Some interesting tidbits in Apion 1 today. Josephus is trying to demonstrate that the Jewish race is older than the Greeks. He has extensive quotes from the Egyptian Manetho, from Tyrian and Babylonian historians, then from Greeks themselves, Herodotus, allegedly Pythagoras. He has material on Hiram of Tyre and Solomon sending each other riddles with bets attached, mentions the founding of Carthage and the hanging gardens of Babylon.
Two points of interest come near the end of my reading today in 1.167-71. Here he mentions the Corban oath mentioned in Matthew, where you cannot use something you have dedicated to the Lord for any purpose other than what you dedicate it for. The second is the mention that the Egyptians circumcised first and that the surrounding nations took circumcision from either them or the Arabians.
Manetho also seemed to equate the Jews with the Hyksos.
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