Your quote from Whiston doesn't actually help the argument because, ironically, it too is an inaccurate translation - and "ancient" isn't in there either. Here is the Greek text:Irish1975 wrote: ↑Fri May 05, 2023 2:22 pm There is nothing wrong per se with translating λεγόμενα, literally “things that have been said,” with the phrase “current talk.” I would have to look at the context in Greek, which I don’t have before me.
Josephus is contrasting the time of Manetho’s ancient source, and some unspecific later time in which there is “talk.” I suppose you’re right that, in theory, the talk could have been going on for ages before Manetho showed up. But it seems like a sensible inference (by the translator Thackeray, and Gmirkin) that the reference is to “things said” in Manetho’s own time, as opposed to the days of his grandpa or something. That’s what is usually meant by “talk,” “rumor.” Obviously we are relying on Josephus’ probably unreliable account of what Manetho meant.Now thus far he followed his ancient records; but after this he permits himself, in order to appear to have written what rumors and reports passed abroad about the Jews, and introduces incredible narrations, as if he would have the Egyptian multitude, that had the leprosy and other distempers, to have been mixed with us, as he says they were, and that they were condemned to fly out of Egypt together
(Whiston)
I don’t see this as a matter of Gmirkin’s competence in Greek. It’s just his interpretation.
If there is nothing more to Gmirkin’s whole theory than this one word λεγόμενα, then ok, I see your point. I haven’t read his book.
Thackeray translated μέχρι μὲν τούτων ἠκολούθησε ταῖς ἀναγραφαῖς as "So far he followed the chronicles" and Barclay gives "Up to this point he followed the records". I'm not saying that it is impossible to think of τὰ... λεγόμενα as things people "say in the present" but it really could just as well mean "old wives' tales" or - to pick up on your grandpa reference - what is expressed in Yiddish as bubbe meises (grandma-tales).ὁ γὰρ Μανεθὼς οὗτος ὁ τὴν Αἰγυπτιακὴν ἱστορίαν ἐκ τῶν ἱερῶν γραμμάτων μεθερμηνεύειν ὑπεσχημένος, προειπὼν τοὺς ἡμετέρους προγόνους πολλαῖς μυριάσιν ἐπὶ τὴν Αἴγυπτον ἐλθόντας κρατῆσαι τῶν ἐνοικούντων, εἶτ᾽ αὐτὸς ὁμολογῶν χρόνῳ πάλιν ὕστερον ἐκπεσόντας τὴν νῦν Ἰουδαίαν κατασχεῖν καὶ κτίσαντας Ἱεροσόλυμα τὸν νεὼ κατασκευάσασθαι, μέχρι μὲν τούτων ἠκολούθησε ταῖς ἀναγραφαῖς. ἔπειτα δὲ δοὺς ἐξουσίαν αὑτῷ διὰ τοῦ φάναι γράψειν τὰ μυθευόμενα καὶ λεγόμενα περὶ τῶν Ἰουδαίων λόγους ἀπιθάνους παρενέβαλεν, ἀναμῖξαι βουλόμενος ἡμῖν πλῆθος Αἰγυπτίων λεπρῶν καὶ ἐπὶ ἄλλοις ἀρρωστήμασιν, ὥς φησι, φυγεῖν ἐκ τῆς Αἰγύπτου καταγνωσθέντων. (Contra Apionem, 1:228-229)
I've just noticed that, in a footnote, Gmirkin points out the importance of the fact that Josephus mentions three "sources": written records, myths and spoken-things. (Actually Josephus gives four, since he adds λόγους ἀπιθάνους "unbelievable tales", which in the context, is probably his own negative judgement on Manetho's myths and spoken-things). But in that note Gmirkin somewhat undermines his own reading:
Here he seems inadvertently to show that τὰ μυθευόμενα καὶ λεγόμενα could just as well be understood "myths and oral traditions."17. To my knowledge, no previous discussion of Manetho has noted that Josephus listed three distinct sources on the Hyksos. Manetho's "improbable tales" or "legends" are routinely if mistakenly equated with the "current talk" on the Jews (e.g. Bar-Kochva, "An Ass in the Temple," 323; Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism, 57). This has led to the conclusion that the source of the story of Osarseph and the Hyksos was oral tradition (not a literary document), bolstering its interpretation as late and Pseudo-Manethoan. Redford originally viewed the story as a Pseudo-Manethoan oral tradition ("Hyksos in History and Tradition," 40-41), but later revised his opinion, recognizing that the tale came from a literary document housed in a temple library (or "House of Life") (Pharaonic King-Lists, 227-28,229 n. 104). Yet it is not clear that Redford later properly distinguished categories of legend and oral tradition (cf. Pharaonic King-Lists, 214).
Of course I'm not saying that Gmirkin's entire theory stands or falls by this, nor do I know how competent he is in Greek. My point is that, though the original Greek doesn't unambiguously express a past/present dichotomy, Gmirkin seems to have followed Thackeray's free translation uncritically and that it was therefore not appropriate to base an important line of argument on that translation, especially as the central argument is about... chronology.