosephusJerusalemMosesLysimachusEgyptApionDefense
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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 34:1Against Apion

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

Against Apion turns to The Most Hateful Lie Ever Written About the Jewish People.

Remember, Josephus wrote Against Apion specifically to defend the Jewish people against such slanders, so we’re getting this story secondhand, through his rebuttal. But what a story it is!

Lysimachus, this character assassin, claims that the Jews were once a mass of leprous and scabby people living in Egypt during the reign of King Bocchoris. He says they were so numerous and diseased that they caused a famine. To solve this, Bocchoris supposedly consulted the oracle of [Jupiter] Hammon (that's Zeus-Ammon, the syncretic Greco-Egyptian deity). The oracle, according to Lysimachus, demanded that Egypt be purged of these "impure" people. The leprous ones? Drowned in lead-lined boxes in the sea. The rest? Abandoned in the desert to die.

It gets worse, believe it or not.

These abandoned, supposedly diseased people, according to Lysimachus, didn't just roll over and die. Oh no. They banded together. And here's where the real kicker comes in: Moses appears. The Moses. But not the law-giving, God-fearing leader we know from the Torah. This Moses, as portrayed by Lysimachus, is an evil instigator. He urges them to travel together, showing kindness to no one, always advising others to do the worst, and, get this, to overturn every temple and altar they encounter.

Seriously?

So, this band of supposed lepers, led by an evil Moses, does exactly that. They rampage through the desert, pillaging and burning temples until they arrive in a land they call Judea. They build a city, initially naming it Hierosyla, meaning "robbery of temples," a delightful little detail, don't you think? Eventually, ashamed of the name (according to Lysimachus, anyway), they change it to Hierosolyma – Jerusalem – and call themselves Hierosolymites.

Wow. Just… wow.

Josephus, of course, tears this narrative to shreds. He points out the obvious inconsistencies and the blatant anti-Jewish sentiment fueling the entire story. But it’s important to remember these kinds of narratives existed. They circulated, and they poisoned the well of public opinion.

What’s truly striking is the sheer audacity of Lysimachus’s fabrication. The blatant inversion of Jewish values – kindness, justice, and monotheism – into their opposites. It serves as a stark reminder of how easily narratives can be twisted and weaponized to demonize entire groups of people. And how important it is to be critical of the stories we hear, especially those that seem too good (or in this case, too awful) to be true.

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Against Apion 26:1Against Apion

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

One such path, guided by the words of Josephus, a first-century Romano-Jewish historian. He's responding to some pretty harsh claims made by an Egyptian priest named Manetho. Josephus, usually so measured and careful, gets visibly riled up here. Some scholars even suggest he gets a little too heated in his response, perhaps losing some of his usual objectivity.

Manetho, according to Josephus, promised to interpret Egyptian history from their sacred writings. He starts out okay, acknowledging that "our people had come into Egypt, many ten thousands in number, and subdued its inhabitants," and that we later left, settling in Judea and building Jerusalem. So far, so good. But then… things take a turn.

Manetho then introduces what Josephus calls "incredible narrations." He claims that the Jewish people were somehow mixed up with Egyptians suffering from leprosy and other diseases, and that they were all forced to leave Egypt together. He even invents a king named Amenophis – suspiciously omitting the length of his reign, unlike the other kings he mentions.

Manetho had already stated that the Exodus – the departure of the shepherds, or Hyksos, as they were known – had occurred 518 years before the reign of King Tethmosis. He then gives a timeline of 393 years until the reign of two brothers, Sethos and Hermeus (also known as Egyptus and Danaus, respectively). Sethos, he says, drove Hermeus out of Egypt and reigned for 59 years, followed by his son Rhampses for 66 years.

So, after essentially admitting that our ancestors left Egypt centuries earlier, Manetho introduces this new, fictitious King Amenophis. This Amenophis, driven by a desire to see the gods (like his predecessor Orus), consults with another Amenophis – "the son of Papis, and one that seemed to partake of a divine nature." This wise Amenophis advises the king to cleanse Egypt of lepers and other "impure people," a number that reaches a staggering 80,000. These unfortunates are then sent to work in quarries east of the Nile, effectively segregated from the rest of Egyptian society.

But here's where it gets even stranger. Some of these afflicted were learned priests, yet this wise Amenophis fears divine retribution for mistreating them. He foresees that these "polluted wretches" will be aided by others who will conquer Egypt and hold it for thirteen years. He writes all this down, then kills himself, leaving the king in despair.

Manetho continues, saying that after a long period of suffering in the quarries, the king grants the afflicted the deserted city of Avaris, once home to the shepherds, for their protection. Now, according to Manetho, this city was sacred to Typhon. Once settled, these people appoint a leader from among the priests of Heliopolis named Osarsiph. They swear obedience to him, and he institutes radical laws: they must not worship Egyptian gods, they must kill and destroy the sacred animals held in the highest esteem, and they must only associate with those in their confederacy.

"This is a very valuable testimony of Manetho," Josephus interjects, pointing out that "the laws of Osarsiph, or Moses, were not made in compliance with, but in opposition to, the customs of the Egyptians." It's a crucial detail often overlooked.

Osarsiph then orders the construction of walls around their city and sends messengers to the shepherds, who had been driven out of Egypt by Tethmosis, inviting them to join the war against Egypt. He promises to restore them to Avaris and provide for them, promising to easily bring the country under their dominion.

These shepherds, numbering 200,000, eagerly accept the offer and arrive in Avaris. King Amenophis, remembering the prophecy of Amenophis son of Papis, is thrown into turmoil. He gathers the Egyptians, consults with their leaders, brings out their sacred animals, and instructs the priests to hide the images of their gods. He sends his five-year-old son Sethos (also named Ramesses) to safety.

Amenophis then marches with 300,000 soldiers against the invaders. But instead of fighting, he retreats to Memphis, gathers Apis and other sacred animals, and flees to Ethiopia with his army and a multitude of Egyptians. The Ethiopian king, obligated to Amenophis, welcomes them and provides for their needs, allotting cities and villages for their exile for the prophesied thirteen years. He even stations his Ethiopian army on the Egyptian border to guard against attack.

Meanwhile, back in Egypt, the people of Jerusalem, along with the "polluted Egyptians," commit unspeakable acts of barbarity. They set cities and villages ablaze, desecrate temples, destroy the images of the gods, and force priests and prophets to slaughter and desecrate the sacred animals, then drive them naked from the land. And, the final twist? The priest who ordained their laws, Osarsiph, originally from Heliopolis, changed his name to Moses after joining these people.

So, what are we to make of all this? It's a wild and disturbing tale, full of accusations and distortions. It's clear that Manetho had an agenda, a desire to paint the Jewish people in the worst possible light. But it also offers a glimpse into the prejudices and anxieties that existed in the ancient world. What responsibility do we have to unpack and correct these harmful narratives? How do we ensure that the voices of the marginalized are heard and that history is told with greater accuracy and empathy?

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Against Apion 32:1Against Apion

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

Against Apion turns to Cheremon and the Dreamer.

We’ve already heard from Manetho, an Egyptian priest who spun a rather unflattering version of the Exodus story. Now, the tradition turns to another Egyptian writer, Cheremon (excommunication), who also offers his own… unique… perspective. The historian Josephus, in his work Against Apion, quotes Cheremon directly, and it's a wild ride.

Cheremon, like Manetho, identifies the pharaoh of the Exodus as Amenophis, and his son as Ramesses. So far, so… normal, at least for these accounts. But then things take a sharp turn.

"The goddess Isis appeared to Amenophis in his sleep," Cheremon writes, "and blamed him that her temple had been demolished in the war." But here’s where it gets really interesting.

Apparently, a "sacred scribe" named Phritiphantes advises Amenophis that to stop these troubling visions, he needs to purge Egypt of "men that had pollutions upon them. What exactly does "pollutions" mean? Well, in Cheremon's narrative, it translates to Amenophis rounding up two hundred and fifty thousand "diseased" individuals and kicking them out of the country.

And who are these unfortunate souls led by? None other than Moses and Joseph, cast here as scribes whose names were originally Egyptian – Moses being Tisithen and Joseph Peteseph. According to Cheremon, these two lead the exiles to Pelusium, where they encounter another three hundred and eighty thousand people abandoned by Amenophis (he apparently couldn't be bothered to transport them all). Moses and Joseph then form an alliance with this group and launch an attack on Egypt.

Amenophis, unable to withstand this onslaught, flees to Ethiopia, leaving his pregnant wife behind. She gives birth in secret to a son named Messene. Messene, upon reaching adulthood, pursues the Jews into Syria with an army of two hundred thousand, and then welcomes his father, Amenophis, back from exile.

Think about the implications here. Cheremon is attempting to rewrite Jewish history, painting the Exodus not as a divine liberation, but as the expulsion of diseased people led by rebellious scribes. It's a blatant attempt to discredit the Jewish narrative and portray them as a source of impurity and unrest.

What’s fascinating is how these counter-narratives, however outlandish, persisted. They reveal the anxieties and prejudices of the time. While we might dismiss Cheremon's account as mere propaganda, it's a stark reminder that history is rarely a simple, straightforward story. It's a complex tapestry woven with different perspectives, biases, and agendas. And understanding those different threads is crucial to understanding the bigger picture.

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Against Apion 1:1Against Apion

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

Remember that feeling when someone tells you something so outrageous, so demonstrably false, that you almost don't want to dignify it with a response? But then you realize, silence might be taken as agreement? That’s kind of where we are with Flavius Josephus and his treatise, Against Apion.

In the previous book, dedicated to the esteemed Epaphroditus, Josephus tells us he established the antiquity of the Jewish people and the truth of their history using sources from the Phoenicians, Chaldeans, and Egyptians, even bringing in Greek writers as witnesses. He also refuted the claims of Manetho and Cheremon (excommunication), among others, who were critical of the Jews. Now, he turns his attention to the remaining detractors.

There's one particular critic giving him pause: Apion, the grammarian. Josephus even admits he debated whether or not to even bother responding. Why? Because Apion’s accusations largely echo those that had already been refuted. Some of his additions are, in Josephus's words, "very frigid and contemptible." And frankly, much of what Apion wrote was just plain scurrilous. Josephus doesn't mince words, calling him unlearned, morally bankrupt, and nothing more than a mountebank – a charlatan. Apparently, Tiberius even nicknamed him Cymbalum Mundi, "the drum of the world," a fitting title for someone so loud and full of hot air!

So, why engage at all? Josephus recognizes a frustrating truth: many people are swayed more by sensationalism than by carefully reasoned arguments. They enjoy tearing others down and hate to hear them praised. So, Josephus feels compelled to address Apion's accusations, lest his silence be misinterpreted. He wants to expose the critic's own failings, turning the tables and subjecting him to the same contempt he sought to inflict.

But even diving into Apion’s work is a challenge. Josephus describes it as a confusing mess of falsehoods. Still, he identifies three main areas of attack. First, Apion rehashes familiar criticisms of the Exodus story, the departure of the Jewish people from Egypt. Second, he targets the Jews living in Alexandria. And third, he attacks the sacred purifications and legal rites practiced in the Beit Hamikdash (בית המקדש), the Holy Temple.

How these ancient prejudices continue to resurface, generation after generation, often cloaked in new forms but rooted in the same old biases. Josephus’ decision to confront Apion, even reluctantly, reminds us of the importance of challenging misinformation, even when it seems absurd, and of standing up for truth and justice in the face of baseless attacks.

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