Stephen, thanks for bringing Bar-Kochva's article to our attention. He's
one of the best scholars working today. My research also confirms a rivalry
and interaction between Poseidonius and Apollonius Molon at Rhodes, but I
think the responses went in the other direction.
(1) The account of the anti-Semitic advisors of Antiochus VII Sidetes at
Diodorus Siculus 34/35.1.1-5 in my opinion draws on Poseidonius, who in turn
quoted an anti-Semitic tradition in Apollonius, but has Antiochus reject the
rabid, genocidal talk against the Jews in favor of a moderate, conciliatory
[typically Poseidonian] approach.
(2) In Strabo, what Bar-Kochva, Stern, and other authors have failed to
notice is the fact that the same author (Poseidonius) is behind not only the
passage on Moses at 16.2.35-37 but also the account of Pompey's seige of
Jerusalem at 16.2.40. This is shown by comparing the description of Jerusalem
at 16.2.36 ("for it is rocky, and, although it itself is well supplied with
water, its surrounding territory is barren and waterless, and the part of the
territory within a radius of sixty stadia is also rocky beneath the surface")
with that at 16.2.40 ("for it was a rocky and well-walled fortress; and
though well supplied with water inside, its outside territory was wholly
without water; and it had a trench cut in rock, sixty feet in depth...").
The details are so strikingly similar it is obvious they both came from the
same hand (ultimately relying on an autopsy of Jerusalem by those
accompanying Pompey in 63 BCE). From this it follows that the passage at
16.2.35-37 was written after Pompey's seige of Jerusalem (not a part of
Poseidonius' earlier history). Strabo elsewhere mentions that Pompey
requested Poseidonius to write his biography when he visited him at Rhodes in
62, and the material in Strabo may be identified as coming from Poseidonius'
biography of Pompey (which probably took the form of an appendix or extension
to his history, which ended with events in c. 87 BCE). Since Apollonius
Molon's floriut was earlier in the first century BCE, the Strabo Poseidonian
material postdates Apollonius, and if anything responds to Apollonius Molon,
instead of vice versa.
With that caveat, I really look forward to reading Bar-Kochva's article.
Thanks.
Best regards,
Russell Gmirkin
> A new article by Bezalel Bar-Kochva, in my view, is relevant to study of
> Essenes at Qumran and elsewhere, as well, perhaps, as Bob Kraft's thread a
> few weeks ago on Essenes as a gens (in Pliny, his Herodian source M.
> Agrippa) or genos. "Apollonius Molon versus Posidonius of Apamea,"
> Internationales Josephus-Kolloquium Aarhus 1999 (J.U. Kalms, ed.; Munster:
> Lit, 2000) 22-37.
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