This further shows the reasons for changing Abraham's influence on Egyptian knowledge. With a disdain for magic, the Greeks and Romans would not look highly upon the Jews or Abraham for spreading religion or pure astrology, since they were considered magic, but with the stress of arithmetic and astronomy, considered a field a math, this would make these subjects more worthy in the eyes of the Greeks.

This is now connecting to my questions earlier on why Josephus would mention astronomy or astrology at all when talking about the accomplishments of Abraham and his relatability to the Greeks and Romans. It appears that many authors before have claimed different information about Abraham's knowledge of astronomy and astrology, and have even given him the title of the. discoverer of Astronomy/Astrology as a subject, but this would make Abraham less appealing to the Greeks and Romans. With the adding of arithmetic and the downplaying of Abraham's role with these fields, Josephus makes Abraham, as well as the Jewish people, more relatable and admirable than previous authors made them appear.

I think this is an interesting pull that Josephus is trying to make. The Egyptians are already respected for their history and knowledge, although their religion is disliked by the Greeks, and the Babylonians are also highly considered for their own knowledge and history, so to put the Jews, a hated and misunderstood people, in the middle of these two great Empire's history and knowledge really makes it seem like the Greeks and Romans have to respect them for the same reasons as well.

If the Egyptians are saying this about the Greeks, then it makes sense why Josephus would try to use the respect of the Egyptians as a nod towards the Jews. With previous mention that the wise men of Egypt being impressed by the insight brought to them by Abraham, that could potentially leave the Greeks impressed with the founder of the Jews, who supposedly gave the Egyptians the insight they claim makes them so much more advanced that the Greeks.

It is odd to me that previous scholars are concerned about Josephus's belief on whether Judaism was considered missionary or not. As mentioned by the author, the Jews tended to stay to themselves and not ask others to join their religion, and since this writing is supposed to appeal to the Romans, it makes sense that Josephus would not be trying to convince them that the Jews were completely right, and so good at convincing people they went to an empire and changed people's minds. This could then be seen as a threat to the Roman Empire.

It's hard to pinpoint what ideas the author has the differentiates from other scholars that have looked into these writings. From what I am understanding, the author sees that Josephus is trying to use Abrahams progression as a parallel to Greek philosophers, making him a more relatable revered character to the Romans who would read about him. I am not sure why any other scholars would not make this same connection, I think the author is saying that other scholars are saying that Josephus is just generally describing Abraham in a Hellenistic approach.

Judaism is a generally closed off religion which is known to both not interact with people outside of the religion and not willing accept outsiders into the religion. Of course, I cannot speak for Abraham at his time, but surely during the Greek and Roman times the Jews were still a closed-off people, so this sounds like straight pandering to non-jews in order to give the Jews a better light. Although this sounds unrealistic to me and makes me question Josephus's work as a reliable source, it does make sense to me that he would try to portray the Jewish people as more open hearted to others because the notion Jews had that time were cold and distant and if they were to keep that up they would surely not be able to get along well within those large empires.

Why would Judaism be avidly against astronomy or astrology when they claim that Abraham discovered monotheism due to his study of the stars? Jewish traditions go by the lunar calendar, where holidays start at dusk and the ending of holidays are called when 3 stars are seen in the sky, so Judaism does seem to care a lot about the sky for being a religion against astronomy/ astrology. I wonder what Abraham believed to have been the One who guides and steers the world, and how that revelation which only came to him out of all of the Chaldeans made him turn his back on his people and their beliefs.

I think it is interesing that the author continues to say that Abraham's role in spreading astronomy/ astrology to Egypt is a way to place Jewish people as a contribution to society, when the Jewish people supposedly frowned upon this this study and it did not originate from Jewish tradition, but from the traditions of the Jewish forefather who distanced himself form his origins that believed in this. This again still does not make sense to me, since the Greek and Roman people who Josephus is trying to appeal to don't look kindly upon astronomy or astrology, and they also view it as pagan. I can see this as a modern assertion that Jews contributed to global history, but at that time it does not make sense to me so far why he would try to use this to appear apologetic to the Romans.

It is to my understanding from what I read so far that Abraham did use astrology/astronomy and that he used it with the Egyptians. At this point I wonder how the author is going to talk about this relationship Abraham had with his original Chaldea roots because he claims other people shine light on this negatively; will he give this a more positive view point?

I think this is the main idea of what this article is supposed to be about, which was somewhat difficult to understand from the introduction. I think it is interesting that before this article no one ever looked into why Josephus, who is trying to write in a way to please the Roman and Greek readers, would bring up astronomy or astrology which were previously mentioned as frowned upon. I think it is also interesting that one of Josephus's claims is that Abraham brought arithmetic and astronomy/astrology to the Egyptians, in order to make the Jews sound like they contributed to society, when this contribution could be frowned upon by Greek and Roman society.

Antiquities, and any reference to Ant. a number, is the multivolumed histographical work that Josephus wrote for the Romans as a history of the Jews. It makes sense that he would be writing in a way to appeal to non Jews since his audience was the Roman royalty and people. It wouldn't make sense for him to retell the bible exactly since the people who are reading this likely aren't Jews and if they were they would likely know the bible already. I think it is also important to understand that Josephus's defense of the Jewish people through these writings are important since he is tasked with writing the history of a people the Romans hated that he was a part of.

I think there should be an introduction to who Josephus was. Flavius Josephus, born to the name of Yosef ben Matityah, was a Jewish Historian born in 37 AD. He was a part of the Jewish Wars with Rome and upon surrendering to Emperor Vespasian, he agreed to write a history of the revolt, and later a history of the Jews. His writing was for the Romans so he is considered to be biased, but gives us a great inside to what Jewish history there was after Alexander the Great. Source: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/josephus-flavius

I never knew that there was a cite button for academic resources! That is extremely helpful information