Eupolemus in 158 BC: Enoch is the Father of (Egyptian) Astrology (c.300 BC)

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billd89
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Eupolemus in 158 BC: Enoch is the Father of (Egyptian) Astrology (c.300 BC)

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In his 1974 work, “Eupolemus: A Study of Judaeo-Greek Literature,” pages 4-7, Ben Zion Wacholder showed that the Jewish ambassador Eupolemus was almost certainly the Eupolemus who wrote a Greek-language history of the Jews in 158 B.C. Wacholder laid stress upon the rarity of the name Eupolemus (which literally means “good fighter,” that is, “brave warrior”) among both Jews and Greeks in antiquity – in fact the name appears among Jews before the time of Christ only twice, as that of the Jewish ambassador and as the author of a Jewish history. “Since Eupolemus was not a common name among Greeks and otherwise unheard of among Jews, the burden of proof rests on those who argue that there might have been two famous Jews with such an appellation,” Wacholder wrote. The chronology is also a perfect fit, as the historian Eupolemus wrote only three years after the diplomat Eupolemus helped to negotiate an alliance with the Roman Republic. Wacholder also brought forward extensive arguments and evidence from the historical writings of Eupolemus that show affinity between the historian and the diplomat. In light of what we know, it can hardly be doubted that the historian Eupolemus is the ambassador named in I & II Maccabees.

Unfortunately, as in the case of Demetrius the Chronographer, the writings of Eupolemus are no longer extant in their entirety, but rather survive only in a series of six fragments quoted in Book 9 of Eusebius Pamphilii’s fourth century A.D. Praeparatio Evangelica and Clement of Alexandria’s third century A.D. Stromata. Thus, most of the fragments of Eupolemus come down to us in the same way as the fragments of Demetrius – first the writings of Eupolemus were quoted verbatim or excerpted by the pagan historian Alexander Polyhistor, and then Polyhistor’s work On the Jews was excerpted or quoted verbatim by Eusebius. Clement of Alexandria also supplies a single fragment of Eupolemus, perhaps also derived from Polyhistor. From these sources, we know of the titles of three works of Eupolemus: On the Jews, On the Prophecy of Elijah, and On the Kings of Judaea.

Below are Wacholder’s English translations of the six fragments of Eupolemus’ works (with bold emphasis added), followed by my own comments and observations. (I have occasionally adjusted Wacholder’s translations through collation with Ted Kaizer’s translations.)

Fragment one:
“This is what Josephus writes. And with this agrees Alexander Polyhistor, a man of great understanding and great learning and very well known among those Greeks who have not acquired the fruits of education in a superficial manner. For in his treatise On the Jews, he records the history of Abraham as follows, word by word.

“Eupolemus in his On the Jews / of Assyria] says Babylon the city [of Assyria] was first founded by those who had escaped the Flood. They were the Giants who built the Tower recorded in history. But when the Tower was ruined by the act of God, the Giants dispersed over the whole earth. In the tenth generation, he [Eupolemus] says, in a Babylonian city of Camarina {Qamar = Moon}, which some call Ur {city of Moon worship}, and which is in translation the city of the Chaldaeans, [in the thirteenth generation], Abraham was born, who surpassed all men in nobility and wisdom, who also discovered the Chaldaean art, and who on account of his piety was well-pleasing to God. By the command of God this man went to Phoenicia to dwell there and he pleased the king by teaching the Phoenicians the changes of the sun and moon and all things of that kind. ....

“Being entertained as a guest by the temple of the city of Argarizin {Mount Gerizim}, which may be interpreted as the Mount of the Most High, he [Abraham] received gifts from Melchizedek, who was its priest of God and its king.

“But there being a famine [in Phoenicia], Abraham and his whole household departed to Egypt and settled there. ...And Abraham lived with the Egyptian priests in Heliopolis, teaching them many things. And he introduced astrology and other sciences to them, saying that the Babylonians and he himself discovered them, but he traced the discovery to Enoch. And he [Enoch] was the first to discover astrology, not the Egyptians. The Babylonians say that the first [astrologer?] was Belus, who is the son of Kronos, that he begat Belus and Cham; and that he [Cham] begat Chanaan {=Canaan}, the father of the Phoenicians; and that from him [Cham] a son Choum [i.e., Chous = Kush] was born, who is called by the Greeks Asbolus {=Black}, the father of the Ethiopians and brother of {Mitsrayim}, father of the Egyptians. The Greeks say that Atlas discovered astrology, Atlas being the same as Enoch. And Enoch had a son {Methuselah}, who learned all things through the angels of God, and thus we gained our knowledge.

If we may presume that Eupolemus, writing a history c.160 BC, is recording (not inventing) folklore/myth, then certain points become clear:
1) E. recognized conflicting Jewish myths about the Jewish 'Father of Astrology.' To be sure, both are Babylonian/Chaldean, but this still suggests two competing schools.
2) If we accept a date for 1 Enoch written 275 BC but the Enochic tradition is at least 2-3 generations older, then the Enochic Myth dates pre-350 BC. Nothing so old is attested for the younger, newer Abrahamaic Myth; a later Abrahamaic version (c.250 BC*) must admit precedence an older Enochic myth (pre-400 BC?) since both are 'Chaldean'.
3) Among cosmopolitan/learned Jews c.200 BC, the debate
over the true (Babylonian/Chaldean) 'Jewish Father of Astrology' has older Enochic Jews vs. Hashmoneans.
4) Diodorus Siculus (c.60 BC) confirms the claim Atlas discovered astrology, but that Greek myth reasonably dates c.300 BC.

Outside Fact 1: Given the discovery and dating of Qumran fragments, the Enochic 'Book of Giants' (c.250 BC) likely situates Enochic myths well before 300 BC.

Outside Fact 2: Persian astrological influence on Egypt before 525 BC is widely assumed; the introduction of Chaldean astrology may well date to this time, and Enoch derived from the Enmeduranki Myth (c.1100 BC) hundreds of years later (c.700 BC) during the Neo-Assyrian Period in Egypt, including the story that Ostanes the Mede, under Xerxes, took control of the Temples in Egypt, c.485 BC. A Chaldean-Egyptian (Jewish) astrology would be developing 475 BC then abandon a hated Assyrian/Persian character around 330 BC.

*Another reference, a 2010 M.Phil., p.32:
If Eusebius and Josephus are right, then the earliest reference {to Abraham} dates after 290 BC. The Babyloniaca of Berossus, a book on Chaldean history in three volumes, is said to have introduced astrology to the Greek world, so the close association between Abraham and astrology might originate from that.

And whereas the Enoch Myth was evidentially still popular among some antinomians and esoteric sects like those at Qumran (c.50 BC), Artapanus of Alexandria (c.225 BC) omits Enoch and Vettius Valens (c. 150 AD) lauds Abraham as THE Astrologer (also, omits Enoch).

I am unaware of any primary (apologetic) 2nd C. BC - 2nd C. AD sources which directly identify Abraham with Hermes Trismegistus, in this regard; again, this suggests the Enochic evidence is older and this Judeo-Egyptian syncretism ended before Classical Gnosticism or the Xian rediscovery.

Conclusion:
Conservatively, Enoch may have been called (by Jews) 'the Father of Egyptian Astrology' as early as c.400-300 BC, but the Abrahamaic Myth took over. Eupolemus (160 BC) preserves a hint of that tension, but the Enoch Myth ultimately failed w/ a timely Abrahamaic substitution and implicit disavowal thereafter.

Enoch being "translated" (transported):
Image
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