An alternate version of the Exodus story circulated in antiquity—one so bizarre it might as well have occurred in an alternate universe. In this version, the pharaoh decided to cleanse Egypt of lepers and other “unclean” people, confining these unfortunates first in quarries, then in an abandoned city called Avaris. The lepers chose as their leader a priest named Osarseph, who proceeded to reject Egyptian culture just as that country had rejected him.
Osarseph ordered his followers to stop worshiping the gods of Egypt, and also to feel free to dine on the sacred animals of the country. Not satisfied with that, he also arranged to have the country invaded by making alliance with the “Shepherds”—a group of people formerly expelled from Egypt, now living in Jerusalem. The lepers/shepherds tag team ravaged Egypt for 13 years before the pharaoh’s forces finally overcame them and they retreated to Syria. But before they left, Osarseph changed his name to “Moses.”
Charlton Heston would never have accepted that role.
The Osarseph story was recorded by Josephus, writing in the 1st century a.d. As a Jew, Josephus was incensed by the tale, which he ascribed to an Egyptian author named Manetho. Josephus hotly denied any association with the leprous Egyptians of the story, declaring that Moses had, in fact, “lived many generations earlier,” and denouncing Manetho as “a ridiculous liar.”
John Dillery’s comprehensive and absorbing study discusses two of the most intriguing figures of the Hellenistic era: the aforementioned Manetho and his Babylonian contemporary Berossus. As a result of Alexander the Great’s conquests, these individuals—both native priests—found themselves living under the rule of Greek-speaking dynasties: Manetho under the Ptolemies in Egypt, Berossus under the Seleucids, who ruled a vast territory from Syria to the borders of India. As priests, Manetho and Berossus were among the educated elite of their societies; moreover, they both knew Greek and were able to communicate with their new rulers. Sometime in the early 3rd century b.c. they wrote, in Greek, the first narrative histories of Egypt and Babylonia. Dillery, who teaches classics at the University of Virginia, states that their motivation was “to influence their Greek-speaking overlords and to counter Greek misapprehensions or ignorance regarding their civilizations’ pasts.”
Unfortunately, neither author’s work has survived in its entirety. What we now have are fragments, in the form of quotations by other authors. This salvage operation was an unintentionally ecumenical effort, consisting of Josephus and a set of Christian scholars, in particular Eusebius of Caesarea (whose Chronicon, written in Greek, survives in an Armenian translation).
Scholarly opinion is divided about the authenticity of the “Osarseph” passage. The authors of an introductory volume about Berossus and Manetho flatly state that the alternative Exodus tale is “not genuine Manetho.” In this skeptical view, the story likely stems from an ancient debate between Egyptians and Jews about whose civilization was older—and hence, more likely to have influenced the ruling Greek culture. As part of this dispute, anti-Jewish polemicists rewrote sections of poor Manetho’s work, rather as if it were an ancient Wikipedia entry on Zionism.
Dillery, by contrast, makes a case that the disputed quotations are genuine, stating that these are “relatively good representatives of what would have stood originally in Manetho’s text.” Even if fraudulent material had been inserted into Manetho’s history, Dillery thinks that Josephus’s critical acumen would have detected and screened out these passages, since he was on the lookout for (in Dillery’s words) “internally contradictory or improbable statements.”
Dillery’s prose is refreshing for an academic work, though there remain some clotted passages. Among other places, these occur when he presents his theories about how Manetho composed his work. In Dillery’s view, Manetho assembled texts of various types—including religious/prophetic ones—and shoehorned all of them into a narrative history framework. Hence, the resulting narrative contained inconsistencies of tone (or “incon-cinnities,” as Dillery calls them). A group of trespassing postcolonial theorists shows up at one point here; fortunately, they are ushered out before they can befoul the premises.
At roughly the same time Manetho was writing his history, Berossus was doing the same in that other cradle of civilization, Mesopotamia—or to be more specific, Babylonia. On the face of it, Berossus, a prominent figure among the local priesthood, wasn’t doing too badly: The ruling Seleucids were careful to maintain good relations with the major Babylonian temples, even extending them financial support for building and maintenance.
Yet while Berossus may have reconciled himself to the present, his heart dwelt in the past. He regarded the neo-Babylonian era (626-539 b.c.)—Babylon’s last period of independence, extinguished by the Persians under Cyrus—as a golden age. The most prominent neo-Babylonian king was Nebuchadnezzar II, who famously sacked Jerusalem. In his history, Berossus describes Nebuchadnezzar in glowing terms, using Greek words associated with beneficent rulers (as attested by surviving late classical and Hellenistic inscriptions).
In particular, Berossus credits Nebuchadnezzar with strengthening the defenses of Babylon, diverting the course of the Euphrates ito make it impossible for future attackers to gain access to the city. Dillery makes a plausible case that Berossus, by including this information, was taking a shot at Herodotus. According to Herodotus’ account, Cyrus and the Persian Army took Babylon in 539 by using precisely that method, one which Berossus insists was foreclosed decades earlier by Nebuchadnezzar.
Both Berossus and Manetho accomplished more than they could have known. When Babylonian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphics died—not to be resuscitated until the 19th century—all the voices from those cultures fell silent, save two.
Richard Tada is a writer in Seattle.
